The Valve, a critique.

I like the idea behind the Valve and I value the contributions of at least five of the contributors: Amardeep Singh, Dan Green, John Holbo, Bill Benzon, and Scott "one n" Kaufman. My favorite of them all, the brilliant Ray Davis, is no longer with them. (I like the comments of John Emerson and Timothy Burke too.) The other authors either don't contribute often enough, or are authors whose posts I simply don't appreciate as much. In full disclosure I must say I once expressed interest myself in being a Valve author and was in fact a guest author during one of the book events.

But speaking of comments, how can a ridiculous discussion of mathematics descend into a flame war with 100 comments? The tendency to have heated discussions in the comments, about mostly non-literary matters (religion, philosophy, math), detracts from the purpose of the blog, which is not to be another Crooked Timber but to be a specifically "literary organ." They are sponsored by an organization of scholars and critics and writers who want to have a more "literary" approach to literature, as it were. I don't really see this happening. Of course I don't expect them to pay much heed to contemporary poetry, simply because there is not a poetry geek among them. For that we have Bemsha Swing and numerous other blogs. But I'm not sure The Valve would be your first choice for studies of the novel either.

This is not meant as an attack on The Valve. I do look at it all the time, so there must be a lot of interesting things there. I just think it could be more focused on what I understood to be its core aim, and have a policy against flames and trolls.

I might have mentioned my method for reading Clark Coolidge. Going through Solution Passage, for example, I mark poems I like with a check mark, and poems that go beyond that with an additional star or asterisk. Although CC is one of my favorite living poets I am not at all an uncritical reader. As I've owned this book for many years the poems with stars are gradually increasing as a percentage of the whole, but there are still many poems I don't get. In order to get that check mark I have to be able to justify to myself the relation of part to whole. (Shorter poems have a certain advantage here.) Contrary to what you might think, I tend to value poems I understand better over those I don't, within the work of CC.

Here's an example of one that gets a star:

SPOKE OF JUMBLED GORGES

Lace back of mountains my fretted
vehicle on ice it shows

Blamed, all the stones, their streaks, then sky
opens bowl to the rained and rolling day

Fire, this chart beyond has got of crystal through
icicle wall of fricative semblance

Then PatternDemons whisper
in the PalmLines of my stone

Like taking a breath in vaccum light
the pounds of brain that store me

To me this is beatiful, coherent, and clear. It's only as difficult as it needs to be, not a step beyond that. I feel I could explicate it though I certainly don't want to do so pedantically. There are about 21 poems in this almost 400 page book that I like about this much, and maybe about 80 that have mere check mark. When I go back to the book then I have several strategies open to me. I can just go through and read twenty poems. I can read about 100 that I know I'll like. Or I can go in search of new poems that I hadn't quite appreciated on other multiple readings. Or I can go through a particular section and read poems in all three categories. I inevitably find a few that get a new check, or previously checked poems to be promoted with stars. I do appreciate the poems that have held out against me for many years. Such obduracy is to be admired in them.

It's hard to think of a really interesting poet who doesn't have some serious flaws. All significant reading is a back-and-forth movement of identification and rejection. I'm trying to think of any nonproblematic writers I am really devoted to. That's why detractive criticism is cheap. Any fool can see that Pound, Stein, and Lorca are deeply flawed writers. Any one can see that Creeley can be dull and sentimental; that Ashbery is garrulous, Stevens and Guest precious, Schuyler and Keats over-lush, Berrigan self-indulgent, Campion thin. However, if that's all you see then you aren't a particularly good reader either. It's like someone telling you that Beethoven is bombastic. Well yes, we already knew that thank you very much.

Blindness and Insight applies to the poet too, not just the critic. The problematic part of poet's work is usually so close to the core of that poet's achievement that it cannot be excised. The most irritating aspects of Pound's work are not found on the fringes of that work, but very close to the center.

Mayhew's Mood


I am brilliant but not too smart

about things I ought to be smart about--

that argument overheard in 1975--

was I part of that?



If so, am I a Turk in love with a Swede

or a Swede in love with a Turk?

Do Danes know irony?

What would Henry Gould say?



I think the answers lie

in nonchalance.

That, and choral music--

lists of things to do.

___


All attack and no sustain.

That's the mood in the land.


To spare the life of a locust--

that's something I haven't done too much of.



Lately, I've been feeling...

That's it, lately I've been feeling.


___


I'd like to have a radio show.

I'm not very articulate though.



It doesn't bother me not to know a thing's name.

Since Creeley died I haven't been the same.


