Interesting to see Ed Baker's reporting of Allen Ginsberg's words in his comment to the previous post:
Who do we write for? "For those who dig it!"
Good answer. I remember Ric Cadell saying something similar, like 'poetry is for interested people'. Treating poetry like another commodity means 'selling' it into 'a market'. Sure, we need to create a cultural environment which is conducive to the appreciation of poetry. But people's need for poetry comes from a different place to their need for iPods and wide-screen TVs.
Ric was a wise man. :-)
ReplyDelete... and, here is how L.Z "put it" in 1936
ReplyDeleteThe test of poetry is the range of pleasure it affords as sight, sound, and
intellection.... criticism probes only my own considerations. I believe
that desirable teaching assumes intelligence that is free to be attracted
from any consideration of every day living to always another phase of
existence. Poetry, as other object matter, is after all for interested people.
(L.Z, A Test of Poetry, 1936)
whic I use as "intro/pre-face" to
G OO DNIGHT
another "soon to be published"
magnanuhmous opus
via
MORIA PRESS
That's intereting Ed. The quote from Zukofsky sums up what we've been saying. Ric Cadell must have been quoting LZ, which he often did.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the book. It's on my shopping list.