Retallack, Inman. Darragh, Lang, Dreyer, RosenzweigPhotomerge by Tom Raworth
A group of DC poets (and DC expat poets) went up to Orono two weeks ago to participate in The National Poetry Foundation’s Conference on The Poetry of the 1970s, at the University of Maine. Tina Darragh, Lynne Dreyer, Peter Inman, Joan Retallack, Phyllis Rosenzweig and I constituted a panel to discuss Washington in the 1970s. The same group plus Diane Ward gave a reading. Kaplan Harris, Chris Nealon and Tom Orange presented papers. Rod Smith and Mel Nichols gave great support and read in one of the late night open readings. I was also glad to see Barry Alpert there. It was very gratifying to be there with everyone, and the whole conference was rewarding, inspiring, enlightening and fun. For me it was a completely new experience, since I’d never been to an academic conference before. Although I’ve taught at an art school for 40 years, I’m not an academic by training or inclination (not a pejorative statement). But this was just fantastic – a large gang of people all talking about and reading poetry. The one odd thing was how few women were involved. I’m not getting all PC here, it was just something you could not help noticing.
The conference schedule was intense. A typical day had five panels from 9:00 to 10:15 a.m. Then a single (plenary) panel from 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 p,m. Then five more panels at 2:30 p.m., and five more at 4:00 p.m. Following this, one (plenary) reading at 7:30 p.m. and another at 8:30 p.m. Then a group reading at 10:00 p.m. and open readings at 11:00 p.m. The fact that there were often five panels running simultaneously that you might want to attend was both frustrating and exciting. There are links to reports, photographs, and other material (including a link to ThoughtMesh where some of the papers presented at Orobo have been uploaded) at The National Poetry Foundation
I'm going to write about the DC panel and reading here and write about the conference in general elsewhere.
On Friday, June 13th at 1:00 p.m., there was the plenary panel: DC Poetry in the 1970s. Tom Orange introduced the panel. Joan Retallack presented a paper titled The New Spirit in Dog City, and remarks from the rest of the panel members followed, as well as questions and answers. Joan gave a really terrific account of the DC scene in the late 1970s, as expected, and ended with a powerpoint(?) display of pages from the two issues of Dog City magazine, which were published in 1977 and 1980 respectively. Peter and i had both prepared short statements and I had circulated mine to Joan and Tom and the rest of the panelists via email, but neither one of us read our statements. I felt totally anxious during the time before I was to have an opportunity to read, and I was particularly anxious about the possibility of my nervousnees being apparent to a room full of people that I so admired and respected, some of the best minds of my generation as it were (including the other panelists). Fortunately, I realized that I was feeling pressure to be something that I was not, and as soon as I decided to just be myself and to just talk, I was fine. I talked very well. We all did. The question and answer period was very lively. It was all very exhilarating. I loved it. And we finished on time, which was a serious rarity at the whole conference. My favorite moment came duringthe Q&A with a rhetorical question from Rod Smith. During my talk, I had mentioned that in DC during the Mass Transit days, the alternative poetry scene in DC was closely aligned with the counter-culture, at which point Peter interjected a remark (clearly humorous) that he had never used drugs during that time. Later, during the Q&A, Peter was engaged with Barrett Watten in a discussion of the apparently minimal interest shown in theory among the DC poets in the 1970s, at the end of which Rod asked Peter if he thought the fact that he had not taken drugs explained his lack of interest in theory back then.
I will compose an approximation (and slight extension) of what I said in my talk in a separate post.
6 comments:
Hey boss, thanks so much for the mention in the first post and for including Lee and Terry and me in your history of DC poetry in the '70s talk at the conference. I would like to say though that Watten's implying that there was little theory in the DC scene back when, even if intended humorously, is a mistaken perception. I'm sure Inman and Winch and Darragh and Ward and others would dispute that more elegantly than I can, but speaking for myself, I had just come from the U. of Iowa Writers Workshop (in '69) and had been reading Stein and Pound and Eliot and Williams and Empson and O'Hara (as well as Barthes and the whole French crowd that later influenced the language poets so much and everyone else writing about writing and poetics etc.) long before I went there, and had a pretty good grasp on the theories that had been around for awhile as well as those emerging (when I met Bruce Andrews, still in the DC area c. '69-'70? there was no "language poetry" though he was heading in that direction (and of course Ray DiPalma was already doing work you could call "language poetry" when we were at Iowa together) and reading over a lot of my previous work Bruce pointed out poems of mine that fit the theories he was working on and which we discussed endlessly). I also felt that the Beats had often fallen into the trap of anti-academicism (my I admit weak term) which I saw as still being dependent on the academy for validation in their being against it, if you see what I mean. My goal was to eliminate the dominance of the academy in any obvious way in the work period, and still refer to that which the academy deemed worthy of its attention when I felt it was worthy of mine (or ours) but without needing to take a stance against the academic establishment, but instead making an end run around them by basically ignoring them. It may have worked too well (I can't tell you how many reviews of books of mine seem to conclude that I'm some sort of "diamond in the rough" or unaware of technique or literary history or precedents or contemporary theory, etc. etc.) At any rate, wanted to counteract any perspective out there that protrays the DC scene in the late 1960s and early 1970s when I was part of it as anything other than engaged in the deepest and most innovative poetic theories of those times and preceding them.
The first three comments were deleted because they are no longer relevant to the post, which was adjusted in accordance with the first two comments; the third comment was a simple thank you for the first two.
Michael, I know. I remember a Washington Post reporter referring to Tery (Winch) as a "street poet." It's comical, really, except that stupidity is always more irritating than comical. I appreciate your taking the time for this. Thank you.
Doug
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