The New York poets, O'Hara, Schuyler, Ashbery, Koch, Guest, were very important to me. Three gay men and then Koch, every bit as much a part of the group, and Guest, who seemed marginal to the rest of them. David Lehman leaves her out of his study of the group. David Shapiro and Ron Padgett leave her out of one of the first two anthologies. She was accused of being too "precious."
Then the 2nd generation of these poets. We have Shapiro, Padgett, Berrigan, Ceravolo. These also important to me. They come out to O'Hara and Koch, but with their own nuances.
Then, the women associated with this movement: Myles, Notley, Mayer. Now, some of the same poetic principles found in Berrigan or Padgett get used for other purposes. Think of a poem by Koch, "Some General Instructions," kind of pseudo-Horatian kind of art of living (from the book The Art of Love (1975). When Alice Notley writes a similar poem ("The Prophet" [1981]) of facetious yet serious advice, the result is very different, because she is a different person. The structure is more or less equivalent: advice pulled together in somewhat haphazard ways.
Of course, gender comes into play. A movement mostly male and influenced by French surrealism and American modernists becomes this wonderful feminist postmodern thing.
My own taste is not particularly relevant, except that it allows me entry into a tradition because I had already trained myself on it. I am not as open to Ann Waldman, for some reason, and didn't like her performance style when she came here once to read, but I have been fortunate to be a reader of Notley and others proximate to this way of thinking about poetry.
3 comments:
"Precious" is an odd word to describe Guest's poetry! I finally went through her Collected Poems a few months ago. My adjectives were "breathtaking," "fun," and "masterful." Almost scary good.
Related: Guest's work does not seem to have the same "permission-giving" qualities (your phrase) that Padgett's work has (and that O'Hara's and Schuyler's have). When I'm done reading some poems by Guest, I put my pen in a drawer and go out for a delightful walk. No way am I following THAT.
That word, "precious" was used by a person who had been an assistant to Kenneth Koch. I think it referred to the "Lo and behold" quality she has sometimes. Like the use of the word "Lo" and the pseudo-medievalism. Not that I agree with this point, but it is arguable at least.
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