Happy Halloween!

Best of the Web: VPR Nominations

I am pleased to announce Valparaiso Poetry Review’s nominations for the upcoming Best of the Web anthology from Dzanc Books, an annual collection described as “representing in book form the best literary writing online magazines have to offer.” I have been privileged to report in the past that works from Valparaiso Poetry Review have been chosen to be among those published in previous editions of Best of the Web.

The editors invite up to three nominated works for submission by each online literary journal. As I have mentioned in the past, I maintain a high regard for every poem selected for publication in VPR, and I am reluctant to pick some pieces for honor over others. Indeed, I value all the poems and depend on all the poets in Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Yet, I welcome the admirable efforts of the editors at Dzanc Books as they bring attention to the growing number of fine works appearing in online magazines. Moreover, I have recently written about my belief that we are witnessing a coming of age for electronic literary journals, and I am confident publications like the Best of the Web anthology help raise awareness of the excellent quality existing in writings regularly witnessed in such online venues. Additionally, I am pleased whenever an opportunity arises for greater recognition of the contents in issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Reviews of the 2009 edition of Best of the Web included the following:

“The book is heartily significant, featuring work that is sometimes surprising . . . and sometimes exhilarating—not unlike the Web itself. —Los Angeles Times

“The book both recognizes a wide range of quality online writing, and gives its readers a comprehensive look at the field from which its contents come—two characteristics of a good anthology . . . . Such a development could not have come at a better time for online literary publishing.” —New Pages

Therefore, I have offered the editors three poems for consideration from the most recent issue of Valparaiso Poetry Review, works that are eligible for Dzanc Books’ 2010 Best of the Web anthology, and I am pleased to report the following nominations:

Cornelius Eady: “Aretha Franklin’s Inauguration Hat”

Claudia Emerson: “Ground Truth”

Charles Wright: “I’ve Been Sitting Here Thinking Back over My Life . . .”

These poems appear in the tenth anniversary issue (Fall/Winter 2009-2010: Volume XI, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review, released earlier this month, and I again invite readers to examine the entire roster of writers in this wonderful issue.

I congratulate the nominated poets. At the same time, as I have in the past, I wish to express my appreciation to all the contributors whose works appear in the current issue of Valparaiso Poetry Review, as well as to those hundreds of poets published in VPR during its tenure of ten years. I am grateful for all the ongoing support Valparaiso Poetry Review has received from contributors and readers during its decade of publication, and I look forward to much more splendid poetry available to readers among the pages of VPR in the future.

Dorianne Laux: "Mine Own Phil Levine"

The VPR Poem of the Week is Dorianne Laux’s “Mine Own Phil Levine,” which appears in the special tenth anniversary issue (Volume XI, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Dorianne Laux is the author of four collections of poetry. She is also the coauthor, with Kim Addonizio, of The Poet’s Companion. Among her awards are a Pushcart Prize, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Guggenheim fellowship. What We Carry (BOA Editions, 1994) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her fourth book of poems, Facts about the Moon (W.W. Norton, 2007), reviewed in “One Poet’s Notes,” was the recipient of the Oregon Book Award and was short-listed for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. Laux teaches at North Carolina State University and lives in Raleigh with her husband, the poet Joseph Millar.

Tuesday of each week “One Poet’s Notes” highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers visit it. Please check the sidebar to view the list of poets and works that have been past “Poem of the Week” selections. Additionally, readers are reminded that VPR pages are best read with the browser font preference in which they were set, 12 pt. Times New Roman, in order to guarantee the stanza alignment and the breaks of longer lines are preserved.

Back from Bedlam: Brian Turner

In his article, “To Bedlam and Back,” that appears in the New York Times this week, poet Brian Turner writes about the difficulties facing soldiers when they make the transition from war to home. Even as a veteran, an infantry sergeant who served both in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Iraq, Turner questions his own perspective on this issue: “I guess what I’m wondering most is, as a country that is currently at war, how do our veterans rejoin the life waiting for them back home? How do they rejoin the tribe once they’ve been to Bedlam? How do we help them so that they don’t feel as if they’re encased in glass, pinned to the walls as specimens in some museum-house of culture? It’s a difficult question to answer. I have trouble answering it myself.”

