I had an interesting conversation about Robert Motherwell with a brilliant friend, a poet and art critic who actually knew Motherwell. Anyway, I realized I couldn't justify an entire section of a chapter on Motherwell, after talking to him. The sense was the Motherwell was better than people thought he was, so I couldn't offer a critique that was mostly negative. I will now condense that section and merge it with the rest of the chapter more seamlessly.
***
Somehow the topic drifted to Kerouac and Clark Coolidge. I realized that my reading of Kerouac was filtered through Coolidge's having been influenced by K. It was a kind of filter, so that I could love Kerouac as Coolidge's precursor, rather than as the Bohemian stereotype. But, of course, I get that from talking to Ken Irby too. There is a kind of "poet's Kerouac." We take him seriously as a writer, not for his ostensible subject matter alone, or for clichés about him.
***
Isn't that what I'm doing with Lorca too? Rescuing him from the stencil? The cliché? It is through the workings of influence that we see this. The way a subsequent poet filters our vision.
No comments:
Post a Comment