Frank O'Hara vs. Michael Robbins

Immediate notes/thoughts/remarks on O'Hara (vis-à-vis Robbins?) as possible bases/premises for further arguments:

Personism: objects to "abstraction in poetry" ("the absence of the artist's personal voice or style from his or her work"); avoids "philosophy," or abstract speculation.

The poems I've been focusing on are "A Step Away from Them" (because I can relate to it so damn much), "The Day Lady Died," and “Rhapsody;” because they all overtly say what I want to say about O'Hara, especially re what I've been reading about modernism and, also, the poetry of Michael Robbins.

Connections/reactions to modernism: all three poems are reminiscent of Hope Mirrlees’ Paris: A Poem and Guillaume Apollinaire’s “poemes conversations” in their experiential/observational methods, along with their incorporations of (pop-) culture, which one can also see in Pound’s Cantos and Eliot’s The Waste Land; all of which were inspired, in part, by the French Symbolists: Mallarme, Verlaine, Rimbaud, etc (I think); “the cut-up phrases, the lack of syntax, the unclear references, the zipping between an ancient past and modern present.” However, where O’Hara’s poems depart from these/this tradition(s) is by their inclusion of the perspectival “I”. Whereas, in modernism, the first-person perspective was eradicated--or maybe just looked down upon--due to its failure to mimetically represent the socially/politically/culturally fragmented self. O’Hara’s poetry seems to be a response to this by bringing it back to the individual, making it personal, and not necessarily trying to assert some greater meaning; but to just write for and, maybe, entertain that other one person for whom the poem is written.

Trying hard not to lay on the backspace button: not too confident in my historical sense.

In “A Step Away from Them” (something I myself take every lunch break at work to read and chain-smoke cigarettes in some corner of the garage), “my” and “I” are in the first line--the beginning of an “I-do-this I-do-that” poem that isn’t out to prescribe some universal truth. Why do the laborers wear yellow helmets: “They protect them from falling bricks, I guess.” “What do you mean, ‘you guess!?’” “[I mean,] I guess.” “Okay, word.”

“O'Hara's most persistent interest, however, was the image, in all its suddenness, juxtaposed with an equally unlikely image, following techniques not of Imagism but those perfected by the French Surrealists. This period of experimentation and learning (although the imitations and parodies continued) advanced into an interest in post-Symbolist French poetry, especially that of Guillaume Apollinaire and later Pierre Reverdy, along with the big-voiced, roaring surrealism of Vladimir Mayakovsky” (Poetry Foundation).

Dunno how I did historically (in my connections/reactions section): confused.

Coca-Cola, Times Square, Edwin Denby, JULIET’S CORNER, Giulietta Masina, Federico Fellini, Bunny (?), John Latouche, Jackson Pollock, BULLFIGHT, Manhattan Storage Warehouse: just some of the references made in the poem, ranging from the obscure to the obvious; all of which the reader should assume would be understood by the person for whom this poem is written (back to personism).

Ugh, there's so much more I have to read; so much more to know. Might add more later.

Edit: Okay. Here are some snippets from Frank O'Hara's bio section (which have guided my thinking/reasoning), from Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology (is O'Hara postmodern?), edited by Paul Hoover and, coincidentally, negatively reviewed by Michael Robbins:

"Characterized  by wit, charm, and everydayness, his work extended William Carlos Williams's emphasis on the American vernacular into urban popular culture of the 1950s and 1960s."

"'[T]he poetry that meant the most to him when he began writing was either French--Rimbaud, Mallarme, and surrealists: poets who speak the language of every day into the reader's dream--or Russian--Pasternak and especially Mayakovsky, from whom he picked up what James Schuyler has called the "intimate yell"' (Ashbery).

"Another of O'Hara's important predecessors was the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire. Gathering random snatches of overheard conversation on his Paris walks, Apollinaire composed what he called 'Poemes conversations.'"

"'I don't think of fame or posterity (as Keats so grandly and genuinely did), nor do I care about clarifying experiences for anyone or bettering (other than accidentally) anyone's state of social relation, nor am I for any particular development in the American language simply because I find it necessary. What is happening to me, allowing for lies and exaggerations which I try to avoid, goes into my poems'" (O'Hara).

"Immediacy, honesty, and fearlessness are among the attractive qualities of his style: 'You're sort of galloping into the midst of a subject. . . . You're not afraid to think about anything and you're not afraid of being stupid and you're not afraid of being sentimental. You just sort of gallop right in and deal with it'" (O'Hara).

