Whatever you call it, is NOT a school or movement in the traditional sense. It's a way to describe that most numbrous of verse--
That is, MOST writing is what various people call "mainstream." Were it not, we would not have a mainstream. SOQ is simply a derogatory way to say "mainstream." It's what MOST poets write.
To describe the SOQ as Jonathan has is a bit disingenuous--it's not a prescriptive term. It's descriptive. It describes what's out there. Poets don't sit down and say "Today I will write an SOQ poem." Teachers don't teach their students to write "SOQ poems." They teach them to write poems.
I do know, though, from first- and second-hand experience that certain writing programs only teach mainstream-approved writing and very little else, but it's hardly a conspiracy. Professor GH decides early on that "experimental" writing is crap, and so he doesn't expose his students to it because he doesn't think it's worth reading or learning from. This is hardly an active conspiracy. I don't teach Sharon Olds or Philip Levine to my students. That doesn't mean that I'm actively campaigning against them. It just means I think their poetry stinks.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, terms like OVC and SOQ, are simply rhetorical tricks that dismiss out of hand the vast majority of poetry being written today. If something is SOQ, then it simply isn't worth paying attention to. Which is patently false. I mean, let's look at our buddy Franz Wright. Sure, dude's got a temper, and sure, his work is probably pretty darn SOQ, but I think he's a pretty good poet. But I'd never have read him at all if I spent too much time listening to Uncle Ron.
What polemicists of any stripe do is attack that which they do not like. And hope others agree or change their minds to agree. Duh. So Ron says X and a bunch of his readers say "I agree with X." This sort of indoctrination into the "anti-SOQ" ranks (as Seth puts it) is not much different from Prof. GH, who insists that his students read ONLY Philip Levine, Sharon Olds, and Percy Shelley. I'm sure Ron doesn't threaten people with bodily harm, but y'know, it's the same thing.
When a New Sincerist says that "90% of poetry is crap," she means 90% of language poetry, 90% of new formalism, 90% of confessional free verse, 90% of post-avant, 90% of elliptical, 90% of foot fetish poetry, 90% of old formalism, 90% of EVERYTHING.
There's a difference.
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From David Shapiro's "Voice":
are you in the
"forgetting movement"
Kitsch and poetry
No I'm in the remembrance
movement and poetry
is fire in the house
Right on. You go girl! (er . . . man)
That's not how I read Ron. He is contemptuous of a lot of things, has strong opinions. Well, why not? It seems to me he is a prescriptive critic rather than a proscriptive one. He spends way more time telling you what he likes than ragging on what he considers shite.
That's how I read him anyway. And I sure don't agree with him all the time. Some of what he enthuses about bores me silly.
I like the idea of labeling the "mainstream" the way Ron's chosen to. School of Quietude. OK. There isn't Poetry and Experimental Poetry and Language Poetry and Concrete Poetry. But Poetries, among which is the Mainstream (a term one might consider presumptuous) or SoQ. To clump a group of poets as the Mainstream hides variation in their work. Given several groupings one could sort poets into more than one grouping.
Rather than howl about there just being Poetry, dammit, maybe we need several more labels. Olds is a Gothic writer, for instance.
That was my point about invisibility. Nobody thinks of himself as mainstream. That's the privilege of being mainstream. You don't have to have a school because you ARE the SCHOOL. Like, nobody calls on me to perform my white heterosexual identity. Remember my original post analyzed an editorial statement that discouraged poems adhering too narrowly to any school of poetry. My point was that the mainstream had the privilege of not viewing itself as narrow.
A-fucking-men to this post. The connotations that go with calling poetry "School of Quietude" are simply absurd to apply to all mainstream verse and simply absurd to avoid applying to all non-mainstream verse. It's a useless term.
Hello,
I'd have to say that in my experience Robert Pinsky DID try to teach us SOQ poems when I was at BU.
It was an unfortunate situation to find myself in though it was blanaced out by Derek Walcott's great lectures on British & Caribbean poetry.
All my classmates there more or less ignored Walcott (O race) and fawned over the dull King of SOQ.
