HMMM, I think I should undergo EMDR to get rid of precisely this problem: guilt over having hurt my mother so by doing the Ph.D. I see that this is some way I now torture myself rather than recognize how I was tortured for doing the Ph.D. Instead of recognize how much that hurt, I … More La tristesse — lo que pienso para mí
The Abstract Image Two related strands of poetic diction have been handed down to contemporary American poetry from a tradition which we might label roughly “surrealist.” The first of these strands, predominantly Spanish in origin and one which we might label “archetypal,” has been brilliantly analyzed and criticized by Paul Breslin in his essay “Nihilistic … More Spanish influence in American poetry
Although the term “conversation” includes many types of discourse, and the “conversation” poem appears in such diverse guises as the “poem of instruction” invented by Gary Snyder in his “Things To Do” poems, and in “letter” poems best exemplified by Richard Hugo’s letter poems in 31 Letters and 13 Dreams, we may distinguish two basic … More Holden 3
I am in the mood never to break or lose anything out of carelessness due to feeling distraught again. Those things only started happening to me when I started putting Reeducation’s life ahead of my own. I am in the mood never to miss a deadline again, or to miss fewer of them. I am … More Des nouvelles
Here we have a good poet. Long for Stanley Plumly It’s about to be too late. Every shred of the usual weather is precious and sexual as it goes, the way the links of a fugue become one another’s strict abandonments. As for the future, it will not swerve. Fire sleeps in the tree. Which … More William Matthews
In the conversation poem, the problem of establishing the authority of the speaking voice is even more acute than in confessional. The speaker cannot lay claim to the ethical or moral authority of the confessional voice by virtue of testimony alone. Nor is the conversation poem a dramatic monologue. The reader must be willing to … More Holden 2
So much depends upon the chicken or rooster, that is to say when you have a Death Row visit to Angola on a winter day, the first of a thaw and you are riding on the Angola bus with a young man who has ridden from Dallas to see his father whom he only knows … More Poem written in under five minutes, unrevised and not workshopped
I am disappointed that she is promoting poetry of poor caliber. El que diga yo esto means that I am more loyal to poetry than I am to alleged poetic leaders in what has also become my Raza. Que así sea. Axé.
Is it possible that there are different levels of poetry? Poetry that is like commercial pop music, and good in this genre, but that you should not compare to good music? Should we call poetry that aims for a support group level of discourse, poetry? Holden says that in confessional and conversation poetry, the life … More In Radical Pursuit
Style and Authenticity in Postmodern Poetry (Columbia: U of Missouri P, 1986) Jonathan Holden CHAPTER 2 (pp. 33-44) The Contemporary Conversation Poem The most personal type of contemporary poem—personal because in this type of poem we find the poet speaking in his or her own person directly to the reader—is the poem which appropriates, as … More Holden 1
coldhearted scientist وداد 