modernist poets
Pedro Figueiredo
I'm an avid reader, but I've always leaned towards fiction. I'm trying
to become less ignorant in poetry matters, and I'm gathering some
titles for my to-read list. I'd appreciate some suggestions on
modernist poets and their most significant works. I try to read poetry
on its original version, so my preference goes to authors who wrote in
English, French or Spanish. German is acceptable for exceptional works
only, as it gives too much trouble and headaches :)
Thanks,
Pedro
francis muir
Figueiredo" <fa...@email.xx> wrote:
Consider Sitwell.
Here is a sampler from *Façade*, the musical entertainment she put together
with a house guest, the then 19-yr-old Walton, arranger for the Savoy
Orpheans.
circa 1920.
ŚThrough gilded trellises
Of the heat, Dolores,
Inez, Manuccia,
Isabel, Lucia,
Mock Time that flies.
"Lovely bird, will you stay and sing,
Flirting your sheened wing,"
Peck with your beak, and cling
To our balconies?"
They flirt their fans, flaunting--
"O silence enchanting
As music!" then slanting
Their eyes,
Like gilded or emerald grapes,
They take mantillas, capes,
Hiding their simian shapes.
Sighs
Each lady, "Our spadille
Is done!" . . . "Dance the quadrille
From Helląs towers to Seville;
Surprise
Their siesta;" Dolores
Said. Through gilded trellises
Of the heat, spangles
Pelt down through the tangles
Of bell-flowers; each dangles
Her castanets, shutters
Fall while the heat mutters.
With sounds like a mandoline
Or tinkled tambourine . . . .
Ladies, Time dies!ą
walkabout
I would look around for an anthology. I seem to recall that one called
*Twentieth Century Poetry and Poetics*, edited by Gary Geddes, was a
wonderful introduction to modern poetry. It certainly set me off on a decade
of joyous discovery. Try to get one published before the canon wars got
going in earnest, otherwise you'll be reading stuff selected according to
gender and ethnicity rather than more "literary" criteria. (Flame away!)
I would also be wary of suggestions that you begin with someone like a
Sitwell. Suggesting this kind of work for a "beginner" is a little like
advising a teenager to begin exploring sex by getting into toe-sucking while
wearing ostrich feathers taped to your butt. Which, while potentially very
rewarding, tends to be the kind of thing you come to after exploring more
mainstream approaches.
michael
"Pedro Figueiredo" <fa...@email.xx> wrote in message
news:3d00a3fe...@news.clix.pt...
francis muir
W_sM8.205496$GG6.16...@news3.calgary.shaw.ca, "walkabout"
<walk_...@shaw.ca> wrote:
The problem is, walkabout, that the poster was asking about modernist not
modern poetry. I know you are Canadian but do try to appreciate the nuances
of the English language before you spout off. As indicated by my sampler,
Sitwell, particularly in Façade, is well suited to someone wishing to take a
baby-step in exploring Modernism.
walkabout
"francis muir" <fra...@stanford.edu> wrote in message
news:B927C55A.307B%fra...@stanford.edu...
> On 6/8/02 12:34 PM, in article
> modern poetry. I know you are Canadian but do try to appreciate the
nuances
> of the English language before you spout off. As indicated by my sampler,
> Sitwell, particularly in Façade, is well suited to someone wishing to take
a
> baby-step in exploring Modernism.
yeah, well, there you go, eh?
the problem, as i saw it, francis, was how unlikely it was for someone with
little or no background in poetry to actually mean "modernist" as opposed to
modern... i assure you that my appreciation of the nuances of the English
language is not affected by my nationality... do you subscribe to some
theory that would suggest the likelihood of such a thing? if so, you might
want to spout off about it in a little more detail...
michael
Sayan Bhattacharyya
Como ya deberias saber, hay un poco de diferencia entre lo que se llama
poesia modernista en America Latina y lo que se llama poesia modernista
en Europa y en america del norte. La poesia modernista latinamericana es
la de los 1880s-1890s, distinguida por el uso de cromaticismo,
los exponentes principales cuyos fueron el cubano Jose' Marti' y
el nicaraguense, Ruben Dari'o.
Por otro lado la poesia modernista europea surgio' en los anyos
1920s, una poesia distinguida por los temas de alienacion y
fragmentacion y aliado con los movimientos modernistas en el campo
de la novela (por ejemplo: Joyce) y en el arte (por ejemplo: Picasso).
Los poetas principales de la epoca de esa poesia modernista
fueron T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams y otros.
Don Tuite
You may want to list Ezra Pound among los otros.
Don
walkabout
"Don Tuite" <don_...@REMOVETHIShotlink.com> wrote in message
news:4tc5gu0neon4cd5hg...@4ax.com...
... as well as Yeats and Wallace Stevens.
michael
Pedro Figueiredo
Well, I suppose this misunderstanding is partly my fault. I should
have been more explicit in my post. I was actually using "modernism"
in its technical sense.