___

One blue, of the sky

One blue, of the sea

They argue, which one will give its name

For the blue of the ink?

___


Physical

comfort. What is

that?



Should I feel

reassured?


___


"These poets are narcissists with whom friendship would be perilous."




It's been months since I felt the cold. I miss that.




Each day I revise some slight thing.




A dysthymic, arhythmic avoidance.



Yeatsian swagger, layers of smells.


___


I broke the seal.

Remorse.



Schooled in disdain,

in inanity.



___


Construyo negligencias; el punto y coma como una araña insuflada de insuficiencia.


Según el poeta japonés, el viejo perro pone cara de escuchar el cántico de los gusanos.


___


Don't talk to me about the ghastly portamento.

The chickens are roosting;

Henry is clean-shaven.


__




What if we could only kill bugs with our hands,

only fight rats with rose water?

What if Ornette were a race-horse?



Squirrels fight but won't scratch each other's eyes.

Are there rules?

This is my new style. You like?

Me neither.

___


I will no longer transport clean laundry across state lines.

A gleaming exhaust vent will carry fumes to the roof.

Raucous flocks will leave that particular tree.


The junior high school band will play without rhythmic mistakes.

I will no longer be desperately unhappy in my life.

I will be an expert on breeds and languages of dogs.


___

The screen is warmed by the sun.
Nothing should ever be parsed
past the point of return.
If I were Clark Coolidge I would write like this,
forehead warmed, timed by belts.
The sky is not object,
cannot exist like salt or wicker.
I am not, cannot.

___

My attention alights on the world.

That is not my mood.

She transports steaming liquids
across town
sells her hair.

___

Yet "men die every day for lack of what is found there."

___

Here is what is left out.
The nitty gritty.
For your eyes only.

Ink smudged on watch.

What if writing poetry were like writing in French? That is, what if it were simply a matter of learning a "poetic language," that, once learned, one could deploy "at will"? Anyone who learned it could then write poetry. Aesthetic rules would be like grammatical rules. That has a certain appeal.

But there is no poetic language. That is, there is no language to be learned. It is true that some writers have developed a language that for them works like this. They write "in it" and, if it is a highly developed language and they are good at it, they can write virtually "at will." It's a matter of turning on a faucet. Clark Coolidge and John Ashbery are like this, to name two poets I admire. There is a problem, though, in that poets like that can simply let themselves be carried along by a magnificent style. There's no longer that sense of the poet inventing language ad hoc. I like Clark better when he was still becoming Clark Coolidge. No that he already is Clark Coolidge I am less thrilled by what he is doing.

For everyone else, poetic language is an instrument that fails about 95% of the time. It's either someone else's language or something unsuited to the task. There's something thrilling about not knowing how to write at all, approaching the page with that attitude.

So what would it mean to teach writing? You could teach a serviceable style, one that was pretty much like that of the journals the student wanted to publish in. Or you could have the student construct a style, learn about how to put together a unique style. Or you could be a style agnostic, like I am.

I am a bad professor. I don't like telling people what to do. My impulse is to say: "Give me your best." Don't give me what you think I want, but rather your best stuff. But that is an impossible imperative to follow. So I will be more specific.

Don't give me perfunctory crapola. Don't see the point of the assignment as completing the assignment or showing me that you are able to analyze poetry. Give me your ideas, your best ones, not just a few commonplaces I could find anywhere else. Do you define yourself as a student studying in a class, or as a literary critic? Do you have critical influences, a critical position with respect to your influences, or are you just a student performing a task? Do you read journals in the field in which you want to specialize? Do you see how big a problem it is to have to emulate this academic prose, follow this set of conventions, while at the same time doing the real work of criticism?

Do you want to be an intellectual or just an academic?

Have you gone through phases in which you were influenced most by Benjamin, Barthes, Blanchot, or Burke? Has there been a novel that you read five or six times when you were younger, the way I read and re-read Catch 22, The Cave, The Lord of the Rings, and Slaughterhouse 5? Have you ever broken down a poem or a play word by word to see how it works?

I can't teach you to read poetry. All I can do is point in particular directions. Have you ever stayed up at night wrestling with a critical problem? Do you know how crazily obsessive you have to be do be half-way good at this at all?

Do you read a book of poetry every day? Every week? Every month? Never? Do you have twenty authors whose work you are passionate about? 10?

Does everything you learn, about anything at all, automatically inform your literary criticism? Does music inform your reading of literature, and if not, why not?

