If your at a little league game it's rude, cruel, and in bad taste

to boo the players, no matter how awful they play.

But if you're at Yankee stadium watching a major league

game, booing is de rigeur for incompetence.

Hi richard (such a funny spelling),

Perhaps it's not a matter of negativity vs positivity (is there such a word?) as it is the manner or tone of the negativity.

And as for little league vs major league, many of Pinsky's picks have not have a collection of their poetry published yet -- maybe they're not little league, but they could be the grapefruit league.

Mary Ann

MaryAnn:

Hi richard (such a funny spelling),

Perhaps it's not a matter of negativity vs positivity (is there such a word?) as it is the manner or tone of the negativity.

And as for little league vs major league, many of Pinsky's picks have not have a collection of their poetry published yet -- maybe they're not little league, but they could be the grapefruit league.

Mary Ann

If they're that high up in the bush leagues, then some critique is also de rigeur.

The problem we -- and you -- need to face is that Pinsky has been trying for too long to palm off hack writing as good writing. Even when he publishes work by already-published authors, he tends to pick mediocre to bad examples -- as you yourself frequently demonstrate by finding and posting other examples (sometimes commented on by Pinsky himself) which are anything but mediocre or bad.

There's a reason for our "bad habit". It's overreaction to long experience with Chinese water torture. We didn't put the drip, drip, drip in place; Pinsky did.

wr ()()

Well said, man of few words. It is incumbent upon lovers of poetry to call it as we see it. Too many incompetents are published these days simply because they have "credentials" -- and if we who see that the Emperor is stark naked do not cry out, who shall defend the name of poetry?

Angel

I feel most of them are in the rotten tomato league.

Angel ;-}

Angel:

Well said, man of few words. It is incumbent upon lovers of poetry to call it as we see it. Too many incompetents are published these days simply because they have "credentials" -- and if we who see that the Emperor is stark naked do not cry out, who shall defend the name of poetry?

Angel

Even if it's true of some of us -- like this amateur light-verse writer -- that "we may not know much about art, but we know what we like," sometimes it really is best to trust our instincts. And my instinct is that "Railroad" was submitted before it had two or three necessary stages of refinement that would've made it a good -- even a great -- poem.

I really find it strange (MaryAnn) that you, as a retired academic, would defend Prof. Skinner as being something less than major league and therefore worthy of some benefit of the doubt. By whatever gods may be (as my cohort D_deridex would put it), the man's a professor of creative writing. Should we treat him as a minor leaguer on the slender excuse that he might not have a collection published yet? Surely such a one as he should be worth publishing right off the bat. Or is this an example of the cynical adage:

Those who can, do.
Those who can't, teach.

As someone who's both a published author and a published editor, I'd send this poem back to him, saying, "this poem has great potential in content, but it needs considerable refinement in form."

In other words, it's deja vu all over again -- better than the average tripe, but still so typically far from what it could have been.

wr ()()
(who admittedly is more cranky than usual this morning)

I really find it strange (MaryAnn) that you, as a retired academic, would defend Prof. Skinner as being something less than major league and therefore worthy of some benefit of the doubt. By whatever gods may be (as my cohort D_deridex would put it), the man's a professor of creative writing. Should we treat him as a minor leaguer on the slender excuse that he might not have a collection published yet? Surely such a one as he should be worth publishing right off the bat.

Sorry, rabbit, but I don't understand your logic at all. Why should his academic credentials as a prof of creative writing mean he is automatically a major league poet "worth publishing right off the bat"? Academic degrees or a job at a univesity are not necessarily synonymous with writing ability.

As for whether or not Pinsky presents us with "slop" week after week, I still think that's an overstatement. But I agree that many are pre-disposed to dislike his choices, like the pessimist who sees the glass half-full.

