Commentaries - September 2017

The first definition of poetry

On Simon Smith's 'Navy'

Margate

Poet Simon Smith is in the midst of a remarkable proliferation, with book following quickly upon book. He has recently published a selected volume — More Flowers Than You Could Possibly Carry (Shearsman 2016) — and, the same year, the book Navy (vErIsImIlItUdE). The selected brings together poetry from five previous collections, as well as a number of uncollected poems; editor Barry Schwabsky associates Smith’s work with “the New York School’s love of speed, wit, and variousness of tone,” which is true, although this only tells half the story. 

Poet Simon Smith is in the midst of a remarkable proliferation, with book following quickly upon book. He has recently published a selected volume — More Flowers Than You Could Possibly Carry (Shearsman 2016) — and, the same year, the book Navy (vErIsImIlItUdE). The selected brings together poetry from five previous collections, as well as a number of uncollected poems; editor Barry Schwabsky associates Smith’s work with “the New York School’s love of speed, wit, and variousness of tone,” which is true, although this only tells half the story.

John Ashbery, 1927–2017

Here at Jacket2 we were saddened to learn of John Ashbery’s passing at age 90 this weekend. A prolific and visionary poet, Ashbery has captivated us from the very beginning; few could imagine contemporary poetics without him. Today, we look back at some of our celebrations of Ashbery at JacketJacket2, and PennSound. 

Here at Jacket2 we were saddened to learn of John Ashbery’s passing at age 90 this weekend. A prolific and visionary poet, Ashbery has captivated us from the very beginning; few could imagine contemporary poetics without him. Today, we look back at some of our celebrations of Ashbery at JacketJacket2, and PennSound. 

Our front-page Archive section is currently all-Ashbery; it’s replicated below:

John Ashbery in conversation with Bruce Kawin, WKCR radio, May 5, 1966

Transcription by Gregory Dunne

For years I have been listening to an interview on WKCR radio, recorded on May 5, 1966, in which John Ashbery did something he rarely did — a close reading or "explanation" of a poem. In this rare instance, it was "These Lacustrine Cities." The whole interview lasts 27 1/2 minutes, but toward the beginning Ashbery reads the poem for interviewer/host Bruce Kawin, after which the poet discusses it for 13 minutes. I am compiling this note during the weekend of John Ashbery's death. I found myself pondering this portion of the poet’s disarming talk about his poem:

“Whose disappointment broke into a rainbow of tears.” Well again, you have two conflicting things, three really: disappointment and tears, kind of combining to make something rather beautiful and pleasant to look at, like a rainbow. In other words, a final contradiction, which is one of many, which this poem is made up of, and which life and history are made up of.

For years I have been listening to an interview on WKCR radio, recorded on May 5, 1966, in which John Ashbery did something he rarely did — a close reading or “explanation” of a poem. In this rare instance, it was “These Lacustrine Cities.” The whole interview lasts 27 1/2 minutes, but toward the beginning Ashbery reads the poem for interviewer/host Bruce Kawin, after which the poet discusses it for 13 minutes, after which the poem is recited again.

I am compiling this note during the weekend of John Ashbery’s death. I found myself pondering this portion of the poet’s disarming talk about his poem:

“Whose disappointment broke into a rainbow of tears.” Well again, you have two conflicting things, three really: disappointment and tears, kind of combining to make something rather beautiful and pleasant to look at, like a rainbow. In other words, a final contradiction, which is one of many, which this poem is made up of, and which life and history are made up of.

Gerry Loose: From 'The Great Book of the Woods' (with a note on its sources)

NOTE (by Gerry Loose): The Primer is loosely drawn from the Auraicept na n-Eces, a seventh century CE Old Irish tract known as the Scholars’ Primer or Handbook of the Learned. 

 

It deals with Irish grammar and vernacular, claimed within that book to be descended from speech before the Tower of Babel and more comprehensive than Hebrew, Latin or Greek. The earliest written version we have is from the twelfth century CE, with many additions to the early text.

the primer

 

let profit be gno

let bora be strength

let the duality of the conjugal be ter

let rfoph be veneration

let piety be brops

rihph be cheerfulness