Show me that you've thought about your writing at the level of the sentence and the paragraph. Does your critical prose "sing"? What would it mean for it to sing? Do you know that prose has its own rhythms that must be tended? Have you ever thought about how good critical prose needs to be? Do you consciously model your writing after that of writers you admire?

Avant-garde translation theory basically argues for the foregrounding of translation. It's a kind of Russian formalist idea of the "laying bare of the device." Translation should not be "invisible" or "transparent." It should remind you constantly that it is translation, mainly by including heterogeneous materials taken from both languages and cultures. This avant-garde ideal is then combined with the ethical imperative of recognizing the validity of the cultural *other.* That is, foregrounded, foreignizing translation, by laying bare its own devices, has the opposite effect of domesticating, invisible translation that simply assimilates the cultural other into domestic expectations.

Where is that connection between Russian formalist theory and contemporary multiculturalism? That's what I want to figure out. Is it through Derrida's influence on postcolonial theory? Through Benjamin and the Franfort school? I feel there is missing piece somewhere I'm not getting.

There is one more attack on Drew Gardner's "Chicks Dig War" referenced here at Elsewhere.

Inspired by this kind of survey, I thought, well, you can frame a question any way you want. The way the authors of this web site frame their survey questions is pretty much like this:

Poetry is known to be a wasteful and destructive activity, consuming hours of otherwise productive time. Thousands of dollars of our tax money goes to shelve books of poetry in public and university libraries. Thousands of young people are encouraged to study "creative writing"--a field in which it is impossible to make a living. The drain on the US economy from poetic activities is inestimable, but is probably in the area of a billion dollars annually. The cost of producing a single poem, calculated by lost work time, years of education, and supplies, is estimated to be approximately $10,000! Yet studies have shown that individuals who have never read a poem are just as likely to be productive members of society than those exposed to this pernicious art form. In fact, poetry has no known social benefits and could actually be psychologicallly damaging. Unlike other forms of enternainment, poetry is not even "entertaining."

Vote for one of the two options.

Yes. I believe it is more important to continue to stroke the egos of a few narcissists and continue the public funding of poetry, despite the huge social and economic costs of this activity.

No. I believe reasonable steps should be taken to eliminate poetry from the educational system and all other government-funded programs, and to minimize its presence in the private sector of the economy.

A speaker observes an alienated couple as they dourly squirt Windex at each other's faces from opposite sides of a pane they're cleaning. A speaker assists minimally in the burial of an acquaintance. A speaker recalls buying red shoes for a woman who hasn't been seen since. A speaker feels remorse for having a crippled piglet put down. A speaker observes a neighbor hauling bales to his barn as autumn descends. A speaker employs end rhyme to convince himself to give up booze. Biting into a potato, a speaker recalls his impoverished childhood. A speaker is reminded by moonflowers of her recently deceased mother. A speaker contemplates an elderly veteran in a parade. A speaker celebrates the arrival of spring. A speaker observes as a male peacock's ostentatious display fails to interest a female intent on food. A speaker named after his grandfather feels his forebear's presence while filling out forms and at supper. A tamed speaker recalls his youthful virility on the eve of his fortieth birthday. A speaker likens an elderly neighbor in a housecoat to a sunset. A speaker contemplates the life of an obsessive collector of Noah's Ark images and trinkets. A speaker likens love to salt.

It seems to me that "foriegnizing" translation also serves a "domesticating" agenda, albeit a different one from an unabashedly domesticating translation practice. That is, it is still directed toward the target language & culture. The purpose of foreignizing translation is not to pay respect to the foreign culture, but to enact some sort of cultural change in the domestic culture, allowing for an influence to take place.

If you asked the foreign culture how it wanted to be represented, what would it say? Does it care? Maybe it just wants to be legitimized through a fluent domestication. It is hard to see foreignizing translation as an ethical imperative, as Venuti does, even if it is more appealing because it is more avant-garde or theoretically interesting. I'm at an impasse in my thinking about this problem, tending to distrust domesticating translations from a theoretical perspective while still preferring them many times as a reader--and vice versa. I don't really like translations that foreground the "domestic residue."

While I was at a party hosted by Judy Roitman and Stan Lombardo, featuring special guest appearances by Ken Irby, Cyrus Console, Jim McCrary, and Lee Chapman, we apparently won a baseball game against Detroit. I only wish I was a bit more indifferent to sports. If I cared slightly less I would not have looked up the score when I got home.

Baseball is a machine for training the mind to think in certain increments. Every situation is exactly definable. So many outs, balls and strikes, runners on base, in any particular inning, the score being thus. I like this, so I can listen to a game on the radio in the car even if I don't care about either team playing.