One of the major problems, I think, is the tendancy to read the Tuesday poem on our own terms, rather than the poet's. Before we can judge a poem, I think we have to figure out what the poet was trying to do (not what we would have done) and then evaluate whether or not he achieved what he was trying to do. A corollary of that is not to confuse liking or disliking a poem with evaluating its worth. Just because you don't agree with the poem's theme doesn't mean it stinks.

For example, hollering that the speaker (or, ye gods, the poet himself) is a bad teacher or has no work ethic is really beside the point in this poem that questions the value/meaning of various kinds of work.

For example, complaining that the poem about deer hunting was not strident enough in is condemnation of hunting is beside the point, since the author was posing a dilemma, not taking sides.

For example, stating that the author of the poem about flying to a job interview should suffer the loss of a job and see how that feels.....

Sometimes, people complain that I don't always take a stand and say whether or not I like a poem. And the reason is often because I really don' t understand what the poet is trying to do. And until I can figure it out, I don't feel justified in judging it.

One of the problems, for me, is, as you mentioned somewhere, is that Pinsky often chooses post-modern or edgy poems -- the kind of poems I don't always understand. Meghan O"Rourke, Wallace Stevens, John Ashbury -- I don't always understand what they're trying to do, but that doesn't mean their poetry stinks.

Mary Ann

Dear cranky,

Here's the issue: when someone allows a piece like the pick this week to be published, I don't consider him a "pro".

He's a proset, like I said.

I am not inclined to read further once I see something like this. I won't be reading anymore Skinner. My time is too precious, and I'll spend it on a Boland or a Pollitt, not on a Skinner.

If he were a pro, he'd have seen the folly of submitting it.

Angel

As for whether or not Pinsky presents us with "slop" week after week, I still think that's an overstatement. But I agree that many are pre-disposed to dislike his choices, like the pessimist who sees the glass half-full.

i can only write from my own perspective here-- never enough coffee, too many hours spent pretzeled in this chair nursing Perfect Baby (nursing's fine. pretzeled is bad. Perfect Baby is wonderful.)

every week, i hope for the best. i want to like the poem. i suspend judgment toward the negative. i try and like the damned thing.

if the first read finishes flat, i reread it. even if it is going badly- mid-poem i'll start again. i almost always blame a bad go on myself-- at first, anyway.

at the end of "Railroad" i thought, "this is supposed to be funny. funny and poignant?" funny it was for a moment during the stacking the uncomplaining students. i thought that was funny. funny as the failure TV comic routine? only if falure comics are funny. poignant? first i have to care for poignant to work. i just didn't.

the nice last lines of the train at night, tubing across Kansas seemed terribly out of place here. i wish there was another, better poem fashioned around it like God fashioned Eve around a rib.

i thought, "what was i supposed to see here? what to know?" when my answer is "I don't know. i'm just glad it's over" i have 2 choices: (adapted from MA's advice to Bratsche)

1. decide i'm a poor reader-- dope who didn't get it
2. the poem is poor.

there were no thees or thous. likewise, there were no lines like : raisins. neanderthal raisin noontime spiggot. so i think i got it. matter of fact, sometimes i don't get it and still like it (until the 'getting it' is foisted upon me as was the case of the baseball/ perv/ irv poem.)

so after all the wiping of mud off my rose-colored glasses, i have to conclude this poem failed.

i am worried that tuesdays are making me grumpy. (as evidenced by my 'actually' mini-rant.) this can't be good. i might have to skip tuesdays pic and hang out in thursdays OPPs.

while angel sees she has a moral obligation to uphold the good name of poetry, my station in life is a lot simpler. i have a moral obligation to be nice-- at least to spare my meandering kids this rhetoric, "I can't believe i just spent another tuesday morning paying attention to this stuff! if i want to read crap like this, i'll write it myself!"

while islandtime has some material for optimism in this week's poem she's gonna have to work really hard to convince anyone it was, in fact, a good poem overall.

i hope next week, the work is done for IT. i hope we get a good poem that is easy to love.

waltz

Dear waltz, Just to reassure you, I don't plan to lie about poems or call bad poems good. There have been some things posted on here that basically suck and I'm not afraid to admit it. Unfortunately, I think for some people who post here, it's become de rigueur to denounce, and I feel no need to do that. In fact, I feel a need to provide a balance to all those mean comments.

