Round 71

Yusef: "My Work" by Terence Winch

Bob: "Return to Saint Odielinberg, Easter 2000" by Claire Nicholas White

I know, it must be hard to find 75 whole poems published in a single year that one would actually want to include in a book like this. I have deep symphony for these editors. I've only had to read 150 poems for this face-off. They must have read thousands to find these 150.

When Yusef chooses a poem from New American Writing, he comes up with this:

In my work, at any given point,
the great issues of identity politics
and dialectical absolutism assume
a tight coherence, a profoundly
threatening total awareness
by which I seek to mediate
the conflict between meaning
and the extremes of deconstruction

I violently hated this poem a few days ago. The parody seemed facile. Now I'm not so sure. Parts of it are quite funny indeed; there are some cheap shots, but it rings true (by-and-large, on-and-off). The fundamental problem, maybe, is that the pretentious way certain poets talk about their work is FUNNIER than any possible parody of this discourse.

White's poem is a rather conventional "finding the family roots" narrative. It just wasn't sharply written enough for me. Leave out the similes, poets! ("its two towers / like teeth.").

Yusef wins the round.

After 71

20-39-11