One of the ways Brian Turner has responded to his history, as a soldier at the battlefront who returns home, has been to explore in his poems various experiences encountered in a war zone and to examine the enduring emotions evoked by them. Turner’s first book, Here, Bullet (Alice James Books, 2005), was the winner of the Beatrice Hawley Book Award, the Poets’ Prize, the Northern California Book Award in Poetry, and other honors. In my review of Here, Bullet posted in January of 2007 to “One Poet’s Notes,” I remarked: “Admirably, Turner tries to offer different versions and to identify differing visions of the events related throughout the book by learning various aspects of local language, customs, and religious beliefs. The speaker in these poems desires a way to understand and empathize with those whose country is caught in the crossfire of conflict.”

I am pleased to report Brian Turner is among the poets contributing work for the new issue (Fall/Winter 2009-2010) of Valparaiso Poetry Review, celebrating its tenth anniversary, with two of his poems: “Molotov Cocktails” and “The Battle of Fucine Lake, AD 52.” Readers are also urged to visit another article at “One Poet’s Notes,” “Veteran’s Day: Brain Turner’s ‘Here, Bullet,’” to view a video of Turner performing his poetry.

Cornelius Eady: "Aretha Franklin's Inauguration Hat"

The VPR Poem of the Week is Cornelius Eady’s “Aretha Franklin’s Inauguration Hat,” which appears in the special tenth anniversary issue (Volume XI, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Cornelius Eady is the author of eight books of poetry: Hardheaded Weather: New and Selected Poems (2008), Brutal Imagination (2001), a National Book Award finalist; The Autobiography of a Jukebox (1997); You Don’t Miss Your Water (1995); The Gathering of My Name (1991); Boom, Boom, Boom (1988); Victims of the Latest Dance Craze (1986), winner of the 1985 Lamont Prize from the Academy of American Poets; and Kartunes (1980). He is also co-editor, with Toi Derricote, of Gathering Ground (2006). Eady’s work in theater includes the libretto for an opera, The Running Man, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 1999. His play, Brutal Imagination, won Newsday’s Oppenheimer Award in 2002. He has received the Prairie Schooner Strousse Award and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Eady is the director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Notre Dame.

Tuesday of each week “One Poet’s Notes” highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers visit it. Please check the sidebar to view the list of poets and works that have been past “Poem of the Week” selections. Additionally, readers are reminded that VPR pages are best read with the browser font preference in which they were set, 12 pt. Times New Roman, in order to guarantee the stanza alignment and the breaks of longer lines are preserved.

Editor's Note of Appreciation

In an article posted over the weekend at Blogalicious, Diane Lockward kindly noted the tenth anniversary issue of Valparaiso Poetry Review, released last week, and offered complimentary comments focusing on some of my remarks in the editor’s note that opens the new issue of VPR. I appreciate Lockward’s response, and I am particularly pleased that she directs her readers to two points expressed in my introduction to VPR’s current collection of works and authors. First, she applauds my continuing desire to produce an online journal that contributes to the growing stature of electronic magazines seen in recent years. Second, she shares my contention that we are witnessing the arrival of acceptance—by readers, academics, and publishers—of online magazines as existing on a par with various valued print periodicals.

As I mention in the editor’s note (reprinted below), and as I have previously discussed in a piece (“Online Literary Journals: Coming of Age”) that appeared last spring in “One Poet’s Notes,” I believe numerous online literary journals, especially those concerning the genre of poetry, have progressed tremendously during the past decade. Many magazines also have undoubtedly matured into quality publications deserving more attention and the greater respect they now seem to be receiving. Such positive reactions have been reflected in the large number of visitors to Valparaiso Poetry Review in the seven days since the tenth anniversary issue appeared, as well as in the many favorable personal messages I have received this week from readers offering praise about the poems and reviews included by contributors to the new issue of VPR, for which I am again thankful.

TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF VALPARAISO POETRY REVIEW: A NOTE OF APPRECIATION

Ten years ago, in October of 1999, the initial issue of Valparaiso Poetry Review premiered as an online journal designed to introduce new, emerging, and established poets to the larger audience available on the Internet. Much has changed since that publication of Valparaiso Poetry Review’s first issue. At the time, the concept of an online literary journal was still a fairly novel idea and relatively untested. Reputations of existing electronic literary magazines, among authors and readers, were spotty at best. As Sandra Beasley stated in a recent article for Poets & Writers: “Online journals were a pale imitation of print, marred by amateurish fonts, garish backgrounds, and the lack of editorial accountability.” Consequently, one could not blame any writers who wondered about the wisdom of publishing material in such venues, where even the environment might diminish readers’ responses to the work.

Indeed, in the early issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review I was particularly grateful to those poets and critics who contributed to the journal based solely upon a confidence that their good works would appear among other fine pieces and be placed in an atmosphere reflecting literary integrity. I appreciated their faith that I would exercise editorial judgment in a manner that would benefit all the contributions included in every volume of VPR. Over the opening decade of the journal’s existence, I have always attempted to honor the privilege bestowed upon me by those writers who entrusted Valparaiso Poetry Review with their poetry, reviews, and essays.

Additionally, I felt a responsibility to produce an online literary journal that would attain a certain amount of respect and would contribute to the overall stature of electronic magazines, whose standing was already beginning to become more elevated due largely to the exemplary efforts by a number of other editors at similar sites. These individuals also were working toward building a community of Internet publications that would complement the numerous excellent titles in the world of print journals. I believe most readers of contemporary literature have been amazed in the past decade by the growth in popularity and the increased sophistication level of various online literary journals. I know I admire the wonderful work witnessed in many electronic publications nowadays, and I regularly applaud the activities of their editors. Moreover, as I have suggested in my writing elsewhere, I believe we have finally reached a point where readers may safely say they are observing a coming of age for the online literary journal.

I have been pleased to notice, as further evidence of an increased respect for online magazines, the “table of contents” pages of some electronic literary journals now display a wide range of well-known poets and fiction writers whose presence was limited to print journals not too long ago, and whose contributions bring greater attention to those emerging authors publishing exciting work alongside them. Moreover, when I glance at the “acknowledgments” pages of new books of poetry or volumes of literary commentary, I find myself noting how many titles of online journals, including Valparaiso Poetry Review, are represented side by side with those titles of traditional print periodicals, all of which seem to have adopted at least some degree of online presence as well in recent years. In fact, various print journals have evolved into “hybrids,” also offering their content online, and during the past few years, readers have seen esteemed literary magazines start to migrate fully from a print format to an online-only status.

I value all the poems and depend on each author in Valparaiso Poetry Review; therefore, I wish to take this special opportunity to express again my appreciation to everyone whose splendid work has appeared in Valparaiso Poetry Review during the past ten years of the journal’s publication. The number of people to whom I am grateful for contributing their writing rises every year, as VPR currently includes about 500 poems and more than 100 works of prose commentary in its twenty-one issues.

Likewise, the readership for Valparaiso Poetry Review has soared far beyond my expectations over the years, and I am pleased to report I am confident VPR’s readers can look forward to more exceptional work in the future with poems, essays, interviews, reviews, and commentary that visitors to Valparaiso Poetry Review will find equally as entertaining, engaging, and enlightening.

Additionally, I appreciate very much all the ongoing support and positive feedback Valparaiso Poetry Review has received in e-mails or through readers’ comments at “One Poet’s Notes,” the VPR editor’s blog, as well as in messages sent by means of the VPR Facebook page. I also look forward to any responses readers might have to this special tenth anniversary issue of Valparaiso Poetry Review, which celebrates the occasion by presenting significantly more poems than previous issues of VPR.

Once again, thank you to all, writers and readers, for the numerous outstanding contributions and many kind words of encouragement concerning Valparaiso Poetry Review during the past decade.

With gratitude,
Edward Byrne
Editor, Valparaiso Poetry Review

Visitors are invited to read the tenth anniversary issue of Valparaiso Poetry Review (Fall/Winter 2009-2010: Volume XI, Number 1).

