Song of a Reformed Headhunter

T. S. Eliot, when persuading Moore to republish Observations with the addition of a small number of new poems, offered a useful guideline on deciding what makes up a "book" of poetry: The point at which one has "enough" for a book (of verse) is not a quantitative matter alone: it comes at the end of a paragraph, or chapter, however short; it's a question of form. One only has not enough, when one feels that the poems written require the cooperation of certain poems not yet written, in order to be themselves quite. The paragraph, or chapter, metaphor suggests that a book of verse should have a completed shape, not necessarily a narrative arc, but whatever is proposed at the beginning of the paragraph or chapter would have been developed to some satisfying (Moore would have said, joyful) conclusion. Demanding as the metaphor may sound, it is also liberating, for a paragraph or a chapter is not the whole book, is not the whole work of a lifetime. There is time and...

I've just finished reading Stapleton's chapter on Moore as a literary reviewer. In discussing Moore's approach, Stapleton says something very true and just of the task of a literary critic: For a critic to praise justly, and without exaggeration, is hard; it may be harder still, when praise is due, to make it relevant-- to make it mean anything specific in reference, and specifically alive in statement. This difficult art goes to the root of criticism. For praise that counts is not encomium, is certainly not compliment, but attempts identification. It no longer adds a mere plus (or when not bestowed, a minus sign); it ceases to refer primarily to the writer, and becomes the predicate attaching itself to the work in question. Because Marianne Moore exemplifies the reserve and the "immunity to fear" of the true writer, her praise of the work she admires suggests the outline of her poetics. [bold emphasis mine] The predicate metaphor is beautifully apt. The liter...

Moore: "The individuality and emotion of the writer should transcend modes. I recall feeling over-solitary occasionally (say in 1912)--in reflecting no 'influences'; to not be able to be called an 'imagist'--but determined to put the emphasis on what mattered most to me, in a manner natural to me" (in a broadcast on American poetry). Earlier in the same broadcast, Moore said, "rhythm was my prime objective. If I succeeded in embodying a rhythm that preoccupied me, I was satisfied."

Grace Paley joined Sarah Lawrence College in 1966, and from that beginning had been closely associated with its creative writing program. By the time I enrolled in the graduate course in 2003, she had not been teaching there for some time, but still could be seen at college events and readings. I read her short story "Wants" not long ago, and was impressed by the economy of her prose, especially her adroit use of a short verbal exchange to convey an entire marriage and its breakdown. The NYT obituary mentions her first ambition was to be a poet, and she studied with Auden for a while at The New School. I googled and found this: Here Here I am in the garden laughing an old woman with heavy breasts and a nicely mapped face how did this happen well that's who I wanted to be at last a woman in the old style sitting stout thighs apart under a big skirt grandchild sliding on off my lap a pleasant summer perspiration that's my old man across the yard he's talking to th...

When Ian McKellen visited Singapore on a R.S.C. tour, Yawning Bread pointed out the bad publicity that must result from Singapore's anti-gay law: So McKellen lands here, he reads the highly prejudiced letters in the press, he mixes with gay Singaporeans and hears their stories. He watches a gay play in which Section 377A of the Penal Code is discussed. What do you think he's going to say about Singapore after he's left our shores? He, the celebrity with huge access to the media all over the world? Sure enough, the New Yorker profile of the gay actor, written by John Lahr, includes a paragraph on McKellen's response to Singapore. As part of his interpretation of Lear, McKellen strips completely naked in the storm, but not in Singapore. In Singapore, where gay sex is punishable by up to ten years in prison, Lear was forced to wear underwear in the storm scene and McKellen spoke to the press protesting the community's "personally off...

For a movie that aims to show how Austen was transformed by a love affair into the great novelist, you would have thought a better title is "Becoming Austen." But Austen, played by Anne Hathaway, is all and always Jane in this film: unconventional, romantic, beautiful. She plays cricket better than the boys. She elopes with her lover, Lefroy. She has a supermodel figure. So the title is true to the real spirit of the film after all. Just don't look for Austen in it.

Faulkner is a terribly depressing read. The fatalism that permeates the novel is sometimes described as supernatural: the characters are so many chess pieces moved by a Player with some unknowable plan. But all the time it is clear that the characters are fated by their own characters to live, die, kill, love. So even Lena Grove's optimistic persistence in searching for the father of her child has its fatalistic aspect: she cannot help herself; she has as much power to stop searching as the father Lucas Burch has to stop running away. Byron Bunch's love for Lena is instantaneous and overwhelming, and he acts thereafter according to the dictates of this love. Hightower, a disgraced clergyman who has withdrawn from life, intervenes to save the life of Joe Christmas, but his intervention has as much effect as the wooden table hiding Christmas from the vigilante's gun. This fatalism has a sonic accompaniment, a musical motif. Throughout the novel we hear the hooves of horses. H...