Today I was fortunate to be able to attend the last day of the Dodge Poetry Festival. I feel like I've just come from a star-studded Hollywood Premiere. (Don't laugh!)
I arrived early, around 9:30 a.m. I attended a discussion called "Finding the Poetry's Inner Music, Saying the Unsayable," with Billy Collins, Marie Howe, and Li-Young Lee. Mark Doty was not there, to my great disappointment, because he was summoned away to an emergency.
The lecture portion was about how poets use poetry to say the unsayable. Howe defined the 'unsayable' as the big silent 'O.' She said it's when we encounter something so awesome (good or bad) that we are dumbstruck and our mouths make the universal silent "O", which can be dismay or joy or any number of emotions. Poetry tries to give a voice to that silence.
Collins said that politicians and advertisers spend a lot of time SAYING. They SAY what they want us to think. They SAY exactly what they think. (As an aside to this, Robert Hass later said nobody quotes what the mayors during Shakespeare's time said; they quote Shakespeare.)
My favorite was Li-Young. His conversation alone was so poetic that I was compelled afterward to rush over to the book tent and buy a book of his poetry. Later I had him sign the book. He was amazingly nice.
Li-Young said "saying" is an exhalation; we exhale when we speak, praticing for the dying breath. We inhale when we are not saying. We "take in" life.
He said he felt poetry was like a cycle: author exhales, reader inhales, reader exhales, poet inhales, etc. and that the cycle is broken when too much importance is placed upon either the author or the reader (such as the reader being over-critical or the poet being to obscure).
Unlike the others, Li-Young felt it was okay to "say" sometimes. He seemed to veer away from the contention that poetry should always be the unsayable.
Collins said one of the things that weakens poetry the most is when poets try to say too much, and the "watch" in a poem becomes a "timex" watch or the "wind" becomes a "howling" wind and that this doesn't allow the "objects" to be strong on their own.
They discussed the predictability/probability aspect of poetry. Collins said when the rhymes in formal poetry are predictable, it's boring, there is no discovery. And that in free verse, when the 'thoughts' are cliche and predictable, it's the same.
Li-Young said the best poetry is a combination of probability and random breath. Too many 'random breaths,' he said, leaves one feeling lost, disoriented.
Collins used this as an opportunity to speak against "language poetry." He said it was too random, there was nothing for the reader to 'tug against,' to lean on for stability.
There was a general complaint by the three that the reader has been overlooked in post-modernism.
After the presentation, I went to the poetry tent and saw the Gerald Stern, Amiri Baraka, Rita Dove, Robert Hass, Robert Pinsky, and Stanley Kunitz. I left before Collins spoke because of a personal interaction I had with him that disappointed me.
I am going to write about it in a poem, I think, but in brief, I asked him to sign my book for my son, who is 11 and with whom I have shared Collins' work and who likes it, and Collins said "Oh great. Just my target audience--a bunch of 4th graders," and his tone was very derisive. I didn't think I'd be in the mood to relate to his poetry later. I was very disappointed with that response.
So, that was my experience with the Dodge Poetry Festival. Probably my favorite reader among the big names was Pinsky. His style is interesting--you can tell he's trying to overcome a strong NJ accent. But more than that, I liked how he related to the audience.
Rita Dove is beautiful; her voice is beautiful, too. Li-Young also had a wonderful voice and I'm sorry I never had a chance to hear him read.
Apparently they have this every year and you can order tapes of the readings and the workshops online.
Cat
I arrived early, around 9:30 a.m. I attended a discussion called "Finding the Poetry's Inner Music, Saying the Unsayable," with Billy Collins, Marie Howe, and Li-Young Lee. Mark Doty was not there, to my great disappointment, because he was summoned away to an emergency.
The lecture portion was about how poets use poetry to say the unsayable. Howe defined the 'unsayable' as the big silent 'O.' She said it's when we encounter something so awesome (good or bad) that we are dumbstruck and our mouths make the universal silent "O", which can be dismay or joy or any number of emotions. Poetry tries to give a voice to that silence.
Collins said that politicians and advertisers spend a lot of time SAYING. They SAY what they want us to think. They SAY exactly what they think. (As an aside to this, Robert Hass later said nobody quotes what the mayors during Shakespeare's time said; they quote Shakespeare.)
My favorite was Li-Young. His conversation alone was so poetic that I was compelled afterward to rush over to the book tent and buy a book of his poetry. Later I had him sign the book. He was amazingly nice.
Li-Young said "saying" is an exhalation; we exhale when we speak, praticing for the dying breath. We inhale when we are not saying. We "take in" life.
He said he felt poetry was like a cycle: author exhales, reader inhales, reader exhales, poet inhales, etc. and that the cycle is broken when too much importance is placed upon either the author or the reader (such as the reader being over-critical or the poet being to obscure).
Unlike the others, Li-Young felt it was okay to "say" sometimes. He seemed to veer away from the contention that poetry should always be the unsayable.
Collins said one of the things that weakens poetry the most is when poets try to say too much, and the "watch" in a poem becomes a "timex" watch or the "wind" becomes a "howling" wind and that this doesn't allow the "objects" to be strong on their own.
They discussed the predictability/probability aspect of poetry. Collins said when the rhymes in formal poetry are predictable, it's boring, there is no discovery. And that in free verse, when the 'thoughts' are cliche and predictable, it's the same.
Li-Young said the best poetry is a combination of probability and random breath. Too many 'random breaths,' he said, leaves one feeling lost, disoriented.
Collins used this as an opportunity to speak against "language poetry." He said it was too random, there was nothing for the reader to 'tug against,' to lean on for stability.
There was a general complaint by the three that the reader has been overlooked in post-modernism.
After the presentation, I went to the poetry tent and saw the Gerald Stern, Amiri Baraka, Rita Dove, Robert Hass, Robert Pinsky, and Stanley Kunitz. I left before Collins spoke because of a personal interaction I had with him that disappointed me.
I am going to write about it in a poem, I think, but in brief, I asked him to sign my book for my son, who is 11 and with whom I have shared Collins' work and who likes it, and Collins said "Oh great. Just my target audience--a bunch of 4th graders," and his tone was very derisive. I didn't think I'd be in the mood to relate to his poetry later. I was very disappointed with that response.
So, that was my experience with the Dodge Poetry Festival. Probably my favorite reader among the big names was Pinsky. His style is interesting--you can tell he's trying to overcome a strong NJ accent. But more than that, I liked how he related to the audience.
Rita Dove is beautiful; her voice is beautiful, too. Li-Young also had a wonderful voice and I'm sorry I never had a chance to hear him read.
Apparently they have this every year and you can order tapes of the readings and the workshops online.
Cat
Thank you, so much, for posting this! 
