WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.570 align:middle line:84%
Well I'm going to sort of also
talk about some of the things,

00:00:04.570 --> 00:00:09.420 align:middle line:84%
some of the other panelists have
said because now it's a trend.

00:00:09.420 --> 00:00:11.370 align:middle line:84%
I think what Loren
said about the phrase

00:00:11.370 --> 00:00:14.040 align:middle line:84%
new trends being an oxymoron
is absolutely right.

00:00:14.040 --> 00:00:16.379 align:middle line:84%
I mean, I think
probably the best way

00:00:16.379 --> 00:00:18.420 align:middle line:84%
to think about this
is as a conversation

00:00:18.420 --> 00:00:21.090 align:middle line:84%
as to observations
of what's happening.

00:00:21.090 --> 00:00:25.020 align:middle line:84%
On the one hand, what's new
in contemporary poetry is

00:00:25.020 --> 00:00:26.640 align:middle line:90%
that we're new, we're all new.

00:00:26.640 --> 00:00:32.970 align:middle line:84%
All of us, each of us
individually and irreplaceably.

00:00:32.970 --> 00:00:35.010 align:middle line:84%
Another thing that's
new is language.

00:00:35.010 --> 00:00:39.060 align:middle line:84%
I think last year the word of
the year voted by the American

00:00:39.060 --> 00:00:43.050 align:middle line:84%
Library Association
was metrosexual.

00:00:43.050 --> 00:00:46.800 align:middle line:84%
And that would not have
come about without Queer Eye

00:00:46.800 --> 00:00:48.940 align:middle line:84%
for the Straight Guy or
some forms of new media,

00:00:48.940 --> 00:00:51.590 align:middle line:90%
as other folks are saying too.

00:00:51.590 --> 00:00:55.610 align:middle line:84%
On the other hand, I
think that in terms

00:00:55.610 --> 00:01:01.100 align:middle line:84%
of how today is in fact an
anniversary of the poems not

00:01:01.100 --> 00:01:05.140 align:middle line:84%
fit for the White House event,
the newest thing is always

00:01:05.140 --> 00:01:08.050 align:middle line:84%
the newness of history, the
newness of the events that

00:01:08.050 --> 00:01:10.720 align:middle line:84%
are happening moment by
moment, year by year.

00:01:10.720 --> 00:01:12.520 align:middle line:84%
And actually I want
to read two quotes

00:01:12.520 --> 00:01:14.920 align:middle line:84%
from two of the
introductory essays

00:01:14.920 --> 00:01:17.080 align:middle line:84%
to the Best American
Poetry Anthologies, which

00:01:17.080 --> 00:01:18.250 align:middle line:90%
come out yearly.

00:01:18.250 --> 00:01:22.150 align:middle line:84%
The first one is Robert
Hass which came out in 2001,

00:01:22.150 --> 00:01:24.750 align:middle line:90%
but it came out before 9/11.

00:01:24.750 --> 00:01:28.990 align:middle line:84%
I mean, he's talking first about
younger poets, our generation.

00:01:28.990 --> 00:01:32.290 align:middle line:84%
First he talks about how in
fact for him, what he's observed

00:01:32.290 --> 00:01:35.170 align:middle line:84%
is that the central
problem is the self's

00:01:35.170 --> 00:01:36.770 align:middle line:90%
relation to language.

00:01:36.770 --> 00:01:39.760 align:middle line:90%
And he says, "partly they're"--

00:01:39.760 --> 00:01:43.810 align:middle line:84%
we-- "are reacting against what
has come to seem effortless

00:01:43.810 --> 00:01:46.690 align:middle line:84%
and therefore indulgent in
the previous generation.

00:01:46.690 --> 00:01:49.600 align:middle line:84%
The poem of incident in
plain language, which

00:01:49.600 --> 00:01:53.550 align:middle line:84%
aims at a certain sincerity of
address and tone, as if life

00:01:53.550 --> 00:01:56.490 align:middle line:84%
was exactly the size of
the self and consisted

00:01:56.490 --> 00:01:58.670 align:middle line:90%
of a set of serial epiphanies.

00:01:58.670 --> 00:02:00.180 align:middle line:84%
Some of this echoes
the influence

00:02:00.180 --> 00:02:03.700 align:middle line:84%
a critical tradition in European
philosophy in universities.

00:02:03.700 --> 00:02:05.740 align:middle line:84%
Some of it is the
ground clearing required

00:02:05.740 --> 00:02:07.810 align:middle line:90%
of any oppositional art.

00:02:07.810 --> 00:02:10.930 align:middle line:84%
In this case because it's
suspicious of subject matter

00:02:10.930 --> 00:02:13.570 align:middle line:84%
as such, as I've
seen it described

00:02:13.570 --> 00:02:16.750 align:middle line:84%
of the aboutness of
poetry, it's preoccupied

00:02:16.750 --> 00:02:20.050 align:middle line:84%
with issues of style, with the
relationship between language

00:02:20.050 --> 00:02:21.490 align:middle line:90%
and perception."

00:02:21.490 --> 00:02:24.820 align:middle line:84%
But later on in the essay he
then says, "that this, in fact,

00:02:24.820 --> 00:02:27.080 align:middle line:90%
has become its own convention."

00:02:27.080 --> 00:02:28.990 align:middle line:84%
So that's also something
to throw out there,

00:02:28.990 --> 00:02:32.170 align:middle line:84%
is that right now we're at a
moment where language poetry

00:02:32.170 --> 00:02:34.220 align:middle line:90%
sort of peaked about 10 years ago.

00:02:34.220 --> 00:02:38.510 align:middle line:84%
And so there's no one school
that's really predominant.