And from volume two of The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, edited by Ramazani, Ellman, and O'Clair (3rd ed.):

"He objects to 'abstraction in poetry,' which he obliquely defines as the absence of the artist's personal voice or style from his or her work; that is not to be confused with abstractness in painting, because even in the work of abstract expressionists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, one can still feel the presence of a personal style. O'Hara wants poetry to avoid 'philosophy,' or abstract speculation, but while he is frank about his sexual identity as a gay man, he doesn't opt for 'personality or intimacy' either."

"Some of his poems express a genial appreciation for the neon lights, posters, and other objects that litter the New York landscape (and that received similar attention from the Pop artists). In addition, the dreamlike, irrational sequences of images in some of his poems may have been inspired by surrealist painting and film, the rapid flurry of images dramatizing the dispersal and distraction of postmodern consciousness."

"O'Hara's poems are crammed with the discontinuous sights, names, and places of metropolitan experience, traversing media from advertising and film to high art and music, representing encounters with diverse social classes, ethnicities, and nationalities[;] [...] showing us what it feels like to live in immediate contact with both the inner and outer worlds. Alert and energetically responsive, the poems stay close to the moment of their inspiration, even narrating the experiences and interruptions that went into their composition."

Okay, where Robbins comes in:

Without having a specific poem in mind (maybe not needing one; i.e. it is, by now, self-evident), Robbins pervasive use of "I" is in the same vein as O'Hara poetics (stylistically), but consider the following quote from an interview with Robbins re confessional poetry (not sure if O'Hara should be considered part of this movement, or whether he was a precursor to it, etc.):

"Doubtless there was a time when the confessionals’ star hogged the firmament, in which equally great poets like Frank O’Hara and George Oppen also shone. But that time is past, and the work especially of Lowell, Plath, and Berryman is vital to any contemporary poetics that hopes to understand the relation of affect to subjectivity and of individuals to the public sphere" (Poetry Foundation).

It seems as though the perspectival use of "I" in Robbins's poetry is less an indicator of the "personal"--in the emotionally evocative sense, which, ugh (see next paragraph then come back to me)--and more a continuation of the direct communication between  poet and assumed person; both of whom are connected/engaged (pop-) culturally--in the past and present. And so, both O'Hara and Robbins have modernist ties when it comes to pop-cultural fascinations, but their use of "I" is what divides them: while O'Hara's is more of a "I"-as-narrator, Robbins's is more of a "I"-as-chameleon (though, not necessarily in the "perspectiveless" modernist sense, but in a "perspective-ful" postmodern sense [what?]). Centripetal modernism? Centrifugal postmodernism? Maybe, dunno. I think the term "postmodernism" is bullshit, and "post-postmodernism" is even more bullshit. I'm beginning to think modernism is still in effect, and that the advent of prefixes is just another attempt at commodification.

(Next paragraph here. While the quotes above may assert/suggest that O'Hara wasn't interested in these things--and perhaps he isn't in the three poems I mentioned; but some of his others definitely have a "[R-?] romantic" feel to them. For example, "Autobiographia Literaria" (holy shit) totally has that whole I-wandered-lonely-as-a-cloud vibe to it. Now go back.)

Alright, that's all he wrote. Might add more later. Sorry for all the quotes.

Reconsidering Abramson's Essay, "The Golden Age of American Poetry Is Now"

If "we're too jaded" for "the Romantics' watchword, emotion," why is "a denial of our collective emotional reality [...], our national culture considered, a cruelty?"

If objects "have been troublingly commodified and packaged pre-consumption," how would the Sophists, who 'sold but two goods: language and persuasion," be a model worth revisiting? That is, aren't language and persuasion two (autonomous) aspects of advertising, which commodify and package objects pre-consumption?

Language, persuasion... attention? Their respective autonomies?  The "object-in-itself" and now the "subject-in-itself"? What? Maybe if I took "a simple course in ethics" I would understand, but as of now I don't.

Back to attention: "So what if a contemporary avant-garde were to emerge, sensitive to the culture of the day, that had precisely that historic capacity? To consume the entirety of our attention in one go?"

Is there a difference between returning art to the praxis of life, and returning life to the praxis of art? Which is more mimetic? And is mimesis even the goal anymore? The ends, the means?

If avant-gardism is, in part, a response to what came before, does the avant-garde at all resemble what came before the before, making aesthetic movements Oedipal and somewhat cyclical? Maybe, maybe not?

How is Abramson's "historical sense?" I don't know.

