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poetry and greatness
Feb. 22nd, 2009 12:56 amFrom the New York Times Book Review:
"In reviewing 'Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence of Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell' for the Book Review recently, William Logan carried this tendency to its logical if nutty conclusion, depicting the two poets as star-crossed lovers despite the fact that (a) Bishop was a lesbian; and (b) Lowell’s only romantic overture to Bishop in their 30-year friendship — and this was a man who would’ve made a pass at a fire hydrant — was met with polite silence by its intended recipient. Yet while this flight of fancy is almost comically unfair to both writers, it does give us a workable if unwieldy model of greatness. Bishop wrote the poems, Lowell acted the part, and if you simply look back and forth fast enough between the two while squinting, it’s possible to see a single Great Poet staring back at you."
Genius.
Incidentally, some months ago, after reading that review, I went and read some poems by Lowell, and some by Bishop. I loved Bishop and found Lowell dull, and I'm more pleased than I ought to be to find out that the establishment agrees, albeit very reluctantly.
More from the same article:
"...look at a peculiar development in American poetry that has more or less paralleled the growth of creative-writing programs: the lionization of poets from other countries, especially countries in which writers might have the opportunity to be, as it were, shot...consider how Robert Pinsky describes the laughter of the Polish émigré and Nobel Prize-winning dissident Czeslaw Milosz: 'The sound of it was infectious, but more precisely it was commanding. His laughter had the counter-authority of human intelligence, triumphing over the petty-minded authority of a regime.' That’s one hell of a chuckle."
"In reviewing 'Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence of Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell' for the Book Review recently, William Logan carried this tendency to its logical if nutty conclusion, depicting the two poets as star-crossed lovers despite the fact that (a) Bishop was a lesbian; and (b) Lowell’s only romantic overture to Bishop in their 30-year friendship — and this was a man who would’ve made a pass at a fire hydrant — was met with polite silence by its intended recipient. Yet while this flight of fancy is almost comically unfair to both writers, it does give us a workable if unwieldy model of greatness. Bishop wrote the poems, Lowell acted the part, and if you simply look back and forth fast enough between the two while squinting, it’s possible to see a single Great Poet staring back at you."
Genius.
Incidentally, some months ago, after reading that review, I went and read some poems by Lowell, and some by Bishop. I loved Bishop and found Lowell dull, and I'm more pleased than I ought to be to find out that the establishment agrees, albeit very reluctantly.
More from the same article:
"...look at a peculiar development in American poetry that has more or less paralleled the growth of creative-writing programs: the lionization of poets from other countries, especially countries in which writers might have the opportunity to be, as it were, shot...consider how Robert Pinsky describes the laughter of the Polish émigré and Nobel Prize-winning dissident Czeslaw Milosz: 'The sound of it was infectious, but more precisely it was commanding. His laughter had the counter-authority of human intelligence, triumphing over the petty-minded authority of a regime.' That’s one hell of a chuckle."