TWENTY WORKS OF AMERICAN POETRY (+ 5) THAT YOU MUST READ BEFORE YOU CAN HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH ME ABOUT POETRY (written between 1820 - 1980).

One of the cornerstones.

A friend and I constructed a first draft of this list as a means of passing time, when returning from the MLA Conference in Los Angeles, more than a month ago. We originally called it "The Twenty Most Important Works of American Poetry (+5)" and I posted it as a 'note' on Facebook, in order to elicit some (heated) criticism. It was also (hotly) debated at DC Poetry Happy Hours (at The Reef) and via several (volcanic) email exchanges with people who reside without the District. Good points were made about (1) some of the works (i.e., we had foolishly listed the wrong collection for T.S. Eliot) and about (2) the title -- that, in the end, we could not necessarily be arbiters of "most important", since "importance" means different things to different people, but instead could put forward the list as a set of "relevant guideposts" for anyone who might wish to comment on the broad sweep of American poetry. Perhaps we were thinking as teachers; perhaps, we reasoned, these works should be read by students of ours who aspire to study American poetry or enter the "po' bidness" themselves. The list is not perfect, and I welcome a continuation of commentary and (broasted) debate. Please remember that we chose "works" as opposed to poets, but that said, the major poets do, more or less, seem to be here, on this list. Without further ado, and in A-B-C order, the relevant 'Mericans is:

John Ashbery // SELF PORTRAIT IN A CONVEX MIRROR (1975)

Amiri Baraka // PREFACE TO A TWENTY VOLUME SUICIDE NOTE (1961)

Ted Berrigan // THE SONNETS (1964)

Robert Creeley // FOR LOVE (1962)

Emily Dickinson // COLLECTED POEMS (written ca. 1858 until ca. 1886?; first collected 1955)

T.S. Eliot // THE WASTE LAND (1922)

Robert Frost // NORTH OF BOSTON (1914)

Allen Ginsberg // HOWL AND OTHER POEMS (1956)

Lyn Hejinian // MY LIFE (1980)

Langston Hughes // MONTAGE OF A DREAM DEFERRED (1951)

The Last Poets // THE LAST POETS (recording, 1970)

Frank O'Hara // LUNCH POEMS (1964)

George Oppen // OF BEING NUMEROUS (1968)

Sylvia Plath // ARIEL (1965)

Edgar Allen Poe // COMPLETE POEMS (written between 1827 and his death? 1849?)

Ezra Pound // THE CANTOS (1917-1969, unfinished)

Gertrude Stein // TENDER BUTTONS (1914)

Wallace Stevens // IDEAS OF ORDER (1936)

Walt Whitman // LEAVES OF GRASS (1855)

William Carlos Williams // SPRING AND ALL (1923)

(+ 5)

H.D. // TRILOGY (1946)

Jack Kerouac // MEXICO CITY BLUES (1959)

Lorine Niedecker // LORINE NIEDECKER: COLLECTED WORKS (Written before 1970; published 2002)

Charles Olson // THE MAXIMUS POEMS (written 1940s to 1970; unfinished; first published 1983.)

Jack Spicer // THE COLLECTED POETRY OF JACK SPICER (Published 2008.)

THE MULTIPARTY SYSTEM.

