DETAILED COMMENTS ON YOUR POETRY AT REASONABLE RATES If you write poetry, give it your best. |
Here are some interesting sites and information/advice I would like to share with you. I will expand this list and
I welcome suggestions from clients and others.
The Wikipedia article that was recently posted for Judson Jerome (see below) prompted a reader to send me the
following email on November 6, 2009:
Hello
My grandmother passed away last week and I was down there (in south Arkansas) helping my mother
go through things. One of the books she had (which I got) was Jerome's "The Poet and The Poem"
from 1963. What an amazing book! And man, I like this guy. I am a songwriter, and so much of what
he says could apply there - just replace "poem" with "song".
I am jealous that you were able to know him so well.
And I agree that the current wikipedia is far too short given my understanding of his contributions.
-Brad
Every few months I search on Google for "Judson Jerome," to see what's out there about my late great friend.
Usually the first four to six pages of links will have one or two links to one of my Web site pages. On September 7,
2009 my search turned up something new: The very first link is to a Wikipedia article on Jud. It was apparently
posted in late July. What really surprised me was one of the external links shown on the Wikipedia page--a link to
"Hayes Walker's recollections of his longtime correspondence with Jerome." The link connects with my page titled
"How Well I Knew Judson Jerome..."
It is my understanding that very brief articles on Wikipedia are subject to deletion at the whim of those who manage
the site. Here is the text of that page (minus the distinctive Wikipedia formatting) as it appears today, 9-8-09:
Judson Jerome (1927 - August 5, 1991 in Xenia, Ohio) was an American poet, author, and literary
critic, perhaps best known for having written the poetry column for Writer's Digest for thirty years.
Jerome was also responsible for a controversial amendment to Ernest Hemingway's 1933 short story
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place; in 1956, Jerome--then an assistant professor of English at Antioch
College--wrote to Hemingway to inquire about a section of dialogue which he saw as problematic.
Hemingway responded to Jerome with the thirteen words "I read the story again and it still makes
perfect sense to me"; however, when A Clean, Well-Lighted Place was republished posthumously in
Scribner's Magazine in 1965, the passage in question had been changed to address Jerome's concerns.
The Jerome-inspired changes, and whether Scribner's was correct in making them, remain a subject of
debate among Hemingway scholars.
External links
Obituary at the New York Times
Hayes Walker's recollections of his longtime correspondence with Jerome
Categories: American poets Deaths from lung cancer 1927 births 1991 deaths
Here is a link to the Wikipedia article on Judson Jerome. I'll check it occasionally to see if it has been updated.
My client Elwin U. sent me a link to a Web site devoted to something called "HipBone Games." He referred me
to the page "The Glass Bead Game," which discusses a theoretical game that is central to Hermann Hesse's novel
Magister Ludi. That page links to a page "Explaining the Glass Bead Game," where the author of the site, Charles
Cameron, offers comments that have much in common with advice I have been conveying to amateur poets since I
started my poetry criticism service in 1983. The passage I'm referring to appears below. Those of you who want
to know more about the Glass Bead Game and HipBone Games can explore the site further at HipBone Games.
"As a poet, I have some very definite opinions about the arts, and believe for instance that all the arts
depend on a marriage of passion with tight structure... I believe you can write a clever poem without heart,
and it will be dry and lifeless, or a passionate poem without skill, and it will mean next to nothing to anyone
except the person you wrote it for--but that when you combine passion and skill, you get a poem that can
transmit your passion to a far wider audience... which is why the great love poems from Shakespeare to
ee cummings are still feverishly quoted by teenage lovers...
"I believe, in other words, that this business of passion and formal restraint is one of those cross-disciplinary
truths like the inverse square law. As I put it recently:
"Great splash alone is all wet. Tight focus alone is a trickle. But great splash passing through tight
focus can send water arcing through the air to great heights, to land at a great distance...
"Let's take this a little further.
"Music is the marriage of passion with tight structure in the field of sound, poetry the marriage of passion with
tight structure in the field of words, etc. And if I'm right about this, the GBG [Glass Bead Game] is the marriage
of passion with tight structure in the field of ideas--specifically including verbal, pictorial, and musical ideas."