I don't think it's too Pollyanna-ish to find the good in something, and in most things at least some good exists. I like to think that about people, not just poems. And it's all too easy to put myself in the shoes of the poor poet who agrees to let Pinsky post a poem and then suffers an onslaught of criticism (I always hope the poets don't come here to read the comments).

Tell me, am I an old-fashioned Miss Manners to insist on civil discourse in this brave, new world?

May I quote you, A?? IT said something before about how it's never bad to be too polite or respectful when discussing poems, in response to my blunt comments to Mary Ann on another thread. I have to disagree: it can be harmful to be TOO respectful, especially when it's such dreck we're being asked to respect, read, analyze, appreciate, write about, give our valuable time to. So -- may I quote you here? I'm all for polite and for civil, especially to each other, but if we're discussing supposedly serious poetry, sorry but -- I will be honest, and I'll take honest over 'polite and respectful' anytime. P and R, as IT called it, is better suited to P.R. agencies sucking up to their clients, and to PTA/O meetings & ladies lunches than to serious discussion of serious poetic work. Thanks, A-P.

serious discussion of serious poetic work.

Since when is it a "serious discussion of serious poetic work" to look at a poem and declare that it is one of only two things -- either "great" or "shit"?

I would hate to be classified according to that standard, for I fear that since I am not great, someone would decide I therefore must be shit.

Rather, I think I have my good points and my weak points. And I think the same is true of most poems, even Pinsky's Tuesday picks. To point out those good and weak points is, I think, a thoughtful, nuanced way to approach a poem. It is most defintely not "Pollyanna-ish."

What bothers me is when I read a review that declares that a poem is not good (nothing wrong with saying that) and then proceeds to make fun of every single line or idea in the poem. That's not a "serious discussion;" that's just playing games. And it's not "honest," either, to use another of your words. Since when it is "honest" to approach anything as either great or shit? Whatever happened to "mediocre," "pleasant but forgettable" and "average"?

Poems, like people, are too valuable to be looked at in such a simplistic black-or-white, great-or-shit way. And PoemsFraysters are certainly capable of thinking and writing in more than such a simplistic way.

Mary Ann

Tell me, am I an old-fashioned Miss Manners to insist on civil discourse in this brave, new world?

i have been asked to tell you, so here's what i'm telling you: if civil and respectful and balanced in assessment are old fashioned, then, please, let's have more old fashioned.

i know i am not nearly as battle worn as other PoemFraysters, so i know it is easier for me to remain more optimistic. when i let my 'actually' mini-rant fly, that's when i knew i needed to step back from the edge, as they say.

PoemsFray can use better poems on tuesdays. PoemsFray can use better critique on tuesdays. i think we can encourage (wrestle? humilate?) Mr. Pinsky into offering better tuesday pics by writing better critique.

(i do wonder, though if PoemsFray is not too consistent with the rest of Slate in that the editorial mission seems to be "before all else, wag the dog, then yank its chain.") Pinsky might be accused of a little flesh selling. it is a charge, i think, that might stick.)

waltz

Thanks for the post, but it was islandtime, not MaryAnn, who made that comment about Miz Manners.

As for "battle-worn," I think a better word is "burnt-out." Am desperately trying to figure out how to get out of that mode.

MA

MA wrote: Am desperately trying to figure out how to get out of that mode.

i repeat my musings: i do wonder, though if PoemsFray is not too consistent with the rest of Slate in that the editorial mission seems to be "before all else, wag the dog, then yank its chain."

can we get better poems? i am suspicious.

can we make better critique? i know i've read some well-done and much-varried critique on PF. i'd like to see more of it.

waltz