Some stray thoughts on the Romantics

... was reading from Coleridge's Biographia Literaria just the other day (I continue reading from that anthology), and found myself nodding in agreement when he asserts that poets from a couple of generations previous -- that is, Pope and his followers -- seem to him "[in] matter and diction characterized not so much by poetic thoughts, as by thoughts translated into the language of poetry." Way to go, Sammy!

If Wordsworth had had a cellphone, he would never have been able to write the Preludes. Right in the middle of his contemplation of "the night-calm felt through earth and sky" -- *Ring!* Damn it, STC on the line! Don't want to talk to him!

Come to think of it, when that person "on business from Porlock" banged on Coleridge's door, detained him for an hour, and prevented him from writing out his vision of Kubla Khan, that may well have heralded the beginning of our present Age of Interruption....

Retreat

I just got back from this Swiss-style chalet we rented for a week in the Laurentians. For us, this was as good as any writer's retreat... & a wonderful holiday, especially from our own clutter and distraction! No TV, no internet, no blogging, no telephone -- just a few books, our writing, a couple of visits from friends & a twice-daily swim in the lake to vary the pace.

For me, these few days were really productive -- revised about twenty poems and got a lot of work done on a new manuscript. Jocelyne finished the final chapters on her novel ms., although she still has a lot of drafting to do.

We brought a box of books, but I ended up reading (and re-reading) exclusively from one volume, an old textbook from University days: the Oxford Anthology of Romantic Poetry & Prose ... all of Wordsworth the book had to offer (including a generous selection from the Prelude & his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads), a number of poems by Coleridge & Blake, about a dozen poems -- all there was -- of John Clare, and, for satiric relief, most of the selection of Byron, including about 60 p. of Don Juan.

Part of this foray into the Romantics was instigated by the discussion of Don McKay's poetry & lecture below; part of it was that the context -- esp. for Wordsworth -- was just about perfect. Who feels like reading W's lengthy (at times, turgid) meditations on Nature in the city? Not me, at any rate. The only downside was that it was cloudy most of the time and rained almost every day, including several violent thunderstorms.

Don McKay and Geopoetry

That's Don McKay -- or rather a distant silhouette of Don McKay, in probably the worst photo I will ever post on this blog -- giving the the Anne Szumigalski memorial lecture this year. A most engaging and erudite lecture it was. It took place at St. John's Fluvarium, a pavilion on a river where you could go down and see the river life through glass windows -- reeds bending with the current, fish spawning, etc. A suitable setting for his topic -- geopoetry, or poetry about geography (read nature, earth, non-human cosmos, universe.) Within those vast frames of reference he compared the Romantic poets with the likes of Chris Dewdney, and by implication, himself. Considering the way he framed the issue, it should come as no surprise that the Romantics should come away as, if "seductive", as he put it, rather naive and human-centred in their expressions of awe at the unknowability of nature, while Dewdney and others, with their familiarity with science, are wholly comfortable with a universe so enormous and utterly ancient it makes the entire human enterprise seem an infinitesimal speck. This makes Dewdney et al wiser, and more capable of respecting nature in and for itself.

My problem with that thesis is that both Dewdney and himself are comfortable academics who write out of equanimity. Their work, whatever its merits, is largely cerebral. None of the present-day geopoets I bet have been able to write anything with the passion, verve and lyricism of Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Tintern Abbey, Ozymandias, the Lucy Poems, The West Wind, Kubla Khan, Mont Blanc, let's see, what other flaming masterpieces? Seductive indeed. It strikes me, though, there's something crucial missing in a lot of their work.

But before I go much further out on a limb with my pronouncements, I should actually read more of McKay, Dewdney, as well as Tom Lilburn, Jan Zwicky, recent Roo Borson & Robert Bringhurst, to name those described as "ecopoets" on the Wikepedia site. That would, of course, keep my lips moving for quite a while. And my brain hurts to contemplate it, I'm afraid...

Update, June 8: Well, I have less to be afraid of than I thought. I've read about 30 pages of Camber, McKay's selected, and am quite enjoying it. Clearly my calling him "cerebral" was a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black. He does beautiful renditions of birds, and who ever heard of an untranscendent bird? (Unless it's a flightless bird, a chicken, turkey, ostrich or penguin...and penguins are awfully cute, their own kind of transcendence.) There's something to my criticisms above, but it will require a more nuanced critique. Consider the above a critique in progress (in other words: a half-baked critique!).

Last year I started reading Strike/Slip, and found my interest flagged: after reading through Camber, I think I'll give it another go.