While reading that passage by Cameron, I realized that in nearly every critique I have ever written, I have emphasized
the concept of tight structure (or "well-crafted form," as I'm more likely to express it), but I have rarely, if ever, felt
the need to require that a poet bring more passion to his or her work. I can't recall having had a client whose poetry
exhibited a deficiency of passion. For most amateur poets, their deepest emotions and most ardent beliefs are far more
important than the scansion of a line or the appropriateness of a rhyme, and their poetry inevitably suffers from their
misplaced concerns. The poets who are the least amateurish are those who either have an inborn sense of (or passion
for) formal structure, or who somehow develop or learn such a sense or passion. All of this should seem obvious, but it
rarely is obvious to an amateur poet. Like the hypothetical recipient of Richard Wilbur's "Advice to a Prophet," I've
sometimes feared that I would become "mad-eyed from stating the obvious." And to paraphrase the fellow on the
porch in It's a Wonderful Life, I've often felt that passion is wasted on the wrong people. America needs ten million
fewer people who are passionate about scattering emotion-laden words on paper, and ten million more people who are
passionate about demanding a national solar energy program.
Mathom Bookshop, owned and operated by poet Lewis Turco, stocks an impressive array of books--including
many first editions and autographed copies--in the fields of poetry, fiction, criticism, history, Americana, Maine,
antiquarian & rare, philosophy & religion, reference, agriculture & nature, exploration & travel, social sciences,
art, music, and science & technology.
Poetics & Ruminations appears to be the best link to access Lew online. The Web address he used for years,
www.mathombookshop.com, is apparently no longer available.
Pet Portraits by Arran is my younger daughter's venture into self-employment. She describes her style as "whimsical,"
but at least one of her works transcended whimsy. Thorstein was my wife's and my cat for eighteen of his nineteen years.
He developed an inoperable tumor in his belly, and we had to have him put down in April 2004. He loved catnip--a lot--so
Arran painted him in a garden of catnip, and captured something of his soul in the process. Take a look.
Mark Worden is one of the few people I would trust (other than myself, of course) to advise poets about how to improve
their writing. Don't ask him to do that, though. I don't even want to think about how terribly he would be offended and
how badly he might behave. Fortunately, you (and I) can partake of Mark's wisdom by visiting his Web site. Topics
include: Advice To Young Poets; The Lucidist Manifesto; The Type-A Poet; and The Worden Report. If you're a poet--
or if you're afraid you might be--drink deeply of the prescriptions offered on Mark's pages. (If symptoms persist, send
me a specimen--of your poetry, that is-- with appropriate payment for analysis.)
In another (presumably more lucrative) career, Mark Worden has co-written (with Gayle Rosellini) six self-help
"recovery" books including Taming Your Turbulent Past, Of Course You're Angry, and Barriers to Intimacy.
Caleb Murdock and Rhina P. Espaillat have established a fine poetry anthology site called The Poem Tree. The site is
dedicated to the memory of Judson Jerome and currently includes four of Jud's poems. Caleb has done a superb job of
annotating and updating Jud's treatise Publishing Poetry, which was originally published by Trunk Press in 1981.
Anyone interested in publishing poetry should read every word of it. Here is a direct link to Jud's Publishing Poetry.
Poetry Magic, despite its cheesy title, is trying to be a serious "theory and craft resource centre" for poets. Currently
consisting of about forty brief articles on various aspects of poetry, the site seems to be predominantly written by
C. John Holcombe. A note informs us that Holcombe "was for many years the Chairman of one of the UK's longest-
running poetry writing groups"--hardly the most impressive qualification one could hope for, but remarkable in its way.
I've read a few of the articles and skimmed another dozen or so. There's a lot of information in the site, organized
and expressed rather well, and certainly worth knowing about, if not all worth agreeing with.
I would caution readers against adopting the all-embracing and uncritical disposition that seems typical of Chairman
Holcombe. I'll invoke the "fair use" doctrine and give you some examples:
"Many (poems)--probably the great majority--are never accepted by reputable magazines and simply
have to be aired in poetry groups..."