Jared Carter: "John Brown and His Men . . ."

This weekend marks the 150th anniversary of the Harper’s Ferry raid led by abolitionist John Brown. The attack began on October 16, 1859, when Brown and a band of about twenty charged the Harper’s Ferry Armory in Virginia, aiming to obtain arms from the arsenal that could be distributed to slaves for an uprising. Though initially successful in capturing the armory, two more days of battle with militia occurred, during which Brown’s plans failed. Brown’s men were defeated by troops commanded by Colonel Robert E. Lee and Lieutenant J.E.B. Stuart. Both would become better known as participants for the Confederacy in the Civil War. Many of Brown’s abolitionists, including two of his sons, were killed in the fighting, while the rest were taken prisoner for trial and execution. Brown, who had previously led a bloody massacre and was considered a “madman” by Lee, was tried for treason and hanged on December 2.

Readers are invited to visit the current issue (Fall/Winter 2009-2010: Volume XI, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review, released earlier this week, which includes a poem (“John Brown and His Men, with Some Account of the Roads Traveled to Reach Harper’s Ferry” by Jared Carter) concerning these events.

Ranking MFA Programs in Creative Writing

This week, Poets & Writers issued online rankings of all the MFA programs in creative writing across the country for the upcoming academic year of 2010. The findings will appear in an article (“The Top Fifty MFA Programs in the United States: A Comprehensive Guide”) for the November issue of Poets & Writers print magazine. The complete list includes about 140 graduate programs, and the rankings were designed by Seth Abramson based upon criteria outlined in the article for Poets & Writers. As Abramson states:

None of the data used for the rankings that follow was subjective, nor were any of the specific categories devised and employed for the rankings based on factors particular to any individual applicant. Location, for instance, cannot be quantified—some applicants prefer warm climates, some cold; some prefer cities, some college towns; and so on—and so it forms no part of the assessment. Other factors traditionally viewed as vital to assessing MFA programs have likewise been excluded. For instance, conventional wisdom has been for many years that a program may be best assessed on the basis of its faculty. The new wisdom holds that applicants are well advised to seek out current and former students of a program to get as much anecdotal information about its faculty as possible, but, in the absence of such information, one must be careful not to confuse a writer's artistic merit with merit as a professor. In the past, too many applicants have staked years of their lives on the fact that the work of this writer or that one appealed to them more than others, only to find that the great writers are not always the great teachers, and vice versa. Likewise, mentoring relationships are difficult to form under even the best of circumstances, particularly because neither faculty member nor incoming student knows the other's personality and temperament in advance.

According to the criteria developed for Poets & Writers, the following represent a top-20 list of the top-50 MFA creative writing programs in overall ranking:

1. University of Iowa in Iowa City
2. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
3. University of Virginia, Charlottesville
4 (tie). University of Massachusetts, Amherst
4 (tie). University of Texas, Austin
6. University of Wisconsin, Madison
7. Brown University in Providence
8. New York University in New York City
9. Cornell University in Ithaca, New York
10. University of Oregon, Eugene
11. Syracuse University in New York
12. Indiana University, Bloomington
13. University of California, Irvine
14. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
15. Brooklyn College, CUNY
16. University of Montana, Missoula
17. Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore
18. Vanderbilt University in Nashville
19. University of North Carolina, Greensboro
20. Washington University, St. Louis

The MFA programs are also ranked separately in various genre categories—including poetry rank, fiction rank, and nonfiction rank—as well as for funding, selectivity, and postgraduate placement. When the programs are considered for the genre of poetry only, the top-10 rankings appear as follows:

1. University of Iowa in Iowa City
2. University of Virginia, Charlottesville
3. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
4. University of Massachusetts, Amherst
5. University of Texas, Austin
6. University of Wisconsin, Madison
7. New York University in New York City
8. Brown University in Providence
9. Cornell University in Ithaca, New York
10. University of North Carolina, Greensboro

As Abramson acknowledges, the “rankings do not address MA programs in English that offer creative writing concentrations, low-residency MFA programs, or creative writing PhD programs.” He also advises: “Because there are 140 full-residency MFA programs in the United States, any school whose numerical ranking is in the top fifty in any of the ranked categories—the overall rankings; rankings in the poetry, fiction, or nonfiction genres; or the rankings by funding, selectivity, and postgraduate placement—should be considered exceptional in that category.”