A film that redefines American political calculus

despite a muddled, overworn plea at the curtain

A major American political party can be, by one definition, a multiparty system unto itself. This is most evident in primary elections, when candidates vie for their party's "core constituencies" -- and officials adjust the party's platform, striving for a palatable structure that will house as many sub-groups as possible. Political pundits will, for instance, describe the Republican party as being comprised of the religious right, the wealthy, big business, fiscal conservatives, moderates, and the burgeoning Tea Party movement, among others, and these groups can threaten to abandon (i.e., fail to support) the coalition if they feel that the purity of their message is being compromised. The Democratic party may contain even more pieces. Every two years, after the government has been assembled, an expert socio-mathematician could attempt to define just how many blocs are in operation. Some governments can be more unified than others, and surprising partnerships can spring-up around certain issues, and a popular president can squander his mandate overnight. All true. In the end, though, if you want to vote for President, or for Senator, or for Representative, with few exceptions, you either have to vote Democrat or Republican; those are your choices: a two party umbrella. The sum of the little parties out there, simply, doesn't amount to much, beyond, for instance, a single seat in Vermont. A new documentary film, Inside Job, concludes, however, that America might have but a single party, when considering one of the most important facets of our society: the management of our vast, complex financial system. Despite the change in administration -- and the promises to the contrary that have accompanied this change -- the same kinds of faces wind up at the helm of Treasury, the Federal Reserve system, the SEC, and so forth; professionals who have been bred, apparently, on the boards or in the speculative environments of massive financial outfits. While Obama was not elected by his own party alone, and owes his presidency, at the very least, to a coalition that also included "swing voters" from other terrain, he was, nevertheless, nominated by a reinvigorated Democratic party which was driven by its fervor to rid the nation of various policies, support them or not, enacted under the presidency of Bush #2. When Democrats and Republicans alike elected candidate Obama, during a period of extreme economic distress, did they vote for him to appoint the same mold of individual appointed by the likes of Reagan, Bush #1, and Bush #2? (All Republicans.) In some cases, Obama appointed or re-appointed the very same people who served in those -- as well as centrist / similar Clinton -- administrations. One could argue that the Republicans who crossed the aisle to vote for Obama were doing so, in short, because they wanted a different kind of leadership, especially with respect to the economy. "Is there no other kind of economic leadership?" one might ask. Are there no other people? To bolster its suggestion that no, there aren't, Inside Job takes its viewers to the halls of academe where, it asserts, many faculty members employed in top-rated business schools and topnotch economics departments also serve or have served on the boards of major financial corporations, and espouse the viewpoint, to students, i.e., future leaders, that deregulation of the financial sector -- a major culprit behind the 2008 meltdown -- is sound policy. The film was, largely, a strong and frightening documentary, yet ended on a weak note. The actor Matt Damon, who served as the film's narrator, tells the audience that Americans should fight for a new kind of government, while the Statue of Liberty luxuriates in its brave stance, having been filmed, presumably, from a helicopter. It was a mixed message, at best: the voice of a wealthy actor imploring an amorphous "us" to buck for change, while an overly familiar, green and rippling French donation poses for a closeup taken from the cargo bay of an expensive, whirling gadget. The inability of the filmmaker to properly close the film unwittingly serves as a metaphor for the nation's political quagmire. The film probably meant to underscore the need for an "independent" but significant third party to arise, one to steer us Americans with the simplicity of good ideas, but it doesn't explore that slant. It doesn't ask whether independent politics are even possible, in the era of our Wall Street governance. Are we stuck, that is, with corrupt financial leadership that seems to -- magically -- reappoint itself?

CARTAGENA DE INDIAS.

"Panoramica de Cartagena" Enrique Grau

Center panel, triptych, oil on wood (1997-98)

There were at least two homages to the Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez located in Cartagena's indomitable Museo de Arte Moderno -- the magical elements that can be found in the three-part panorama painted by Enrique Grau (above: glowing religious figure, tumbling pilot, encroaching sheet of rain) and also a painting by Spanish artist Daniel de Campos, "Homenaje a G. Garcia Marquez." The latter, part of a traveling exhibition, Entre las dos orillas, depicts the desk and typewriter of the Nobel laureate, a work-worn, rumpled area that presages the writer's imminent reappearance. While the exhibition's title might translate as "Between the two shores," that is, the Spanish shores of the artist, and the South American shores of the former Spanish colony, it is de Campos' landscapes, in particular, that might recall a Frenchman, Cezanne, in composition and coloring. Cartagena, in its own way, reminds the traveler of other walled cities, the Old City of Acre, for example, in the Middle East, where the tall stone battlements preside over the lapping sea, and in this way, Cartagena, and perhaps Colombia, in general, fulfill de Campos' prediction -- that city and country are moving between many such dualities, if you will, or combinations of 'shores': Old City and towering condominiums; the prevalence of tradition versus oncoming cultural fusion; a period of relative political calm as opposed to recent-enough upheavals involving a vigorous insurgency and narcotics trade. There is more: in October, the lightning flashes offshore and inland, and the rains visit nearly every night -- long, clashing downpours that idle over blocks and neighborhoods, flooding the streets. On Columbus Day, the kids toss firecrackers and slosh through the streets and courtyards, banging a ball between one another in improvised futbol matches. The prescient traveler can purchase a meal of arepas and mango from street vendors then catch the Afro Caribbean dancers or the marching bands, the little girls at the back twisting their cymbals artfully before clattering them together. There are plenty of horse and mule-drawn carts to offset the many busses and tiny Chevy taxicabs, and numerous docile streetdogs roam the tight grid of streets, poking their snouts into garbage bags. Of course, there is more: the traveler can sit in the Iglesia de Santo Domingo, and contemplate the ecumenical weather of its smooth, blue dome. There is also a bone fide sloth to be found hanging out, in a banana tree, at the Palace of the Inquisition. In all, Cartagena is a harmonious place, even in the relatively grittier area of Getsemani, or the sprawling market outside the Old City, but as this blogger (aka Senor Gringo) discovered, one can still make a gruesome finding -- in this case, as part of a side trip, well outside the Old City, in search of more Marquez mythology. To say that one must not stick out his arm, ever, farther than he absolutely needs to, would be a far too facile parry; the finding was a reminder that the forces of brutality are still at work, even as present day Cartagena offers a more panoramic view of tranquility than maybe it had, in recent decades. It has been hundreds of years since swashbuckling Spanish conquistadors slugged inland, through groups of natives spearing them with poison arrows, among other dangers; two hundred years after Napoleon occupied Spain, an act which, in part, precipitated the rebellious figures (Bolivar, et. al.) of New Granada to seek independence from their colonial overlords; and decades since Colombia modernized, in large part due to the coffee economy that other South American, Latin American, and Caribbean nations have, too, enjoyed. The future for Colombia might be brilliant, indeed, and Cartagena once again is the gateway to the Colombian -- and South American -- interior; folks might want to visit before the tourists really dilute the place.

