Sunday, September 07, 2008

Craft, Conscience, and Convictions

The Levertov poem was the appetiser; this main-course feature, now appearing on the Poetry Foundation's website, explains it:

Craft Versus Conscience: How the Vietnam War Destroyed the Friendship Between Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov.

A sample of Duncanian dessert: “The poet’s role is not to oppose evil, but to imagine it: what if Shakespeare had opposed Iago, or Dostroyevsky [sic] opposed Raskalnikov—the vital thing is that they created Iago and Raskalnikov. And we begin to see betrayal and murder and theft in a new light.”

2 comments:

  1. Their friendship did indeed suffer from this. but the problem is, they were BOTH right. That's hard to reconcile, but it's true. Both of their positions were correct. I've read most of the essays and poems from both writers. I can't say that Levertov's poetry suffered all that much from the dreaded political-poetry issue, which usually means that political poetry sucks, being diatribe rather than art. Duncan's position on that is almost universally true: ideology usually overrules artistry. But Levertov was also right, in that her poetry didn't take too much of a nosedive in terms of quality.

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  2. You're right, Art; and, it's hard to reconcile how both could hold their positions as contrary for the sake of the stance alone. I wonder how much of it had to do with Levertov needing to release herself from Duncan's intensity? And, again, there's the line you define where dogma becomes propaganda; and, by virtue of it so doing, un-becomes poetry.

    Later, once this roof stuff's done (or I'm institutionalised because of it), I'd like to explore this in greater detail. I'll look forward to your contribution because I think you'll feel as passionately about the issues as I do.

    Also, I haven't read "around" either's poetry; my dissertation was on Olson, though, and I bumped into so much of their poetry that it insinuated itself into my nervous system far more indelibly than I thought it could have done, at that time. Amazing, what we remember . . .

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