In an article (“Creative Writing Programs: Brief Observations and Advice”) that I posted at “One Poet’s Notes” in March of 2008, I noted how “an explosion of growth in the number of creative writing programs during the last few decades has created a wealth of opportunities for young writers; still, the multitude of choices also can cause some confusion or uncertainty. Moreover, although many creative writing programs exist, the pool of applicants to these programs has increased over the years as well. Therefore, the acceptance rate for each program remains quite low and only adds to the anxiety experienced by those anticipating responses.”

Consequently, although the rankings provided by Poets & Writers omit subjective considerations that might play an important role in any applicant’s decision, the data offered in the article permits those considering MFA programs some valuable objective information that ought to be among the significant factors taken into account.

VPR Featured Poet: Charles Wright

The Fall/Winter 2009-2010 issue (Volume XI, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review that was released yesterday includes Charles Wright as the “featured poet.” Readers are invited to visit this tenth anniversary issue of VPR, which contains a trio of poems by Wright and a review of his three most recent books: “The World as We Know It: Charles Wright’s Scar Tissue, Littlefoot, and Sestets.” Among its comments on Scar Tissue, the review reports: “Charles Wright submits persuasive poetry persistently filled with wisdom, aided by a nostalgic filter of memory and an ability to render exquisite descriptions of nature.” Wright received the 2007 Griffin International Poetry Prize for Scar Tissue. In the video above, Charles Simic introduces Charles Wright at the June 2007 Griffin readings in Toronto, and Wright presents “The Woodpecker Pecks, but the Hole Does Not Appear,” one of the poems from Scar Tissue.

VPR: Tenth Anniversary Issue

I am pleased to announce the tenth anniversary issue of Valparaiso Poetry Review is now available. Valparaiso Poetry Review celebrates a decade since the initial publication in October of 1999 with a special twenty-first issue, and VPR continues as one of the longest running online literary journals. Therefore, I believe this is an appropriate moment to offer from the issue the following brief excerpt that is included among my remarks in the editor’s “note of appreciation”:

Once again, thank you to all, writers and readers, for the numerous outstanding contributions and many kind words of encouragement concerning Valparaiso Poetry Review during the past decade.

Tenth Anniversary Issue

Contents of the Fall/Winter 2009-2010 issue (Volume XI, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review include the following:

Featured Poet: Charles Wright

Additional Poets: Sherman Alexie, Mary Biddinger, Jared Carter, Katharine Coles, Alfred Corn, Kwame Dawes, Susan Donnelly, Cornelius Eady, Claudia Emerson, Patricia Fargnoli, Annie Finch, Daisy Fried, Reginald Gibbons, H. Palmer Hall, T.R. Hummer, Allison Joseph, David Kirby, Dorianne Laux, Frannie Lindsay, Diane Lockward, Sebastian Matthews, Eric Nelson, Joel Peckham, Greg Rappleye, Margot Schilpp, Jeffrey Skinner, Floyd Skloot, Martha Silano, Dave Smith, Alison Stine, Virgil Suarez, Elizabeth Swados, Daniel Tobin, Catherine Tufariello, Brian Turner

Poets Reviewed: Jericho Brown, Stephanie Brown, William Greenway, Cathy Park Hong, Charles Wright

Cover Art Commentary: Gregg Hertzlieb on Georgia O'Keeffe

Robert Lietz: "Adapting the Cuisine"

The VPR Poem of the Week is Robert Lietz’s “Adapting the Cuisine,” which appeared in the Spring/Summer 2007 issue (Volume VIII, Number 2) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Robert Lietz has authored seven collections of poetry, including Running in Place and At Park and East Division, both published by L’Epervier Press. His poetry has appeared widely in literary journals, including Agni Review, Carolina Quarterly, Epoch, Georgia Review, Missouri Review, North American Review, Poetry, and Shenandoah. He is a professor of English and creative writing at Ohio Northern University.