I (tentatively) propose a not-so-novel idea, and that is a poetics that is historically contemporaneous/simultaneous a la Eternalism; and mimetic of a culture (as a whole) as well as any one moment in time, which requires both the Eliotian "historical sense" and a contemporary sense. Though, not at all/necessarily universalism, but being able/learning to juggle multiple universes and their respective aesthetics, in spite of the cognitive dissonance that may result; which shouldn't be confused with/reduced to mere allusion or postmodern pastiche (intertextuality), but regarded as that which supersedes them, et-blah-cetera.

Abramson is not the first (nor will he be the last) to condemn the technocracy in which we all live, and to lament its effects on the arts/poetry; and to long for a poetics which "might, at once, retrieve the goodwill of a generation lost in the packets of digital information." It simply won't do to be an antagonistic/nostalgic/romantic purist, or to be blindly complicit and overly self-indulgent with no "historical sense." 'Cause, baby, technology ain't goin' nowhere. One can only hope to aspire to a kind of antago-complicit self-awareness which oscillates along the slippery continuum, making art/poetry inquisitively engaging, if one desires the return of art to the praxis of life (and/or mimesis [the same?]).

Edit (vis-a-vis Robbins): [Forthcoming.]

Is the Golden Age of American Poetry Now?

In his essay concerning the question above, Seth Abramson answers in the affirmative. While his essay could be read as an example of chronocentrism--particularly by those who let its title dictate content and tone--I would have to agree, if only to the extent that there are more opportunities for writers today than ever before, whether it be through academia and the communities it fosters, or through social media; even if it's only corroborated by mere numbers and statistics. However, I can't help read this essay as a kind of customary staple for all eras, ages, and generations; i.e., I think every period is confronted by the same dilemma--living in a time unlike any other that came before and thus bearing an inevitable anxiety over the present in relation to the future, and to posterity--and so I can imagine a paper like this being written multiple times throughout history, which essentially catalogues the moments leading up to a so-called pinnacle point in time. But I digress: perhaps I'm focusing too much on the peripheral rather than the foci/loci of what Abramson is really exploring and discussing.

What is important to keep in mind, I think, is that Abramson is not so much/necessarily asserting that the Golden Age of American poetry is qualitatively now (but maybe quantitatively now); instead, he's responding, however tangentially, to allegations that the Dark Age of American poetry is now; which he does more directly in an article written in response to another published earlier that day. Despite the struggle I had acquiescing to Abramson's vague and, perhaps, vestigially litigious style of writing, I can't help but appreciate and admire his (h)op(e)timism when regarding the present and an ever-daunting future in a time so resplendent in its editorial cynicism. For me, these imbued sentiments have been confluently affirmed by reading Michael Robbins's Alien vs. Predator, a contemporary avant-garde, whatever the fuck that means, poetry collection that both defies and praises, thus reifying a non-Du Boisian kind of double consciousness, or cognitive dissonance, which struggles to reconcile the ostensible decadence with the ostensible splendor of the modern world, while balance-beaming between antagonism and complicity, and seeking something that isn't necessarily wholeness, all of which has been occurring for at least a century in response to various external stimuli.

Alright, anyway, let's get back to the essay. Apart from the MFA-praise (okay, I'm convinced: perhaps they're not as bad as David Foster Wallace made them out to be [or maybe there's a difference between fiction and poetry programs, neither of which, as Abramson points out, are standardized and thus must vary from one to another]), I'm intrigued by the section concerning itself with "Conceptual writing" and Goldsmith's "peak language" theory; but by intrigued, I mean I don't understand what the hell he's talking about. Topically, or superficially, it seems to be aligned with Language poetics, but I have the feeling--the fear of misunderstanding--that they're designedly antipodal. Either way, from what I've read and researched about them, I find their (mis)appropriation of language to be somewhat vulgar and/or offensive; not that I'm a purist by any means, but it seems antithetical to what poetry has always, more or less, been about: self-expression, communication, & c. In that sense, they seem to have taken their Oedipal complex--i.e., as a historically traditional movement/reaction between generations--to an extreme for the sake of extremity, however misguided as omnidirectional and nondirectional, both (if that makes sense).

I was also intrigued by the part that alludes to the Sophists--i.e., this idea of language, persuasion, attention, and their respective autonomies (and that concept of subject-in-itself)--as it pertains to something I previously considered in one of my digressions, along with what little I remember from Greek philosophy, and that is the possible correspondence between this antago-complicit dance and the relativistic Sophists--as opposed to the universalities of Socrates (despite his "I know that I know nothing" bullshit)--but other than that, I really don't see where the Sophists fit in. Ugh, there were a lot of moments like this while reading and re-reading this essay; times when I would, at once, agree with what Abramson is saying and then, upon further investigation, see that maybe I was projecting my own ideas in a blend with his. And so, while I tend to agree with certain sentiments--including those from other things he's written--I think some of his connections, diagnoses, and predictions are off; but then again, he's read way more contemporary poetry than me.

