And I get this email at
this moment from you about “The State of Poetry.”
I dropped all of my
troubles and dove into the essay by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers. It was
illuminating since our educational backgrounds and career choices are radically
different, if we share certain points-of-view. I appreciate her frankness.
Amen. During the reading of her essay, I took the time to Google the contents
of Dove’s anthology. I recall hearing about it while it was in progress, then
promptly went about my usual madness, assuming I would NOT be included in her
effort for Penguin. After all, I do know Dove’s work which expresses her POV.
And, as one reviewer once said of me, and I agreed with that assessment, which
stunned me at the time, I’m “outside the outside.” And at this moment, I’m especially
pleased to be outside of the literary frays going on at this interval. Let those
who have the time for this bullshit deconstruct each other and themselves.
If I really believed Dove
was as fine a writer as I am, I would have been insulted by her omission from
her interesting anthology. But then, if
I cried over all the omissions I would be dead of dehydration. If I can survive Forché’s omission, I can
survive Dove’s. Yet, I agree with roughly
2/3rds of her choices, although I would have definitely included Sylvia Plath
and Reznikoff. I would have omitted Sonia Sanchez, Don L. Lee, Mary Oliver,
Gertrude Stein, Carolyn Kizer, Kenneth Koch, Walcott, and myself (Dove—like the
embarrassingly mediocre Oscar Williams—doesn’t have the cojones grande to do
THAT) since, as an anthologist, I prefer to let my editorial selections speak
for me. Too—I’m in over 150 anthologies, so I needn’t be greedy. I’m pleased to
see two poets my work has influenced—Naomi Shihab Nye and Natasha Thetheway in
the mix. So in that sense Dove could not keep out my influence on American
Poetry (hahaha).
I was surprised and pleased
that Dove selected poems by B.H. Fairchild, because, as one of my lancemen, he
deserved the attention. I find it amusing that she included Derek Walcott who
shares the exact same opinion about the entirety of American Black Literature that
Louis Simpson has about the poems of Gwendolyn Brooks, as observed by Honoree.
If I didn’t tell you the story, I have told others about the time—now some 15
years ago at least—that I rose anonymously from an audience of 200 at a
gathering at Pitzer-Pomona colleges and asked Walcott (who was being hosted
around by Michael S. Harper at that event) what he thought about the writings
of African American writers. He stated quite frankly that he thought we were
inferior to our Francophone counterparts
(the Brits and others among formerly colonized parts of The Diaspora); that
they were better writers. I wish you could have seen Michael turn five shades
redder. There were some murmurs from some of those who knew my identity. I did
not confront the gentleman further. (Come to think of it, Harper omitted me
from his anthology Every Shut Eye Ain’t
Sleep.) Thank FUKUROKUJU Dove included Ai, who also had a finer sensibility
than Dove, and who was more intellectually complex than Dove—if—in the past, I
wasn’t too thrilled with critics who told me to my face that they wished I
wrote more like Ai (meaning more acceptable to the White Male Establishment
Honoree discusses).
I wrote and delivered a
paper on Phillis Wheatley around that time at the behest of Poet’s House in NYC
and was invited there to present it, which I did. I have never gotten it
together enough to submit it for print; however, one of the striking omissions
critics make when analyzing Wheatley’s work is skirting how boldly she cops and
redirects the poetic licks of Alexander Pope! Apparently our scholars are not
scholarly enough (or are not brave enough) to acknowledge that obvious and
powerful influence. And here I am a day late, two dollars short and no college
degree to my name. I guess bootstraps don’t count for much these days.
Austin and I have met
Perloff on several occasions. She even appeared on our Pacifica radio program “The
Poetry Connexion." I think
she’s brilliant but narrow in interesting ways. She has at least acknowledged
that I exist. I’ve never met Helen Vendler, disagree with much of her
criticism, and suspect she’d have no more use for my poetry than Dove.
In sum E.E.—I have always
assumed that artistic “freedom” was the point. The freedom to present my work
to the world. Come hell, come high water. Given that, I thoroughly believe that
Dove, and any other anthologist, should have the freedom to put whoever they
want in their anthology. Look at old Oscar Williams or Mark Strand. Yes—factor
in taste, race, politics, and posturing. BES give me the luck to someday edit
my own anthology, reflecting my literary aesthetics, and the strength to
survive the onslaught. Until then, I’m too busy sweating staying alive and
enjoying what little there is to enjoy of my life in the underclass.
Wanda
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