Posted by Tony Espinoza on March 19, 2001 at 08:22:10:
In Reply to: Giving credit where credit is due...[New-Poetry] posted by Robert R. Cobb on March 17, 2001 at 10:37:54:
Poetry bores me. I'd rather that poets just made sense rather than taking poetic license.
: Elsewhere in LPT, within the section called "ART," you will find a sub-section called, "Poet's Lie."
: I, as well as other poets, have some personal poetry to be found. Check it out!
: The following comes from a review, of a review, of a review, with permission to be used for the purposes
: of discussion here. The original source is a 1992 interview with Katharine Coles in_Weber Studies_. This is further
: reviewed by Edward Byrne, as a review of the American poet, Mark Strand's_The Weather of Words_, in which he quotes Strand
: from the original Coles' interview, speaking on this subject:
: "American poetry has always been a poetry of personal testimony. More so than other poetries. So the idea of 'the confessional'
: was misguided from the beginning." He also speaks of "autobiographical poetry," seemingly suggesting it is very difficult for
: poetry to be truly "autobiographical." Byrne quotes the following Strand comment in his review: "There's a certain point, where
: you're writing autobiographical stuff, where you don't want to misrepresent yourself. It would be dishonest. And, at least in
: poetry, you should feel free to lie. That is, not to lie, but to imagine what you want, to follow the direction of the poem. If
: you're writing autobiographically, there's something dictating the shape of the poem other than the imagination. You lose the freedom
: to investigate."--Mark Strand, --Edward Byrne
: Trust me on this, speaking for myself, poets do, sometimes at least, tell lies. It's called, "poetic license."
: --Robert R. Cobb