To the Break of Dawn with Michael Robbins

The concluding poem in the Michael Robbins's poetry collection, Alien vs. Predator, does just that: it concludes by outlining and redefining Robbins's aesthetic and approach to poetry through the persona of a bedroom DJ. Like a DJ, or a mashup artist, the MC/speaker blends (and celebrates) their tastes in music and, in this case, literature as a means of reflexively tracing their influences, along with their aesthetic development and experience within the medium/media. For many bedroom DJs, and artists/poets, tracing and then retracing this lineage can be a lonely experience, whether it's digging in the crates for that special beat, that diamond in the rough, among those stack upon stacks of broken dreams in a dimly lit basement; or if it's before an invisible crowd in some studio apartment bedroom--also a bathroom, kitchen, and living room--at 4 a.m., after hearing the sickest set that has finally inspired you to play out or at the next battle; but regardless of whether you will or not, you'll still be spinning plates of wax until the break of dawn, or until your neighbors complain to your landlady who tells you to kill that hippity hop music or get out.

Ah-so, the path of a bedroom DJ/basement MC (poet) is a lonely one: the amount of time that is spent digging and reading; between those moments, far and few between, in which you discover those hits and beats that incite and stir the sublime inside you; whether it's a forty-five of the Fat Boys you spun until you met the grooves of the B-side: a hole left vacant until "Mobb Deep met up with the Alchemist." Until that moment, you wander lonely and faithlessly, trying your hand in another faith: Bob Dylan, until he found God like a stranger taken in by reading The Watchtower some Jehovah-Witness neighbor gave 'em. Hart Crane, until he finally gave in and jumped off the bridge/boat. And then losing faith entirely (for the second time ["To write Nazi poetry / after Auschwitz is barbaric. And so inelegant."]) while standing Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, watching the abrupt change in velocity (delta-v) of planes hitting monolithic buildings/monuments/pillars: the apocalyptic/helter-skelter end of life as we (thought we) knew it, and the beginning of a seemingly meaningless universe instantiated/substantiated by luck a la Big Bang--all in the bang of collapsing buildings. Meanwhile, everything is eyed, skeptically/suspiciously, as jingle-jangle fallacies, never knowing what or whom to trust: the appearances of things vs. their realities.

Eventually, you get over it; you find yourself again; accept both the possibilities and the impossibilities as feasible, bound, determined (pre-), likely, eventual, whatever. How everything can be defined: whatever ("The morning slathers its whatever / across the thing.) Whatever, "I could care less. I couldn't care less / means the same thing." Or maybe not. But what the fuck is gravity? Bob Dylan told me it failed, but I've yet feel the difference, even though Eminem reminded me of the fact. I'm still lonely. What am I talking about? But I can feel Celine and Celan; I can listen to "Turn the Beat Around," or watch the movie of the same title, and feel entertained; I can watch And the Band Played On and feel informed; "The truth, too, is fourfold: [...] 4) the movie never ends, it goes on and on".

Have we considered why there are four parts/sections in/to this collection? Four-to-the-floor or the Four Horsemen? Dunno. More allusions/"use your illusion"/references to the formation of the self vis-a-vis the public, your enemies, sound, youth, and David Bowie. Every time I picture myself as someone else, I'm a second behind. Wittgenstein believed “that the most serious and profound problems and questions and issues could be discussed only in the form of jokes.” Making coffee with the same grounds to replace the water I'm pissing out. What? It all sounds Greek and schizophrenic to me.

Ah-so, any-/either way, we keep on keepin' on, dropping needles on wax and hard Stax, adjusting the pitch control to match the snares, bass drums, and hi-hats of tunes with different rhythms, trying to make sense of our world through art, till death do we part, for the dollar dollar bill, monetary compensation, or the yes yes y'all, affirmation/recognition. You ain't a DJ until you can scratch, and it's easier to scratch and count money with lotion on its skin. Lines serving as definition: "I translate the Bible into velociraptor"; "The truth makes me hurl, the truth's a mistake"; "I replace the mirrors with Rorschach blots"; "Life is but the interpretation of a dream"; "Old pond, frog jumps in, so what"; "just junk in a Safeway cart I'm pushing / down to the recycling center"; "I'd re- your very life arranged". Ugh, fin.