--
Pedro Figueiredo
y la felicidad de ese paraíso es la felicidad
peculiar de las despedidas, de la renunciación
y de los que saben que duermen. - J. L. Borges
Pedro Figueiredo
(Sayan Bhattacharyya) wrote:
>Como ya deberias saber, hay un poco de diferencia entre lo que se llama
>poesia modernista en America Latina y lo que se llama poesia modernista
>en Europa y en america del norte. La poesia modernista latinamericana es
>la de los 1880s-1890s, distinguida por el uso de cromaticismo,
>los exponentes principales cuyos fueron el cubano Jose' Marti' y
>el nicaraguense, Ruben Dari'o.
>
>Por otro lado la poesia modernista europea surgio' en los anyos
>1920s, una poesia distinguida por los temas de alienacion y
>fragmentacion y aliado con los movimientos modernistas en el campo
>de la novela (por ejemplo: Joyce) y en el arte (por ejemplo: Picasso).
>Los poetas principales de la epoca de esa poesia modernista
>fueron T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams y otros.
I'm sad to admit that I don't know latin-american literature very
well. Borges is a great passion of mine, but it's an exception rather
than a rule. I think I will take this opportunity to dive into it.
Eliot's Wasteland was already in my list. Williams is a new name to
me, though.
Anyway, thank you for your suggestions, and please excuse me for
writting in English. I don't have any problems understanding Spanish,
but I don't dare to try it myself.
Pedro Figueiredo
>>
>> Don
>
>... as well as Yeats and Wallace Stevens.
>
>michael
I'm writing them down. Thaks!
francis muir
Figueiredo" <fa...@email.xx> wrote:
>
> Well, I suppose this misunderstanding is partly my fault. I should
> have been more explicit in my post. I was actually using "modernism"
> in its technical sense.
The outstanding modernist francophone poet was Guillaume Apollinaire whose
*Alcools* can be read at:
<http://www.chez.com/damienbe/alcools.htm>
in a splendid edition set in Gill Sans. A thumbnail sketch of GS's life and
the milieu in which he worked - or, perhaps better, defined - can be found
at:
<http://www.firstworldwar.com/poetsandprose/apollinaire.htm>
fido
walkabout
"Pedro Figueiredo" <fa...@email.xx> wrote in message
>
> Well, I suppose this misunderstanding is partly my fault. I should
> have been more explicit in my post. I was actually using "modernism"
> in its technical sense.
Aha. Then I would also look at people like H.D., Amy Lowell and Laura
Riding, self-conscious Modernists all. And don't forget G.M. Hopkins, a
proleptic Modernist if there ever was/would be one.
In the light of this clarification, I would amend my spout about Sitwell by
removing the ostrich feathers. I stand by the toes though.
michael
michael
Feckless
"walkabout" <walk_...@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:FCyM8.116438$Ka.82...@news2.calgary.shaw.ca...
Yeats seems a perfect example of a poet who is modern but not modernist.
Walt Whitman OTOH is modernist but perhaps not modern.
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Feckless
"Pedro Figueiredo" <fa...@email.xx> wrote in message
In France modernism started rather earlier than in other countries, so you
might want to start with Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Mallarmé. If German gives
you a headache, you could always read Rilke's French poems.
In English, don't neglect the American poets, starting with Walt Whitman.
Emily Dickinson is more like post-modernist.
walkabout
"Feckless" <so...@2muchspam.com> wrote in message
news:3d08f...@corp.newsgroups.com...
> Yeats seems a perfect example of a poet who is modern but not modernist.
> Walt Whitman OTOH is modernist but perhaps not modern.
i wonder if you'd care to tease this out a little...
people in this newsgroup seem to feel quite surprisingly comfortable making
a clear distinction between "modern" poetry and "modernist"... at first i
assumed they were somewhat mistakenly, but understandably, referring to
something that might be better as expressed as the difference between "high
modernism" and "late" or, better yet, "later modernism"... it has occurred
to me since that at least one poster assumed that i meant something like
"contemporary poetry" when i suggested an anthology of 20th century verse as
the best introduction to modernist poetry, an assumption that says more
about the poster than it does about "canadian" proficiency with language...
(i might make this assumption about someone's use of the term if i were
chatting with them in the checkout line at safeway and that someone had a
cart full of summer reading and was wearing a webTV t-shirt... otherwise,
not)
the idea of excluding such ur-texts of modernism as *The Second Coming* and
*Among School Children* from "modernism" is provocative, to say the least...
and, if Yeats isn't "modernist", how does Stevens get a pass?
michael
Feckless
Nothing so complicated. "Modern" must be simply a chronological term,
otherwise why would we need "modernist"? Yeats is modern, since most of his
career was in the 20th century, but stylistically I would say he was on the
conservative side, and therefore not "modernist." It's not important enough
to argue about, though.