Tuesday of each week “One Poet’s Notes” highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the archives of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers revisit it. Please check the sidebar to view the list of poets and works that have been past “Poem of the Week” selections. Additionally, readers are reminded that VPR pages are best read with the browser font preference in which they were set, 12 pt. Times New Roman, in order to guarantee the stanza alignment and the breaks of longer lines are preserved.

Elizabeth Bishop on Meeting Marianne Moore

I have always been fascinated by the manner in which older and established poets or artists have served as mentors for those just beginning to learn their craft. In recent decades, many of those relationships have developed in the formal setting of the university creative writing programs, places where students choose to be guided by authors on the faculty. I know I have been grateful for the counsel I received as a beginning poet from a few faculty members I regarded as mentors. Indeed, I believe any comprehensive examination of influences in American poetry during the last half of a century would need to explore the inspiration and instruction offered by mentors to their writing students in academic programs, especially with the increased presence of creative writing workshops on campuses across the country and the more structured network of such programs as evidenced by the expansion of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) in the past couple of decades. Nevertheless, one will find a number of prominent poets who also discovered mentors or role models for their writing from associations established outside the classroom.

I was reminded of this as I prepared for classes in the upcoming week, during which students in my Twentieth Century Poetry course and I will discuss the poems of Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop. We also will consider Bishop’s admiration for Moore, as well as Moore’s advice to Bishop. In fact, only Robert Lowell’s later friendship with Bishop matched her ongoing ties to Moore. [Visitors are urged to read “Elizabeth Bishop’s Poetic Voice: Reconciling Influences” for more on this topic.]

Elizabeth Bishop first met Marianne Moore in 1934 when a librarian at Vassar College, which Bishop attended as a student, arranged a meeting between the two near the reading room at the New York Public Library. Bishop later wrote an essay outlining her friendship with Moore, which began on that afternoon in 1934 and continued until Moore’s death in 1972, at the age of 84. That article, “Efforts of Affection: A Memoir of Marianne Moore,” initially appeared in a 1983 issue of Vanity Fair, four years after Bishop’s death, and the piece is included in Elizabeth Bishop: The Collected Prose (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1984). A wonderful section of Bishop’s essay about her friendship with Moore describes the introduction to one another, on a bench in New York City, and an opening conversation that included a rather unusual invitation, which began a treasured lengthy association for the two poets:

I was very frightened, but I put on my new spring suit and took the train to New York. I had never seen a picture of Miss Moore: all I knew was that she had red hair and usually wore a wide-brimmed hat. I expected the hair to be bright red and for her to be tall and intimidating. I was right on time, even a bit early, but she was there before me (no matter how early one arrived, Marianne was always there first) and, I saw at once, not very tall and not in the least bit intimidating. She was forty-seven, an age that seemed old to me then, and her hair was mixed with white to a faint rust pink, and her rust-pink eyebrows were frosted with white. The large black flat hat was as I’d expected it to be. She wore a blue tweed suit that day and, as she usually did then, a man’s “polo shirt,” as they were called, with a black bow at the neck. The effect was quaint, vaguely Bryn Mawr 1909, but stylish at the same time. I sat down and she began to talk.

It seems to me that Marianne talked to me steadily for the next thirty-five years, but of course that is nonsensical. I was living far from New York many of those years and saw her at long intervals. She must have been one of the world’s greatest talkers: entertaining, enlightening, fascinating, and memorable; her talk, like her poetry, was quite different from anyone else’s in the world. I don’t know what she talked about at that first meeting; I wish I had kept a diary. Happily ignorant of the poor Vassar girls before me who hadn’t passed muster, I began to feel less nervous and even spoke some myself. I had what may have been an inspiration, I don’t know—at any rate, I attribute my great good fortune in having known Marianne as a friend in part to it. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus was making a spring visit to New York and I asked Miss Moore (we called each other “Miss” for over two years) if she would care to go to the circus with me the Saturday after next. I didn’t know that she always went to the circus, wouldn’t have missed it for anything, and when she accepted, I went back to Poughkeepsie in the grimy day coach extremely happy.

