There needs to be risk. Confessionalistic poetry is more risky than Autobiographicality. Autobiographicality, no matter how disturbing in content, is always the story of a life, of what happened, of circumstance and event. Confessionalistic poetry is the splitting open of self, a minor chord before and without resolution. A shopping list read aloud, even with gusto, with style, is not Confessionalistic, even if you intend to buy parmesan, pull-ups, and heroin. The risk in a poem that relies heavily on Autobiographicality is usually a risk of content. Privacy, reputation, and decency, may all be risked by the Autobiographicalistic poet. But the Confessionalistic poet risks more; she is willing to undermine the boundaries of self. Often, she is writing at the frayed edge of the genre in the busy interstitial space between neurons.
Molly and I heard Rachel Zucker speak at AWP with D. A. Powell, Carl Phillips and others on "Beyond the Song of Oneself: The Intersection of the Personal and the Public in Poetry." It was my favorite panel!
2 comments:
I'd be curious to read more about your reactions to this article, Meryl. I don't know if I have a grasp on how I feel about the "I" in poetry, though I'm not at all like, say, Eireann, who feels incredibly introverted and shies away from revealing much about the self. For a while, with blogging, I tried to be secretive because it would be a bit mucky if (when--it happened, and sooner than I expected) a student would stumble onto what I was writing. Now, my MIL reads my blog, so I know that I have to censor myself to that level, but I also don't mind talking about deeply personal things, such as having PCOS or the breast lump or having a girlfriend my senior year of high school. It's all going to come out in my work anyway. The one subject I do find sacred, and I think this will expand as the family expands, is the subject of my husband. He is the opposite extreme of myself--he hates that there are images of him on my blog, wishes that I wouldn't ever mention his name there, and gets incredibly shy at the idea of my reading poetry about him in public.
And here's the tricky bit: my cnf piece I've been working on this semester reveals a fairly significant secret that could get someone in my life a bit cross with me. So this has been a topic of discussion: do I keep it in? I can't tell if it's crucial to the piece. Dan (prof) says yes, Sheena and Ying (in my workshop group) said no. So, I think, for the purposes of the class, I'd turn it in to Dan WITH the secret intact, and if I decide to attempt sending it out (which I think I'd like to do), I'm going to have to beg many people to read it and tell me what they think. You know, those who would be able to keep the secret if it's the remain a secret.
And no, it's not a very interesting one. Just that it would upset someone, and that's just it: do we allow people in our lives to become subjects for the sake of Art (with a capital A)? The poem I have in issue 3 of Dislocate is a fairly unkind portrait of my mother, part true, part fabricated, which is how much of my poetry ends up being--based in fact, but the beauty of poetry is that it doesn't have to be fiction or non-fiction singularly or at once.
Anyway, I'm not completely done with the article; I've only just gotten to her list... Also interesting is that Sharon Olds, Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath--all heavy hitters who got me to love poetry. I haven't read much Lowell though, but I will probably have to for my independent study, where Elizabeth Bishop will play a key role.
Enough. I hope now that the semester is coming to a close, we can turn to this space and our in-person meetings to keep conversations going.
Another post I'd love to see from everyone, when they get a chance: What is your summer reading list? And what is your thesis book list (thus far)? I have been thinking a lot about my own, and I'll wait to post mine, since I've nattered enough in the comments section, but I will say that Meryl and I might have a few books in common!
xo
Hi Molly! Yes, I sort of put this out there without any of my own thoughts, or a real articulation of why this essay appealed to me so much. Now (post-classes) is a great time to do just that!
The risks you're speaking of are those risks of content, especially privacy. I think that Zucker would consider the risks taken in Sharon Olds' work to be in a similar vein, autobiographicality. Where certain Plath and Sexton poems, and especially Jorie Graham's "Imperialism" that I brought into class on Thursday, take risks that Zucker would call confessionalistic, "willing to undermine the boundaries of self." Zucker explains that Graham's poem, while it has autobiographical (not symbolic) content, is still not actually ABOUT the husband and wife, the linoleum, the river Ganges, the mother's body, etc. I would say what the poem IS about relates directly to "bodies and knowing" ...the traumatic recognition that one's body is not sealed off from the bodies of others, not really one's own but part of the organic mass that surrounds it. But it's certainly a poem that defies easy descriptors and my enthusiasm for it is undiminished!
But in more direct response to what you've said, I think those are intensely individual decisions. I tend also to be a writer more protective of my privacy, and the thought of my MIL reading a blog/book of mine is terrifying! But I admire the bravery that others have to be unflinchingly honest in their work. Some writers allow family members to censor (perhaps modify is a better term?) their work widely so as not to have any ruffled feathers. Others would rather lose relationships than a good publication credit. Most people probably fall somewhere in between and have to make tough calls like this all the time. I'd love to have a look at your essay, even if you don't need me to weigh in on the matter!
Zucker herself is an interesting case. And it's funny that both in this essay and at AWP she managed to discuss these issues without directly relating them to her own work! Right now I'm reading _Eating in the Underworld_, her first book. The speakers here are Persephone, Demeter and Hades... whereas I get the impression that _The Bad Wife Handbook_ and _The Last Clear Narrative_ mine PERSONAL experience, and I'm ever so much more curious about those books! (Louise Gluck also went the Persephone route in _Averno_ and maybe I'm just a little fidgety within this particular myth-remaking)
There is merit in the idea that the content the poet hesitates to address is precisely what readers will respond to most. We've all experienced getting a whiff of something being held back in writing. How do you ladies respond to that generally? Sometimes I find it disingenuous, but more often than not it provokes my interest further. But matters of content or "autobiographicality" aside, I think what excited me most about Zucker's essay was that I recognized this unmaking/remaking of the self to be one of the chief interests in my own reading and writing of poetry.
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