Aberration in Modern Poetry. Essays on Atypical Works by Yeats, Auden, Moore, Heaney and Others PDF
Preview Aberration in Modern Poetry. Essays on Atypical Works by Yeats, Auden, Moore, Heaney and Others
Aberration in Modern Poetry This page intentionally left blank Aberration in Modern Poetry Essays on Atypical Works by Yeats, Auden, Moore, Heaney and Others Edited by LUCY COLLINS and STEPHEN MATTERSON McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina, and London LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA Aberration in modern poetry : essays on atypical works by Yeats, Auden, Moore, Heaney and others / edited by Lucy Collins and Stephen Matterson. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7864-6295-7 softcover : acid free paper 1. Poetry, Modern—20th century—History and criticism. I. Collins, Lucy. II. Matterson, Stephen. PN1271.A26 2012 809.1'04—dc23 2011046537 BRITISHLIBRARYCATALOGUINGDATAAREAVAILABLE © 2012 Lucy Collins and Stephen Matterson. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Front cover design by Victoria Fenstermaker (www.showcasedsign.com). Manufactured in the United States of America McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640 www.mcfarlandpub.com Acknowledgments All unpublished material from the Marianne Moore Collection is quoted with the permission of Marianne Craig Moore, Literary Executor for the Estate of Marianne Moore, and the Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadel- phia, Pennsylvania. Published poems are quoted with the permission of Faber and Faber Limited. Quotations from Paul Muldoon’s General Admission(2006) are made by kind permission of the author and The Gallery Press. Parts of Peter Nicholls’ essay appeared in a different version in George Oppen and the Fate of Modernism (Oxford University Press, 2007). We are grateful to the publisher for permission to include this material in the present essay. We are grateful also to Linda Oppen for her permission to quote pub- lished and unpublished material by George Oppen, including material held at the Mandeville Special Collections, University of California at San Diego. Quotations from the poetry of Louise Glück are made with the permis- sion of HarperCollins and Carcanet. Quotations from the poetry of James K. Baxter appear with the permis- sion of the James K. Baxter Trust. Poetry by Kamau Brathwaite is quoted with the kind permission of the author, and we are grateful to Penelope Shuttle for permission to quote mate- rial by Peter Redgrove. Excerpts from π.o.’s 24 Hours (collective effort press) are published by kind permission of the author. Paul Durcan’s Ireland Chair of Poetry lecture “Hartnett’s Farewell” was first published in The Poet’s Chair, Lilliput Press, 2008. It is reprinted here with the permission of the Ireland Chair of Poetry Executive and Antony Far- rell of Lilliput Press. v This page intentionally left blank Table of Contents Acknowledgments v Preface 1 Introduction: “I learn by going where I have to go” LUCY COLLINS AND STEPHEN MATTERSON 3 Omission and Aberration in Marianne Moore’s Poetry CRISTANNE MILLER 19 W.H. Auden’s Detours STEPHEN MATTERSON 36 “Coming up England by a different line”: Philip Larkin and Louis MacNeice STEPHEN REGAN 49 Participation without Belonging: Apostrophe and Aberration in Seamus Heaney’s North SCOTT BREWSTER 63 Another Side of Paul Muldoon: The Poet as Lyricist MARIA JOHNSTON 77 That “Saving Ray of Strangeness”: The Late Poems of George Oppen PETER NICHOLLS 95 The One Continuous Line: Louise Glück and the Necessity of Writing LUCY COLLINS 110 “By Writing and Example”: James K. Baxter’s L ong-H aired Romanticism JOHN NEWTON 126 X/Self: Kamau Brathwaite at the Crossroads LEE M. JENKINS 144 Unsettling Language: π.o.’s 24 Hours PHILIP MEAD 161 Face to Face with Clumsiness: Aberration, Errancy and W.B. Yeats JEFFERSON HOLDRIDGE 178 vii viii Table of Contents Hartnett’s Farewell PAUL DURCAN 193 Time to Send Home the Troops? CAROL RUMENS 214 Cézanne’s Bathers HARRY CLIFTON 226 About the Contributors 231 Index 233 Preface This is a collection of essays and reflections on how a particular poem or collection by a poet might be seen to deviate from the c ritically-a greed shape of their career. As such, the book as a whole is concerned with c anon- formation and its consequences; consequences such as the marginalization, suppression or exclusion of work which is considered aberrational. While the contributions are mostly focused on the work of individual poets, larger con- cerns are consistently addressed. These include issues such as how the work perceived as aberrant fits into or challenges the critically accepted oeuvre of the poet. Does the work, though aberrant in itself, provide a basis for the poet’s further development? Is aberration primarily a formal or stylistic dif- ferentiation? A work may appear aberrant at the time of publication but is later considered important and characteristic, while poets themselves may declare a work aberrational and seek to suppress it or distance themselves from it. The topic of aberration developed over an extended period in our own conversations about poetry, and this led us to write to possible contributors with a collection of essays in mind. Almost all of the people we contacted responded with enthusiasm to our invitation, and the ensuing discussions with contributors enlarged and reshaped our sense of the subject. As well as approaching both established and developing literary critics, we also invited some poets to reflect on aspects of aberration in their own experience as writers and editors. From the start we were keen that the book should represent a geographical range, in order to challenge critical approaches to poetry based exclusively on national traditions. The introductory essay engages at length with these issues, drawing on material from a range of periods and cultural contexts. This is followed by fourteen contributions, looking variously at poets from Ireland, the U.S. Britain, Australia and New Zealand. Certainly, we hope that readers will engage with the individual essays, but will also be led to consider the context provided by the collection as a whole. 1
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