Henry David Thoreau: Description of Walden Pond

An article in this weekend’s New York Times relates the experience of swimming in the waters of Walden Pond, and the online edition also offers a slideshow of photographs that display the pond and its swimmers. Reading the piece, I was reminded of Thoreau’s own marvelous, sometimes poetic, description of Walden Pond:

The scenery of Walden is on a humble scale, and, though very beautiful, does not approach to grandeur, nor can it much concern one who has not long frequented it or lived by its shore; yet this pond is so remarkable for its depth and purity as to merit a particular description. It is a clear and deep green well, half a mile long and a mile and three quarters in circumference, and contains about sixty-one and a half acres; a perennial spring in the midst of pine and oak woods, without any visible inlet or outlet except by the clouds and evaporation. The surrounding hills rise abruptly from the water to the height of forty to eighty feet, though on the southeast and east they attain to about one hundred and one hundred and fifty feet respectively, within a quarter and a third of a mile. They are exclusively woodland. All our Concord waters have two colors at least; one when viewed at a distance, and another, more proper, close at hand. The first depends more on the light, and follows the sky. In clear weather, in summer, they appear blue at a little distance, especially if agitated, and at a great distance all appear alike. In stormy weather they are sometimes of a dark slate-color. The sea, however, is said to be blue one day and green another without any perceptible change in the atmosphere. I have seen our river, when, the landscape being covered with snow, both water and ice were almost as green as grass. Some consider blue "to be the color of pure water, whether liquid or solid." But, looking directly down into our waters from a boat, they are seen to be of very different colors. Walden is blue at one time and green at another, even from the same point of view. Lying between the earth and the heavens, it partakes of the color of both. Viewed from a hilltop it reflects the color of the sky; but near at hand it is of a yellowish tint next the shore where you can see the sand, then a light green, which gradually deepens to a uniform dark green in the body of the pond. In some lights, viewed even from a hilltop, it is of a vivid green next the shore. Some have referred this to the reflection of the verdure; but it is equally green there against the railroad sandbank, and in the spring, before the leaves are expanded, and it may be simply the result of the prevailing blue mixed with the yellow of the sand. Such is the color of its iris. This is that portion, also, where in the spring, the ice being warmed by the heat of the sun reflected from the bottom, and also transmitted through the earth, melts first and forms a narrow canal about the still frozen middle. Like the rest of our waters, when much agitated, in clear weather, so that the surface of the waves may reflect the sky at the right angle, or because there is more light mixed with it, it appears at a little distance of a darker blue than the sky itself; and at such a time, being on its surface, and looking with divided vision, so as to see the reflection, I have discerned a matchless and indescribable light blue, such as watered or changeable silks and sword blades suggest, more cerulean than the sky itself, alternating with the original dark green on the opposite sides of the waves, which last appeared but muddy in comparison. It is a vitreous greenish blue, as I remember it, like those patches of the winter sky seen through cloud vistas in the west before sundown. Yet a single glass of its water held up to the light is as colorless as an equal quantity of air. It is well known that a large plate of glass will have a green tint, owing, as the makers say, to its "body," but a small piece of the same will be colorless. How large a body of Walden water would be required to reflect a green tint I have never proved. The water of our river is black or a very dark brown to one looking directly down on it, and, like that of most ponds, imparts to the body of one bathing in it a yellowish tinge; but this water is of such crystalline purity that the body of the bather appears of an alabaster whiteness, still more unnatural, which, as the limbs are magnified and distorted withal, produces a monstrous effect, making fit studies for a Michael Angelo.

Readers are invited to visit other posts at “One Poet’s Notes” concerning Henry David Thoreau: “Henry David Thoreau on the Nature of Poetry and the Poetry of Nature,” “Henry David Thoreau on Writing a Journal: 300 Posts,” and “Henry David Thoreau and the Blog.”

