Updated…
Jeffrey’s poem can be found here and my fellow Steel Toe Books author Martha Silano has a poem up on Verse Daily here.
Thanks to all for your kind words and wishes on the Verse Daily thing. Especially Paul for sending me a heads-up e-mail about it. And Kelli who posted the announcement on the Wompo list. I think Jeffery Bahr may be up tomorrow!
I promised quotes from the Tony Hoagland reading and Q&A session from the SAL series, which made me label him as a New Sincerist. I didn’t take quite as many notes as I’d hoped, so I apologize for the brevity.
My favorite quote of the evening:
“If you’re not using your imagination, someone else will.”
Tony is an interesting writer in the discursive/narrative vein, somewhat like a meaner spirited Billy Collins. I generally like some of his work (especially his critique of consumer culture in poems like “America”) but some poems I’m not sure exactly how to take – especially his poems about race and women. He seems like he wears a veneer of irony over his admissions of racism and – if not misogyny, at least a deep fear of women. It seems like honesty wanting to be admired for honesty’s sake. With humor. Sometimes unhumorous attempts at humor. What do you all think?
Anyway, here is the quote, which won’t be surprising for those of you who read his essay in Poetry about his discomfort with the unpopularity of narrative in the current poetry culture:
“There’s a strong experimental impulse right now in the poetry world, in which the conversation of aesthetics has eclipsed all other interesting conversations. And the conversation has become very insular, sincerity and direct statement are seen as misguided, naive.”
He also described himself as halfway in between Sharon Olds and Frank O’Hara – between the confessional and the sociological.
So, old New Sincerist? Or just a practitioner of the old sincerity? Or is he sincere at all? I admit to questioning the sincerity of his impulse towards sincerity when I read his work…
I’m going to see one of my female poetry heroes, Mary Ruefle, read on Monday, so I’ll post notes on that as well.