Being numerous : poetry and the ground of social life

245 Pages·2011·2.3 MB·English

by  Izenberg, Oren

B E I N G N U M E R O U S
/
20 21
WALTER BENN MICHAELS, Series Editor
From Guilt to Shame by Ruth Leys
William Faulkner: An Economy of Complex Words by Richard Godden
American Hungers: The Problem of Poverty in U.S. Literature, 1840–1945
by Gavin Jones
A Pinnacle of Feeling: American Literature and Presidential Government
by Sean McCann
Postmodern Belief: American Literature and Religion since 1960
by Amy Hungerford
Being Numerous: Poetry and the Ground of Social Life by Oren Izenberg
B E I N G N U M E R O U S
Poetry and the
Ground of Social Life
Oren Izenberg
P R I N C E T O N U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S
P R I N C E T O N A N D O X F O R D
Copyright 2011 © by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton,
New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street,
Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
press.princeton.edu
Cover art: Jason Salavon, The Grand Unifi cation Theory (Part Three:
Every Second of “It’s a Wonderful Life”). Detail on front and on back.
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Izenberg, Oren.
Being numerous : poetry and the ground of social life / Oren
Izenberg.
p. cm. — (20/21)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-691-14483-2 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-691-
14866-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Poetry, modern—20th century—
History and criticism—Theory, etc. I. Title.
PN1271.I94 2010
809.1(cid:1)04—dc22 2010020738
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Helvetica Neue
Printed on acid-free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
INTRODUCTION
Poems, Poetry, Personhood 1
CHAPTER ONE
White Thin Bone: Yeatsian Personhood 40
CHAPTER TWO
Oppen’s Silence, Crusoe’s Silence, and the Silence of Other Minds 78
CHAPTER THREE
The Justice of My Feelings for Frank O’Hara 107
CHAPTER FOUR
Language Poetry and Collective Life 138
CHAPTER FIVE
We Are Reading 164
Notes 189
Index 225
This page intentionally left blank
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I owe my fi rst debt of gratitude to my parents. My father, Gerald Izenberg, showed
me by his example how to lead a life of the mind while being fully present to oth-
ers. My mother, Ziva Izenberg, has always instructed me with her powerful good
sense and her unshakable will. They are the most generous people I know. To-
gether, they have encouraged and supported everything I have set out to do; this
book is dedicated to them.
I went to the Johns Hopkins University to study with Allen Grossman, a decision
that was rewarded beyond all expectation. For many years, in Baltimore, Lexing-
ton, and Chicago, Allen’s immense learning and deep humanity—along with his
powerful conviction that the work of poetry is intimately related to the work of
being a person in the world—have shaped my sense of what it is to be a scholar
and a teacher. His inimitable voice is in my ear when I read poems and when
I write about them—may it always be so. If Allen was this work’s fi rst audience,
Walter Benn Michaels was its second. Long afternoons spent working these ideas
out in the pitched battle that is apparently his native idiom make up some of my
best and most vivid memories of Hopkins. In recent years, Walter has been as
generous in his friendship as he is merciless in argument; I am grateful for both.
Others have left their mark as well. Sharon Cameron showed me an unsparing
intensity of attention to poems that I can only hope to approximate. John Guillory
and Frances Ferguson, fi rst as teachers and then later as colleagues, showed me
how to follow an idea to its root. My fellow graduate students from those days
formed an intellectual community that—though now fl ung far—continues to instruct
and inspire me. Some of them—in particular, Scott Black, Abigail Cheever, Daniel
Denecke, Andrew Franta, Joanna Klink, Larissa MacFarquhar, Stacey Margolis,
viii
S Dan McGee, Deak Nabers, Michael Szalay, Jane Thrailkill—will fi nd that sentences
T
N
E they have spoken to me have made their way into this book.
M
G At Harvard University, I was fortunate to be a part of a tremendous cohort of
D
E young faculty. My fellow Garden Level residents—Lynn Festa, Yunte Huang, John
L
W
Picker, Leah Price, Sharmila Sen, Ann Wierda Rowland—made my time in Cam-
O
N
K bridge a happy one. Many other Harvard colleagues contributed to this book as
C
A well—special thanks to Forrest Gander, Jorie Graham, Barbara Johnson, Robert
Kiely, and Peter Sacks.
Being Numerous was completed at the University of Chicago. There, Robert
von Hallberg, by sheer force of personality and passionate devotion to literature
and scholarship, created—for a time—a truly remarkable place to think and talk
about poems. I am grateful to him, and to the rest of the faculty in the Program in
Poetry and Poetics—Danielle Allen, Kelly Austin, Robert Bird, Bradin Cormack,
Alison James, Liesl Olson, Mark Payne, Chicu Reddy, Jennifer Scappettone, Rich-
ard Strier, David Wray—for years of conversation about my work and theirs. Other
Chicago colleagues have been generous friends and interlocutors; particular
thanks go to Lauren Berlant, Suzanne Buffam, Sandra Macpherson, and Eric
Slauter for personal and intellectual companionship. Jim Chandler and Françoise
Meltzer made the Franke Institute for the Humanities—which generously sup-
ported part of a year’s leave—an intellectually lively and productive place to be. I
have also been tremendously fortunate in my students at Chicago. Joshua Kotin,
Jenny Ludwig, Marta Napiorkowska, Kiki Petrosino, Andrew Rippeon, Michael
Robbins, Dustin Simpson, and Michelle Taransky helped me to think through
many of the arguments in this book in a memorable (to me) seminar on Radical
Poetics. Throughout my years at the University, they, along with V. Joshua Adams,
Stephanie Anderson, Joel Callahan, Michael Hansen, Billy Junker, Chalcey Wild-
ing, and Johanna Winant have continued to teach me with their love for poems
and for ideas.
Good conversation about poetry transcends the narrow confi nes of institution
and discipline. Charles Altieri, Brett Bourbon, Steve Burt, Jeff Dolven, Roland
Greene, Lyn Hejinian, Susan Howe, Sean McCann, Maureen McLane, Sianne
Ngai, Marjorie Perloff, Ron Silliman, and Barrett Watten have all challenged me to
think harder—through their writing, in their questioning, and sometimes by their
opposition. Mark Canuel and the English Department at the University of Illinois at
Chicago have provided an intellectual haven. Jennifer Ashton deserves special
acknowledgment. She has read many of these pages many times, and I am
thankful for her critical intelligence and for her steady friendship.
Audiences at Brown University, Williams College, and the Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity provided helpful responses to work in progress. Earlier versions of some of
these chapters have appeared in several journals: thanks to the editors of Critical
Inquiry, Modernism/Modernity, and Modern Philology for allowing me permission
ix
to reprint from them here. Thanks to Hanne Winarsky at Princeton University A
C
K
Press for believing in this book and shepherding it through to publication; to two N
O
anonymous readers for their insightful commentary and criticism; and to Ellen W
L
Foos and Jodi Beder for their exhaustive work on the manuscript. After their care- E
D
ful attention, any mistakes that remain are my own. G
M
Above all, I am thankful to Sonya Rasminsky. Her intelligence, judgment, and E
N
T
nearly infi nite patience have made this work possible. Her love and friendship S
make everything else possible. These pages are about the burdens and obliga-
tions of being a person. Sonya, together with our children, Toby and Miri, have
taught me the joys.