Curtis and the Art of Silent Blogging

I and the Village

Curtis Faville ought to have his own blog. Of course, it’s easier for him to play off of the prolific Silliman. Someone unjustly said Curtis might be compared to the Ed McMahan of Johnny Carson fame, but I frankly don’t see Ron smiling in Johnny’s way, tapping away with a pencil. Certainly, it would seem Curtis does not laugh to the beat of one-liners. Curtis’ latest drop of wisdom—and he is to my mind one of the few people who can intellectually stand-up to Ron in both fact and fiction—concerns Ron’s obsession with community formation as some sort of golden key to success in poetry. (Success meaning, I guess, being read and known and admired by others.)

Curtis writes in response to a comment to Ron’s post of 9 August on the effects and/or significance of poetry contests (including winning and loosing):

I'm the last person with any "cred" but for my money you don't need a "scene" or a "book" to substantiate your work. Anyone who tells you differently...well, they have their agendas. My favorite poets of the 20th Century were mostly loners, if not in fact, then aesthetically, tinkering away in the wilderness. Think of Wallace Stevens. Carlos Williams. Zukofsky. Ronald Johnson. Poetry is NOT a social act, nor an "administrative" one (as Ron puts it).

Be an interesting person, and an interesting writer. Leave the schmoozing and the social-climbing to the carpetbaggers and stock-jockeys. They deserve each other.

Earn your living in the real marketplace of employment, or inherit. It'll make you a better writer in the end.

I’ve always felt naïve about making claims such as Curtis’, though I cannot help but be suspect of movements and schools and social cliques of any sort. There is a certain lack of purity in the movement / school concept where what seems to matter most is the poetry of the group and not poetry itself. Most manifestos, written and unwritten, tend to prove this as they set forth agendas or sets of rules (even rules of thought) that create exclusivity. But they are, of course, great promotional tools for some ways of thinking in poetry. Even general groupings such as LangPo or SoQ promote a sort of collusion between individuals to further specific interests that are often outside of poetry as art. Even simple sentences from people I admire such as “I cannot handle another dog poem or Wordsworth walk poem or rain poem, flower poem, a poem about a painting...” indicate fine prejudices that develop into exclusivity memes adopted by groups. Surprising what a statement from a leader can do for a follower. God forbid angel poems in spite of Rilke.

Though I cannot define in words that poetry of surprise, strangeness and originality that we seek, I wish to think that we can sense it. To paraphrase from Ron’s own The Chinese Notebook you ought not be content from just having others think of you as a poet. Whatever that means, or rather: “What if there were no other writers? What would I write like?”