Wallace Stevens on Imagination, Escapism, and Difficulty in Modern Poetry

In recent weeks, I have been discussing the poetry of Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, and other modernists with students in my Twentieth Century Poetry course. As I prepared for my classes, I have frequently returned to reading collections of the poets’ personal letters, discovering additional perspectives on the creative process and inklings of authors’ intentions explained in their own informal words. I have found these saved letters among the more useful tools in uncovering various feelings of these writers about their works during the period of composition. At the same time, I have been wondering about the future for scholars who might want to examine correspondence by notable figures in contemporary poetry. Since much of the communication between writers nowadays occurs through e-mail, facebook messages, or perhaps brief tweets, most of which are easily deleted on a daily basis without any thought, will there be a lasting record of poets, or novelists, engaging in written interaction to the extent that has existed in the past? As more journals accept, encourage, or insist upon e-mail submissions, and a great deal of correspondence between authors and their editors at magazines or publishing houses occurs online, even many of those missives will likely not survive far into the future.

Though those writers of the past may have had some qualms about elements of their intimate conversations included in correspondence becoming public, the collections of letters usually published posthumously under the guidance of relatives (ie. Letters of Wallace Stevens, selected and edited by Holly Stevens, or The Letters of T.S. Eliot, edited by Valerie Eliot) often provide frank, interesting, and informative details that enable better understanding of the authors’ methods of composition and expectations of responses from readers of their work.

For instance, as I review the poetry of Wallace Stevens again today on the occasion of his birth date (Oct. 2, 1879), I find a number of intriguing letters that reveal additional perceptions reflecting the poet’s viewpoint. Indeed, among an array of similar series of letters with others, for years Stevens participated in an ongoing conversation with Hi Simons, a critic and bibliographer of Stevens’ publications. The correspondence between Stevens and Simons began in 1937 and ended when Simons died of a heart attack in 1945, before the bibliography survey they had been constructing could be completed.

One lengthy letter sent from Stevens to Simons on February 18, 1942, contains an assortment of instructive and illuminating comments by the poet enhancing comprehension about topics he repeatedly reported as crucial in his works. Addressing the issue of imagination, Stevens states the following: “When a poet makes his imagination the imagination of other people, he does so by making them see the world through his eyes. Most modern activity is the undoing of that very job. The world has been painted; most modern activity is getting rid of the paint to get at the world itself. Powerful integrations of the imagination are difficult to get away from.”

In another section of the letter, Stevens offers an opinion about the place of poetry as escapist material: “About escapism: Poetry as a narcotic is escapism in the pejorative sense. But there is a benign escapism in every illusion. The use of the word illusion suggests the simplest way to define the difference between escapism in a pejorative sense and in a non-pejorative sense: that is to say: it is the difference between elusion and illusion, or benign illusion. Of course, I believe in benign illusion. To my way of thinking, the idea of God is an instance of benign illusion.”

Elsewhere in the same piece of correspondence, Stevens explains aspects of composition and reader response he sees as significant, as well as the difference between difficulty and obscurity in modern poetry: “Sometimes, when I am writing a thing, it is complete in my own mind; I write it in my own way and don’t care what happens. I don’t mean to say that I am deliberately obscure, but I do mean to say that, when the thing has been put down and is complete to my own way of thinking, I let it go. After all, if the thing is really there, the reader gets it. He may not get it at once, but, if he is sufficiently interested, he invariably gets it. A man who wrote with the idea of being deliberately obscure would be an imposter. But that is not the same thing as a man who allows a difficult thing to remain difficult because, if he explained it, it would, to his way of thinking, destroy it.”

As these three samplings from a single letter written by Wallace Stevens indicate, much can be garnered by investigating portions of the extensive documentation of prose contained in the collected correspondence of particular writers in the past. Unfortunately, although I believe readers and scholars someday will benefit by gaining new insights to the works of certain contemporary authors and their personalities through the writers’ preserved activities as bloggers or columnists for online journals that are archived, I believe evidence of informal reflection written by authors in correspondence distributed through electronic means might not be available as educational aids that could enlighten future generations of critics and scholars the way these volumes of collected letters by our past poets have served today’s readers.