I'd like to tell him, Oh, no, they don't!
Holcombe takes a couple of stabs at a definition of poetry. Here's the first, tentative try:
"What is poetry? A short piece of imaginative writing, of a personal nature and laid out in lines
is the usual answer. Will that do?"
It won't do for me, and we're fortunate that it wouldn't do for any of our major poets or virtually all of our good
minor poets. Admitting that "definitions are difficult in the arts," Holcombe takes another whack at it:
"Perhaps we could say that poetry was a responsible attempt to understand the world in human terms
through literary composition."
Well, that does some damage by suggesting that poetry is a thing of the past, that poetry is by definition "responsible,"
and that it's possible to understand the world in nonhuman terms. Also, it makes no distinction between poetry and
other forms of literary composition. I don't think Holcombe thought it through very well.
I suspect Holcombe and I would disagree about the percentage of poetry that qualifies as "responsible." Shall I offer
some estimates? How about fifteen percent of current poetry that gets published in print, and three percent of what
gets displayed on the Web? (I'm being much too kind, of course.)
Read the Poetry Magic site with a critical eye.
Recommended Reading
The above-mentioned Lewis Turco has written brilliantly and boldly on various aspects of the art and the practice
of poetry. He is also a remarkably accomplished poet. When you visit his Web site, be sure to order at least
the following books: The Shifting Web: New and Selected Poems; The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics;
Visions and Revisions of American Poetry; and The Public Poet. (Add my Selected Poetry and Song Lyrics
to the order while you're at it.)
If you can find Judson Jerome's The Poet and the Poem in a library or a used book store, I highly recommend
that you read it. (See my home page for a link to the Preface and first three chapters.) This is the book that
can be your best mentor in your life as a poet. The third edition was issued in 1979 and it is out of print.
Amazon.com will search for a used copy. (Also ask for his Thirty Years of Poetry, 1949 - 1979, also out of
print.) Jerome's The Poet's Handbook is still available in paperback from the publisher, Writer's Digest Books.
Barnes and Noble carries Jerome's in-print titles. On my home page there is a link to a generous selection of
Jud's poetry, painstakingly typed, proofread, and formatted by little ol' me. A labor of love, most certainly.
If you are just starting out writing poetry (or just starting to seriously read it, for that matter), try to expose
yourself to plenty of mainstream professional-level British and American poetry. A good, inexpensive
starting point is Immortal Poems of the English Language, edited by Oscar Williams. From there, go on to
Mid-Century American Poets, edited by John Ciardi; The New Oxford Book of American Verse, chosen and
edited by Richard Ellman; and The New Oxford Book of English Verse, chosen and edited by Helen Gardner.
In the last-named volume, I noticed that the first fifty-six lines of Oliver Goldsmith's "The Deserted Village"
had been excerpted under the title "Sweet Auburn," and the rest of that long poem--about twelve pages--
had been omitted without explanation. I don't know if the editor originated that "version" or is perpetuating
someone else's butchery, but as the editor, Gardner is responsible for presenting it in that form. When
excerpting is deemed necessary in an anthology, it should be made clear what is being done, as in "from
'An Essay on Criticism,'" "from 'In Memoriam,' " etc.
A few parting shots, upon which I might expound at length later:
Some people write poetry as if they've spent more time in the greeting card aisle of the supermarket than in the
library. A few writers of mass-market verse--and non-verse--have built very successful careers. No doubt their
effusions fill a need for many people whose hunger for platitudes and certitudes exceeds their appreciation of
originality, rationality, and craft. That says a lot about our society and our educational systems.
Don't get too wrapped up in the work of a particular poet. Diversify your interests.
Read a hundred good poems for every one you try to write.
Read a hundred metered poems for every one that's in so-called "free verse."
Read at least ten poems by deceased poets for each one you read by a living poet--but don't neglect living
poets, because many of them deserve your attention.
If you write religious poetry, read the following books before you write any more poems: The God Delusion
by Richard Dawkins; Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman; Lost Christianities by Bart D. Ehrman; Jesus,
Interrupted by Bart D. Ehrman; and The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman,
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