00:02:38.510 --> 00:02:40.600 align:middle line:84%
In fact, we're
really lucky to be

00:02:40.600 --> 00:02:45.240 align:middle line:84%
in this moment of writing poetry
there's no hegemonic school,

00:02:45.240 --> 00:02:46.490 align:middle line:90%
so to speak.

00:02:46.490 --> 00:02:48.800 align:middle line:84%
The best work is probably
always done between schools.

00:02:48.800 --> 00:02:54.740 align:middle line:84%
And another quote is by Yusef
Komunyakaa from his essay

00:02:54.740 --> 00:02:57.040 align:middle line:84%
To the Best American
Poetry, 2003

00:02:57.040 --> 00:02:59.500 align:middle line:84%
and of course, this
is well after 9/11.

00:02:59.500 --> 00:03:02.710 align:middle line:84%
This is after that
poetry event was canceled

00:03:02.710 --> 00:03:07.310 align:middle line:84%
and this is when we
were well and away,

00:03:07.310 --> 00:03:08.670 align:middle line:90%
we were in war in Iraq.

00:03:08.670 --> 00:03:12.140 align:middle line:84%
He says "the folly by
the so-called new avant

00:03:12.140 --> 00:03:15.110 align:middle line:84%
garde, the so-called
experimental poems,

00:03:15.110 --> 00:03:16.520 align:middle line:84%
seem like an
attempt to undermine

00:03:16.520 --> 00:03:18.590 align:middle line:84%
the importance of
recent history,

00:03:18.590 --> 00:03:22.880 align:middle line:84%
to place tonal and linguistic
flux as a center of the poem.

00:03:22.880 --> 00:03:25.820 align:middle line:84%
Anything goes because the
poet or the poet speaker

00:03:25.820 --> 00:03:27.170 align:middle line:90%
doesn't exist.

00:03:27.170 --> 00:03:29.390 align:middle line:90%
It's death in language."

00:03:29.390 --> 00:03:31.790 align:middle line:84%
So he comes down
really hard actually

00:03:31.790 --> 00:03:34.100 align:middle line:84%
in terms of the
poet's responsibility

00:03:34.100 --> 00:03:35.600 align:middle line:90%
to the new events.

00:03:35.600 --> 00:03:42.140 align:middle line:84%
And I think in some ways he was
he was reacting against some

00:03:42.140 --> 00:03:44.900 align:middle line:84%
of the arguments that were going
on about it very much in favor

00:03:44.900 --> 00:03:46.420 align:middle line:90%
of experimentalism.

00:03:46.420 --> 00:03:51.790 align:middle line:84%
But when there's that contact
with brutal fact and history

00:03:51.790 --> 00:03:56.340 align:middle line:84%
and war, I think
that in some ways

00:03:56.340 --> 00:03:59.730 align:middle line:84%
the centering of the poem to
the exclusion of everything else

00:03:59.730 --> 00:04:02.010 align:middle line:84%
really feels inadequate
in some ways,

00:04:02.010 --> 00:04:04.260 align:middle line:84%
not that there's
one or the other.

00:04:04.260 --> 00:04:06.300 align:middle line:84%
I think that it really,
again, to go back

00:04:06.300 --> 00:04:08.690 align:middle line:84%
to the spaces between
schools, I think

00:04:08.690 --> 00:04:12.550 align:middle line:84%
that's where the most
exciting work is done.

00:04:12.550 --> 00:04:16.070 align:middle line:84%
And I'd like to end
with a quote by Bei Dao.

00:04:16.070 --> 00:04:18.553 align:middle line:84%
When we're talking about new
trends in contemporary poetry,

00:04:18.553 --> 00:04:20.720 align:middle line:84%
we often talk about just
American poetry rather than

00:04:20.720 --> 00:04:22.370 align:middle line:90%
international poetry.

00:04:22.370 --> 00:04:24.050 align:middle line:84%
And the fascinating
thing about that

00:04:24.050 --> 00:04:26.840 align:middle line:84%
is that the syntax
of each language

00:04:26.840 --> 00:04:29.100 align:middle line:90%
is particular to each language.

00:04:29.100 --> 00:04:30.920 align:middle line:84%
And so when you have
a poet like Bei Dao

00:04:30.920 --> 00:04:35.390 align:middle line:84%
who writes, "a crack has
appeared between night and day

00:04:35.390 --> 00:04:39.170 align:middle line:84%
and you did not appear at
the time we appointed."

00:04:39.170 --> 00:04:40.020 align:middle line:90%
in Chinese.

00:04:40.020 --> 00:04:41.480 align:middle line:90%
There's no connecting word.

00:04:41.480 --> 00:04:43.490 align:middle line:84%
It could be and
he did not appear.

00:04:43.490 --> 00:04:45.790 align:middle line:84%
It could be translated
as for he did not appear.

00:04:45.790 --> 00:04:48.290 align:middle line:84%
And that's why the crack has
appeared between day and night.

00:04:48.290 --> 00:04:51.800 align:middle line:84%
Or it could be translated
as but he did not appear.

00:04:51.800 --> 00:04:53.570 align:middle line:84%
So these are issues
that would be

00:04:53.570 --> 00:04:57.110 align:middle line:84%
very much alive in the English
translation of his poem.

00:04:57.110 --> 00:05:00.290 align:middle line:84%
But in the original, of course,
they're simply juxtaposed

00:05:00.290 --> 00:05:02.540 align:middle line:84%
and that space
between them is open,

00:05:02.540 --> 00:05:05.590 align:middle line:84%
and it's open to
my interpretation.

00:05:05.590 --> 00:05:08.000 align:middle line:90%