|
June 03, 2003POETRY CORNER (CONT.) New York Times journalist Chris Hedges first came to Horsefeathers' attention with the publication of his book, War Is a Force That Gives us Meaning, chronicling his disillusionment as a war correspondent. After many years spent seeking out wars, he decided war is awful. Having arrived at this original conclusion he went on to become a vocal critic of America and its military. He was recently booed off the stage when he proclaimed in a commencement address at Rockford College that Iraq had to be liberated from the murderous American military. Mr. Hedges mouthed the usual cliches of the America and Israel hating left and then returned to his day job as a reporter at the NYTimes. It didn't take long for him to find a new way to smuggle his ideology into his reporting. Today's paper carries a flattering profile of an obscure New Jersey poet, Gerald Stern, a man who pressed for Amiri Baraka to be named poet laureate of his state. The profile is called "A Poet Raging Against Pretension". Why would Mr. Hedges be drawn to such a writer? Could it be because Mr. Stern, according to Hedges, raged against pretension in a way that resulted in his spending "six months incarcerated in an Army guardhouse after World War II for a crime he said he did not commit." (italics added) Mr. Hedges doesn't bother to check out the truth of this unlikely assertion; after all he's a NYTimes reporter whose first task is to oppose the "drift" of the country, (see Dr. Kramer's essay New York Times Or Ministry of Truth? below)which clearly has a high opinion of the military. Instead he gives us Mr. Stern's views on the nature of poetry: "Poetry should be passionate and outrageous and political and most of all revolutionary," he said. "I am a radical, although as I get older sometimes I get too soft and am just a liberal." "Here is a child," he said with a mischievous grin, "let's jump on him sayeth the little Bush." I think I won't be adding Gerald Stern to my poetry bookshelf anytime soon. Posted at 11:24 AM by
 
|
Chris Hedges is clearly an ideologue and a fool besides lacking integrity so politically charged and biased is his writing. O war is bad, and so is death and disease. That knowledge is not very original it's about 6,000 years old! It is obvious to me that Chris Hedges is too ignorant and unschooled to have read the Arbroath Declaration of 1320 or even Tacitus' Agricola not to mention the speeches of Patrick Henry! He is one of those COWARDLY fools who mocks the men and women who guard him while he sleeps not to mention the sacrifice of the brave -now forever young- who spent their young manhood so he could be a pillar of the Fourth Estate. He is wee man just lucky to have ink and paper and the right desk job that's all. I am no' very impressed by a' that. Mr Hedges probably never had an original idea in his head in his entire life which is why he is so predicatable and boring.
I may be many things but I am not predicatable and if I am boring I beg your pardon but at least one man enjoys to bang out his soul and independent opinion. Take it or leave it. "Wha's the differ" as they used to say one upon a time on the steps of 30 Govan Road: a man is free to speak his mind and it dinna cost "tuppance" for a stamp.
As for Imamu Amiri Baraka - a figure well-known to me- (the beloved anointed one of the people AKA Leroy Jones) if the truth be told is not really a poet of any merit at all merely a political propagandist peddling pseudo non-poetry.
And much of is is anti-American, anti-democratic and anti-Semitic. I choose not to make him part of MY CANON -so there.
As far as my family and serious students are concerned he DOESN'T EXIST. That's at least 11 people.
I do not speak his name or recite his poetry. Come to think of it as a poet HE DOESN'T EXIST except as a chimerical politically correct "Big Liberal" wordsmith who is DESIGNATED poet.
I don't believe in DESIGNATED bilingual teachers, DESIGNATED hitters or DESIGNATED poets.
Though I do not know the work of Gerald Stern (except for this "GREAT LYRIC" excerpt :"Here is a child," he said with a mischievous grin, "let's jump on him sayeth the little Bush.")
I presume if Chris Hedges (who is a boob) praises him or some academic literary journal publishes him to the tune of 500 unread copies he MUST BE COMPLETE AND UTTER MUCK of the MONTH POLTICALLY CORRECT GARBAGE.
Bob Dylan by comparison is Dante and my friends Dylan -with all due respect- ain't in the same league at all.
If the previous excerpt is representative of Mr. Sterns's work then indeed rather than being the zenith of American literary culture Stern's work must the abyss of a new dark age, the dregs of not a Silver Age but a rust bucket age.
I recall being chastized by an NYU poetry mavin -some 25 years ago for daring to criticize Pablo Neruda (in this case a very talented lyric poet if dishonest politically).
I had the temerity to say that Neruda did not hold a candle to Whitman, to Byron, or even Burns not to mention Cervantes, Larra or the Duque de Rivas for depth, humor, pathos, variety, intelligence and clear vision. I was greeted with shocked silence. But then I was a middle brow from the gutter who liked My Fair Lady and Kiss Me Kate (though I never compared them to Verdi or the Duque de Rivas!).
I asserted with true sincerity that Neruda was merely a great lyric talent without much sophistication at all hence the narrowness, ultimately of his opus.
I wrote a paper about this and think I documented my case rather well.
Needless to say I did not get an A primarily because I refused to praise Neruda to the skies as the greatest writer in the world since Garcia Lorca and Walt Whitman.
I said Neruda was, in the original Spanish, a great lyric poet, a POLITICAL poet and propagandist.
Neruda was the greatest talent of the Communist apologists for Stalin, Guevara and Castro but hardly in the first rank of authors and the proof is that much of his poety is dead almost trite and when translated there is little substance and much falsehood and prejudice. I just wondered if quasi-fascist poets also got free rides like the communists -it seemed not because they were not in the anthology!
Such are the Amiri Barakas and Sterns of this world: POLITICAL POETS of little or no value beyond their politically charged message.
When the message is certified as dead that poetry will be dead as well if it isn't already.
Such poetry has no popular following especially among Americans who are not a poetic people by and large but a practical and commerical people.
You can't be good at everything and we must yield first place to more lyric people and more lyrical times than ours.
Pardon me it is time for a dose of Byron, Stevenson and Lorca not to mention some honest bards of minor note but sweet notes and sweeter feeling.
Such cianalas -joy mingled with sadness- shall endure and I dare say is memorable and quoted on a daily basis by ordinary folk who are lovers of poetry. Their opinion and mine must count for something though we do not have the Ivy League franchise.
Posted by: Ricardo Munro on June 4, 2003 03:16 AM