Peruvian Nights and Jamaican Days

WEEKLY LITERARY CRITICISM SECTION...

Wendell Berry is a great guy, an outstanding essayist, and a fine novelist.

He is, however, a shite poet.

I could easily surpass his life's works if I had the following:

1) 2 weeks of free time
2) equal parts booze and coffee
3) a tiny bit of inspiration, or, an extra week to haunt around the forest.

My favorite poet of all-time is John Neihardt. He wrote A Cycle of the West, Black Elk Speaks, a great history of some of the voyageurs, and a damn fine narrative of his trip down the Missouri. Of those, A Cycle of the West is the only poetry. It is one big poem. 30 years worth of work. An epic poem of The West®.

My second favorite poem of all-time is ee cummings. After that, probably Ed Poe, Johnny Greenleaf Whittier, Walter Whitman, Hum, etc.

To me, good poetry is something that doesn't make you think to yourself, "What is poetry, anyway," as you read it. Wendell Berry's poetry makes me do this constantly. Makes me question the value, the raison d'etre of poetry. "Why is there poetry, and what is it?"

By contrast, when you read ee cummings, you understand EXACTLY what poetry is and why it exists.

Henceforth, my favorite ee cummings poem ('why must itself up every of a park'):

why must itself up every of a park
anus stick some quote statue unquote to
prove that a hero equals any jerk
who was afraid to dare to answer "no"?
quote citizens unquote might otherwise
forget(to err is human;to forgive
divine)that if the quote state unquote says
"kill" killing is an act of christian love.
"Nothing" in 1944 AD
"can stand against the argument of mil
itary necessity"(generalissimo e)
and echo answers "there is no appeal
from reason"(freud) — you pays your money and
you doesn't take your choice. Ain't freedom grand


So here is one by Wendell Berry:

'Walking on the River Ice'

A man could be a god
if the ice wouldn't melt
and he could stand the cold.

I shall now spontaneously compose a poem to demonstrate my advantage over Wendell Berry.

'what is poetry!'

poetry is like
it makes you think
pretty short
sometimes the plot is weak
but always it makes you think
and it's never about trees
at least good poetry isn't
and sometimes it rhymes
but not always.

I dunno. A couple of Berry's poems are OK. But I'm better.

My second rule of poetry is that it should either be less than 20 lines or more than 20 pages long. Anything between that is bound to suck.

-m