Reviews for Close Calls with Nonsense: Reading New Poetry

The average rating for Close Calls with Nonsense: Reading New Poetry based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-01-02 00:00:00 Brett Stewart Over the New Year weekend, spent on the bus and in the Woodstock home of D and T, who kindly took in a pair of holiday orphans, I read Close Calls with Nonsense, Stephen Burt's collection of essays on contemporary poetry, in particular, the kind he baptized Elliptical in an earlier article. To that article (included in this collection) he appends a 2004 postscript, in which he defends the notion of such a poetic "school." I think it is interesting to try to identify the common features of several vital poetic styles, especially if they seem to develop in response to the historical moment, and if they attract emulation by younger poets. But such an identification could have the effect of rendering poets who do not write in such a style even more invisible to the literary public. This is of course a natural consequence of championing any particular school. Burt is a gentle champion. He does not make grand claims with evangelistic fervor for the Elliptical poets but invites the reader to try some rather difficult poets that he himself have enjoyed working out. With me he succeeds most with his essays on Rae Armantrout (a L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poet) and Liz Waldner. The most useful piece in this section of the book is the essay about the influence of John Berryman on Mark Levine, Lucie Brock-Broido, Kevin Young, Susan Wheeler and Mary Jo Bang, among others. Despite Burt's identification with the term he invented, Close Calls actually shows the catholicity of his taste. Not only does he write sensitively of the sadness of John Ashbery, he also enjoys the sociability of James Merrill's formalist verse. He is appreciative of both Robert Creeley's laconic lines and Frank O'Hara's spontaneous chatter. He attends smartly to Thom Gunn's "Kinesthetic Aesthetics" and to A. R. Ammons "Marvelous Devising." One section of the book is devoted to non-Americans such as James K. Baxter, Les Murray, John Trantor, Denise Riley and Paul Muldoon. The last poet considered in a chapter of his own is William Carlos Williams. He is celebrated here not for his Americanness but for his innovative poetic music. In every essay Burt is concerned to describe what is singular in his chosen poets, what they should be valued for. And he finds very different values. If the values share anything in common, they are broadly humanistic, generously liberal. They are ethical but non-religious. Throughout he is suspicious of prescriptions, poetic or otherwise. He is interested, instead, in the development of an individual style.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-06-11 00:00:00 Mark Emory It's tough to drop stars on a book of this nature--a book of essays about poetry and poets. Why? You should, I feel, be rating the writer, but in this case, some readers might fall prey to rating the subject matter. This book is especially susceptible because Burt covers so many poets. If you're like me, some chapters will be more enjoyable than others because you're interested in the poet OR you're interested in the quotes from the poet's poems OR, better yet, both. Trouble is, I liked some poets and poems better than others. If I discovered I did NOT like a poet under discussion, I jumped ship on the chapter and swam to the next. Life at sea is fleeting, after all (there's a fleet of ships joke in there somewhere). Who does Burt wax poetic about? Here's the role call: Rae Armantrout (interesting), C.D. Wright (wrong for me), Donald Revell, Laura Kasischke, Liz Waldner, Juan Felipe Herrera (Burt himself doesn't seem much a fan), August Kleinzahler (gesundheit!), Allan Peterson and Terrance Hayes (imagine getting stuck with a chapter bunkmate!), Mary Leader and H.L. Hix, D.A Powell, John Berryman, James K. Baxter, Les Murray (Oz, mate), Denise Riley, John Tranter, Thomas Gunn (Burt's a fan and will make you one), Paul Muldoon (who gets two chapters called "Early" and "Late"), John Ashbery, Richard Wilbur, Robert Creeley, James Merrill (another Burt favorite), A.R. Ammons, Stanley Kunitz (interesting chapter), Frank O'Hara (charmed life, until the weird finish), Lorine Niedecker, and, one of my favorites, William Carlos Williams. So, yeah. School of Modern-ish Poetry is in session! I learned a lot about a lot of poets and may pursue some because of Burt's insights. In one of the three "general" essays included in this book, Burt even offers quotable remarks. Thus the need to quote a few: "To do a poem justice, explain what makes it unique; to get a poem noticed, explain what makes it typical." "One can demonstrate to skeptics the explicit rules that govern a skill, or a game, but not those that govern an art. Skeptics thus suspect art forms of possessing rules that are trade secrets, or rules that are really table manners." "Snobbery in the arts is reverse snobbery." "Why value the appearance of effort in poetry? Why value apparent (or actual) effortlessness? The first appears to demonstrate the mastery of a craft: the second, to demonstrate that poetry is not a craft at all." (I object. Poetry is most certainly a Craft, in my case.) "A.K. Ramanujan, in an interview: 'Some people are other people, and can never be themselves.' Some people are really, or essentially, imitators. Or readers, rather than writers. Or--alas--critics." "Fame, the being known, though in itself one of the most dangerous things to man, is nevertheless the true and appointed air, element, and setting of genius and its works" (Gerard Manley Hopkins to Robert Bridges). But "Publication is the auction / Of the mind of man" (Dickinson). "Some poets marry a language; some have affairs with it; some treat it as a parent, some as a child, some as an equal, or as a friend."