Sherry Chandler

The Practice of Poetry

I want to draw your attention to a blog I have just discovered, The Practice of Poetry, written by H. K. Hummel, a founding editor of Blood Orange Review.

A first-look at The Practice of Poetry reveals several intriguing posts, including Meditating/Writing:

Poets and meditators often observe the same precepts: everything depends on how we engage our mind; when we think about what we think, we can gain great insights, and we can be free of our enslaving fears or trapped fantasies that exist within.

And Disagreeable Robinson Jeffers:

“Coming back to Jeffers after a long absence is like getting kicked in the gut,” Carolyn Kizer states in her essay called “A Note on Robinson Jeffers” (93). In the essay, she analyzes a handful of passages of Jeffers’ work which are harsh, violent, and inhumanistic but girded by “rolling orotund phrases” and “luminous alliteration” (95, 92)

…

I wonder though, if her reaction is simply part of the grimace reaction from getting kicked in the gut. It’s true: Jeffers’ reviling voice can make me grind my teeth with complete dis-ease. But it seems important that now, as we must change our perspectives on what we value and consider ethical living in order to sustain life, we should be taking extra care with our assumptions.

Hummel is a west coast poet and so looks to Robinson Jeffers. As a southern poet, I might say I have some of the same reaction to James Dickey, especially his very controversial poem “The Firebombing,” that I quoted yesterday in a comment. (And, by the way, the poem is several pages long. I only quoted the part that seemed relevant to our conversation.) Dickey can make me feel kicked in the gut but he may also be teaching me things I need to know.

Seems like maybe that’s what poetry ought to do, though it is comforting to find poems that are warm and fuzzy. Hummel continues:

Jeffers’ sucker-punches are upsetting, but our desire for the little lovelies that he wrote might simply reveal our implicit acceptance of the common philosophy that literature “is reaching for the human element” as Chris Abani said in a recent, brilliant lecture at the Port Townsend Writers Conference. This is an anthropocentric notion that elides the forceful de-centering Jeffers so ardently (and harshly) sought. Maybe he was a man out of time, better suited for the more angry—and scared—listeners today, the ones worried about the quality of life for their children, the ones not having children out of fear for what sea changes may soon make unbearable living conditions.

Strong stuff.

I’m looking forward to exploring Hummel’s blog further and I invite you to join me.

Possibly related posts:

Kudzu Poetry Prize

Robinson’s Fan

So Long Understanding Poetry

Let’s talk about poetry

Internet Poetry Archive

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