AM PLUTO WATERLY YOURS.

Louis ... Live ... at the Smith Corona!

Think that one kind of genius is 'trapped' within its own genius? Think again. Louis Armstrong reportedly purchased his first typewriter in Chicago, in the 1920s, and banged out letters on it, as a means of keeping time with loved ones back home in New Orleans. He crafted memoir, over the years, and articles, too -- rendered, at times, in jive, and through a unique system of punctuation which, according to Thomas Brothers, gives the reader clues as to how the musician would apply emphasis. Brothers is editor of Louis Armstrong in His Own Words: Selected Writings (Oxford UP, 2001) and author of a companion book, on W. W. Norton (2007): Louis Armstrong's New Orleans, said by one critic to be the finest book about Armstrong not written by the man himself. Consider the following excerpt from Selected Writings, the first sentence of a letter that Satchmo sent in 1967 to a marine serving in Vietnam: I'd like to 'step in here for a 'Minute or 'so' to "tell you how much--I 'feel to know that 'you are a 'Jazz fan, and 'Dig' 'that 'Jive--the same as 'we 'do, "yeah." Note the appearance of quotation marks (") outside their traditional function as well as the appearance of apostrophes (') at the front of words. Louis also underlines, capitalizes, and employs long dashes at surprising moments. How to pronounce the word "we" as Louis types it: 'we. Emphasis upon / within / to clarify / to reinvent Emphasis. Armstrong's writings instruct us to scan language for variations of stress -- in reverse of traditional English scansion, or on a separate axis entirely. There may be a 'new scansion' that the man himself invented, thus meriting close study by writer-folk and other creationists. If that's not enough, then read the Dipper's letters for his closing phrases. The man was, indeed, fond of his laxatives, and in closing "Swiss Krissly", for example, he endorsed the cleansing of things in the herbal way.

THE DISASTER ECONOMY.

It's no longer a 'Bump' after all.

If there is such a thing as The Disaster Economy, then there's hope for America yet. For the Disaster means Jobs. What better way to unite our Blown Wells and our Ne'er Do Wells? "Christmas come early" to some is "oily" to others: "Christmas come oily!" indeed. The Bump has become a Dip and the Dip threatens to Outright Mire. A very yellow bird flies by, a Goldfinch. But the old timer -- you know: fanny pack, green-striped tubesocks pulled to the knees -- calls it a "Dickcissel." How you gonna react to that? Tell him he can't say "Dickcissel"? That's ALL he wants to say, is "Dickcissel" -- he says it about every bird, and every academic theory, and every dip in Gross Domestic Product. "Dickcissel!" he shouts. "DICKCISSEL!" The storm brews and the storm's bruise and work's cruise and work crews: there's hope for America yet.

WORST CASE SCENARIO.

Hope for us all?

If it sleeps two Swedish it can sleep assorted Chosen ou huit chevaux. Which is, basically, Disparities, if not boxcars, but not cuisine. It's a Dug-out if you've Dug, and if you've Dug, you've probably saved your own ass, but either way, it's probably not the Dig-dug pen beside the EconoLodge American Dream, where you may or may not be able to Ambulate, any longer. You may have lost your chance -- to Ambulate. And now for Sport. It is always time for Sport. This has been Sport. And now for Sport. Cuisine should not be confused with Orientalism and it should not be confused with To Do List. There will be Cuisine, in all likelihood, irregardless of procrastination, and at that, please don't elevate your lethargy to some kind of Level. You're just a bum, is all. Anymore have you ever groomed yourself -- combings & pomades, I mean, but not toe jam -- in a way that would obstruct throwback Dissidence? Don't never, not once, don't never obstruct throwback Dissidence. If they don't throw it back, we'll never see our Dissidence ever again, and then we'll be left with wild, improbable scenarios that involve Mustard and Seduction -- dig?

BE MERRY. GO ROUND. BEWARE.

Somebody smelt a gas!

If a man says, "Am I wrong?" -- he's wrong. If a man says, "Am I right?" -- he's bullying. As a result, nobody is ever correct, and the economy can be found out back, under a few mossy rocks, where slugs suffer their blind, miserable lives. Religion says, "Stand up." Religion says, "Sit down." Sit down. And you're out :: of work. Did the Crooner becroon the crony? Did the Crooner becroon the crone? "Be merry," he sang, "go round. Go round," he sang, "beware." "Warfare," says the Commander, "is all about imposing Your will on the Other." Or is that love-making? Either way, it's becoming a world of spinning around and going, "HAH!", only nothing -- nobody -- is ever there: Am I Right?