Don’t Tell Him about “Day”
exchange in the letters section of Poetry magazine, October 2009:
Letter to the Editor
Dear Editor,
I received my July/August issue of Poetry this afternoon. As I do every month, I read the magazine from cover to cover. Unfortunately, for the first time I paused in the middle and questioned why a piece of poetry was selected for publication. I am referring to the poem “I Google Myself” by Mel Nichols. I’m certain the editors were aware of the incredible similarities between the poem and the lyrics of “I Touch Myself” by the Divinyls. In fact, some stanzas have been lifted entirely and the word “Google” has either been inserted or swapped for another word. As a poet, to see this is discouraging. Can you offer some solace to a poet, one working hard to write his own poetry, who now feels slapped in the face by his favorite magazine?
Mel Nicols Responds [after the jump]
As a poet, to see this is discouraging.
As a poet, to see this is discouraging.
As a poet, to see this is discouraging.
As a poet, to see this is discouraging.As a poet, to see this is discouraging.
As a poet, to see this is discouraging.
As a poet, to see this is discouraging.
As a poet, to see this is discouraging.As a poet, to see this is discouraging.
As a poet, to see this is discouraging.
As a poet, to see this is discouraging.
As a poet, to see this is discouraging.As a poet, to see this is discouraging.
As a poet, to see this is discouraging.Solace (in no particular order): Grapefruit (Yoko Ono); Midwinter Day (Bernadette Mayer); Memory (Bernadette Mayer); The Sonnets (Ted Berrigan); Silence (John Cage); The Writings of Marcel Duchamp; Merz (Kurt Schwitters); Seven Dada Manifestos and Lampisteries (Tristan Tzara); the work of Joseph Cornell; “Fantasy (dedicated to the health of Allen Ginsberg)” (Frank O’Hara); “Notes on ‘Camp’” (Susan Sontag); The Society of the Spectacle (Guy Debord); Andy Warhol; Scratch (a film by Doug Pray); Les glaneurs et la glaneuse (Agnès Varda); etc. See also: “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman.
For another example of new poetries represented in Poetry, curious readers may want to take a look at the February 1931 issue—I believe Lorine Niedecker, for instance, found it to be a useful resource.
Mel Nichols
>”Don’t tell him about Day…”
In fact, Michael, he will probably find out about it. A full page ad for my book is running in the November issue of Poetry.
Kent
Shit, how much did that cost?
Non-profit rate.
A steal.
Three corrections back-channel (or is that backchannel?)!
Hey, Wikipedia has it as “non-profit,” but, OK, I guess non is a prefix, so what I mean is Poetry’s nonprofit rate– which is quite reasonable, in fact, for a full-page ad.
Really? Hyphens I don’t care about. “Non-profit” is perfectly fine.
I do love that the comments streams begin to resemble the CMS’s Style Q&A column—my favorite question involved whether it was OK to wear jeans with a dress. I think it is, for the record.
Kent: you’re a fraud.
Michael: didn’t you find the Nichols response just mildly annoying? So smug.
Nevermind the Utahn. Bless him.
I don’t think I’ve implied that I don’t find Nichols’s response smug. It’s as smug as smug gets. But that doesn’t mean Marrott’s bafflement is any less annoying: it’s hard to imagine someone working even a little bit as a poet & somehow managing not to hear the slightest whisper of the avant-garde experiments in poetry of the twentieth century. And I mean, really, solace? No, as a poet I have to say fuck that. I also wonder, as a poet, what the hell is wrong with someone who reads Poetry regularly but has never before “questioned why a piece of poetry was selected for publication.” Dude needs to work on his prose, as a poet. Easy target, sure, but why should I “bless” his willful know-nothingness?
Utahn? Is that really what they’re called?
P.S. I assume “Kent, you’re a fraud” is meant as literal description & not hostile insult?
It was the slap-in-the-face comment that got me all itchy. Remember these guys?
Michael H:
Really, I’m real. There is an American flag right outside my window.
Come and meet me on October 24, at Myopic Books. Reading there with the great Linh Dinh. I may do something from the new book!
Kent
It seems that my failure to rectify my coma splice in my letter to the editor made it difficult for people to understand its point. I questioned the publication of Nichol’s poem because I prefer to read original work rather than something borrowed for the sake of hilarity. Poetry magazine has a long tradition of finding new and thoughtful approaches to the form. Yes, the quality varies but they are at least original pieces.
All expletives aside, I offer this on solace: the best poetry is born from solace rather than ridicule.
We are called Utahans.
That should have read comma splice.
You can “offer” whatever you want, it doesn’t make it true. Was The Iliad “born from solace”? If I could be bothered, I’d find some relevant passages in Allen Grossman for you, but instead I’ll just recommend you look at his work for yrself. Poetry’s not consolation.
And there isn’t a comma splice in yr letter. “As a poet, to see” contains a misplaced modifier. You need a subject for “as a poet”—most likely “I,” although why anyone would want to begin a sentence about himself that way is beyond me.
>You can “offer” whatever you want, it doesn’t make it true.
That’s a comma splice!
Though a permissible one…
I wrote “it’s” instead of “its” in my last comment to Harriet, where I propose to the young Thom Donovan that he might want to reconsider his “the poetical is the personal” finger-wag outburst.
Talk of translation always ends up elsewhere.
I googled “Utahans” to see if this was some weird poetic movement I haven’t heard of, and got the headline “Utahans Have Anatomically Correct Humpbacked Flute Player Statue Moved,” which I thought was pretty funny. So thanks to all concerned for that.