The aesthetic beauty of the game is in defense not offense. Isn't a double play more satisfiying than a home run? A home run is a *mistake* charged to the picture. *Earning* a run is a bad thing.

My favorite rhythms are, I think


The walking bass--four quarternotes evenly accented. What could be more pure than that?

Spanish endecasílabo and heptasílabo in fruitful collaboration

Elvin's "Rolling Triplet" feel

Latin elegiac couplets. [see below]

Afro-Cuban cowbell in 6/8.

Son montuño

Bebop. Max Roach bass-drum accents

French alexandrine

A funk beat with swung sixteenth-notes under a James Brown track

Various flamenco rhythms in 6/8 (just getting into these)


There are others. Iambic pentameter? Octosílabo? Waltz? But these are my favorites. I'm surprised to find IP missing from the list, but what can I do? Don't blame me, I'm only reporting what I feel... I don't particuarly care for Englsh ballad meter or Reggae.

I always was fascinated by the elegiac couplet. It's a line of dactylic hexamater

BAM ba ba BAM ba ba BAM ba ba BAM ba ba BAM ba ba BAM BAM

(with all the usual trochaic substitutions, of course, and where BAM is a long and ba is a short)

alternating with what they call a pentameter but which is really not a pentamter at all

BAM ba ba BAM ba ba BAM // BAM ba ba BAM ba ba BAM

Why does this line combine so well with the other? Well there is often a Caesura in the middle of the third foot of the DH line:

BAM ba ba BAM ba ba BAM / ba ba...

[e.g. Arma virumque cano...]

So you take that part of the DH line, before the ceasura, and it becomes half of the so-called "pentameter," or 2.5 metrical feet. It's a great asymmetrical feel, beloved of Catullus and Ovid, not to mention Propertius. Elegiacs: not just for elegy.

The shorter "pentameter" line wouldn't really work by itself, I don't think. The DH does work as its own meter, of course, but elegiac couplets are much hipper. I love that feeling of "coming up short" in the second line.

Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus
advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias.

The life-blood of rhymed translation is this, that
a good poem shall not be turned into a bad one.
The only true motive for putting poetry into a fresh
language must be to endow a fresh nation, as far as
possible, with one more possession of beauty. Poetry
not being an exact science, literality of rendering is
altogether secondary to this chief aim. I say literality,
not fidelity, which is by no means the same thing.
When literality can be combined with what is thus
the primary condition of success, the translator is
fortunate, and must strive his utmost to unite them;
when such object can only be attained by paraphrase,
that is his only path.

--Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Rossetti's translations of Calvacanti's are better than Pound's. That single principle, that a good poem cannot be translated by a bad one, seems essential. It would seem to establish a criterion of aesthetic fidelity. The original is a good poem, the translation is not. Therefore it cannot be a good translation, even if it is a faithful and literal translation in all other respects. That is the implication, at least.

Another principle would be to try the literal first, and then move to paraphrase if that doesn't work. Or, in other words, take advantage of the places where the literal does in fact work.

Of course, there's no convincing someone that a translation is a "bad poem," when that person wants to say that the translation is adequate. I can convince someone that the translation is faulty on semantic grounds, if we agree on the meanings of words, but not on aesthetic grounds, if we disagree about where beauty lies.

Cavalcanti:

Una figura de la donna mia
S'adora, Guido, a San Michele in Orto,
Che di bella semblanza, onesta e pia,
De' peccatori è refugio e conforto

Pound [elements added by translator in italics]

My Lady's face is it they worship there,
At San Michele in Orto, Guido mine,
Near her fair semblance, that is clear and holy
Sinners take refuge and get consolation.

Minor padding? But why must translation always move in the direction of more, rather than fewer words? The additions don't add any greater clarity. They are there to pad the meter.

I don't know why you need two verbs, take and get, for a single action, where the Italian is content with a single verb: "is." She doesn't give them comfort, nor do they take comfort from her. Rather, she IS their refuge and comfort, at one and the same time. That's so much more direct.

I don't know why you have to specify that the sinners are near her fair semblance. That spatial relation is implicit in the original: the sinners are those worshipping at this particular church. Pound's "near" takes them futher away, in some sense.

This poetry is rather unforgiving of the translator, I fear. There's not a lot of lee-way. The only redundancy in the original is the repetition of figura and semblanza, two words that may be nearly synonymous. My literal version is in brackets below.

[An image of my lady / is adored, Guido, at SMIO, / which {image}, of beautiful aspect, chaste and devout, / is refuge and comfort for sinners].