--Guillermo
Guillermo,
Uh, yeah, but so what?
Did you read my post?
I don't think that Pinsky was actively trying to anoint you with SOQ oil.
But I could be wrong.
But to say that Walcott is a corrective balm to Pinsky is like saying "gee, I'm glad that that hag Sharon Olds stopped teaching here. Now I can learn some real good shit from this fuckin' awesome dude, Philip Levine."
Walcott. Pinsky. Etc.
Big effin deal.
They're all sellin the same snake oil.
Pinsky is an interesting point of reference—when I asked him what contemporary poets he was reading, he listed two names, looked really uncomfortable, and then told me he preferred not to read contemporary poetry. Which is fine, not judging there at all. Just tossing it out.
An important note about SoQ is that Ron couches it as the type of verse Americans write in order to mimic or kowtow to a perceived notion of what proper British poetry is, and this effort began with, Ron believes, Poe.
Interestingly, much of the British poetry I've encountered owes a debt to—or even furthers—the mission of Lang Po
Hi Tony,
No need to expect me to discuss all the points in your post. I did read your post and pretty much agreed with it.
I simply think that Pinsky was not only a bad poet but an asshole too. And that he was indeed trying to get his students to write in a certain monotonous style. He was teaching a very tired, formulaic method of composition.
As for Walcott, I like his work and feel it's very removed from Pinsky et al. For one, there's a racial/ethnic element I identify with in his work. Walcott, along with various other Caribbean writers (Aime Cesaire, Wilson Harris, Kamau Brathwaite) are crucial antidotes to provincial North American schools (post-avant or SOQ) that seem to exist in a cultural vacuum.
--Guillermo
Wait, my mentioning "race" probably qualifies me for derision as a member of the tortilla school.
Calma, brother. I'm sure you like some poets I think are whack. I mean, for instance, Frantz Wright? Yawn.
Guillermo,
Hey man---I guess I need to explain my usage of "tortilla school." It is not meant in any way to simply denigrate writers who incorporate "ethnic" material in their writing. But more on that later--and please, hold me to it--I need to be called out and I need to explain it. No time RIGHT NOW, but tomorrow maybe.
In any case, I hear you on Walcott & Pinsky---if forced to choose one or the other, well, I'd go Walcott, for some of the reasons you mentioned.
Aesthetically, though, they're not that different. And that was my point. They're both comfortably in "the mainstream"---and nothing wrong with that, per se....
And as for Wright--Yeah, I used to detest him too, but that's before I really read him. I think he's not bad now.
Same---I really like some of Walcott's work (can't say the same for Pinsky) but overall, he's not someone I find essential. That said, whatever---whatever works for you or doesn't.
It's weird how these discussions always devolved into who I don't like--I know I'm as guilty as anyone else, but it's not my POINT, hear?
All best,
Tony
That's funny, I used to kinda like FW's work, then I really read him & now detest him.
Walcott ought to be interesting. That is, if you describe who he is in the abstract without really reading the work, he sounds like he's doing something interesting. Yet the style is more often than not pretentious and bombastic. There's this long section of his most recent long poem where he's describing a blonde waitress in Switzerland and comparing her to a Norse goddess. It's really embarrassingly bathetic and long-winded. it's a shame because Walcott has a great ear and is in some ways a prodigious talent. If only he could write a readalbe page.
I could go either way on FW. I'd have to read more. Pinsky I'm glad to hear is an awful teacher anointing with the SoQ oil.
I hear you too, Tony, both in the post and in your comments.
As for Walcott, I know the part Jonathan is talking about in "The Prodigal" and agree it's pretty bad stuff. There's lots of mediocre Walcott.
Poems such as "The Gulf" or most of "Omeros" are the ones that seem quite good & exciting to my ear.
Something your post & these comments do highlight is how differently each of us can end up reading a particular text. Which is what most of us probably love about poetry: the way it constantly shifts.
Best,
--Guillermo
Thanks for this post--was the inspiration for the "American Laureate" skit--!
Luv
Jimmy
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