Anyway, I found a new poetry bestie who does not even know that he is my go-to read when I feel like I need support for my particular brands and tastes in things poetic. He is a blogger, poet, and overall wise poetic fellow by the name of Patrick Gillespie, and his site has over 3 million views. I don’t guess that I have ever noticed how long the blog has been around, and I am not going to look now because it does not matter. I don’t know how appropriate it is to mention other bloggers or to post their website in my blog without exclusive permission, but here is his site: https://poemshape.wordpress.com/about/
I really appreciate his blog because his story is very similar to mine, and we share very similar views about the current state of poetry in America and in the world. That viewpoint is as positive as one can be about the piles and piles of free verse non-poetry that poetry fans are subjected to daily by inept editors and publishers who have never written (and maybe have never read or published) a good poem. Gillespie has written poetry since a teenager, and some of his stuff that I have read is damned good, but he has only been published through self-publication like me. His initial influence was Robert Frost; mine was probably Theodor Geisel, otherwise known as Dr. Seuss, but Frost was a close second influence for me. Check out The Seven Hour Love Song in one of my books, and you will see that I am telling the truth. (By the way, I have done a total reworking of that poem in the new book.) Gillespie only has the one self-published book produced in 2000. I have three from like 2000-2002, but they could easily have been one. He is an excellent mimic of pretty much any style that he chooses to imitate just like me. Read The Craven in The Joy of Shadows if you don’t believe me. His poem Ulysses in Burlington, Vermont is an incredibly clever mock up of Tennyson’s poem Ulysses. Is Gillespie’s a great poem? I don’t know, but I recognized the excellent wit in it within the first few lines, and its cleverness is maintained throughout. I have read it twice, and remember what I said about going back to a potential poem?
I feel that I probably should note the one obvious difference between the two of us. He lives in Vermont, and I live in Arkansas. No, just kidding! --Though our worlds are much different, I would imagine. Mr. Gillespie is wise, witty, and erudite to the point of being bookish. I enjoy reading some of the gems that he comes up with in his droll New England humor. His line, “It would be better if poets were fed to the lions of public opinion. Drive them out of the universities, if not literally then figuratively. Drown institutional benevolence in a barrel of water,” is some of the most relevant poetry criticism that I have seen and read in many years. However, I sometimes feel, when reading his thoughts, that I am reading the papers of my peers in graduate school. Yes, there is a place for such pompous and intellectually irrelevant academic scholarship, but that place is in graduate school. Poetry and its criticism must be accessible to non-scholars if it is ever to retain or regain its importance to a general reading public, “fed to the lions of the public” as he says. That is a minor disagreement in our styles. I am not likely to butt heads with the intellectuals and academics that he does because he is a semi-famous blogger. I prefer a conversational, country-story infused style in my presentation though I really wouldn't mind butting some heads. I hope that my style is working. If it isn’t, would you tell me?
I am at my word count.
Patrick Gillespie’s blog is awesome. Check it out. I will give extra credit to anyone who can tell me where I got the title of this blog. Hint: It is from a very weird movie adapted from a play.
Today's picture is of some polk salat berries growing on bushes in my blackberry patch. I don't mean on the blackberry vines but on polk salat stalks.. Blow the picture up. It is pretty cool.
Commentaires