Poetry Jam 2020: Snodgrass

[lunabee34]

Our selection for this month is W.D. Snodgrass's Not for Specialists.

upcoming selections

October: Toi Derricotte's Tender

November: Franny Choi's Soft Science

December: Pablo Neruda's The Heights of Machu Picchu

Comments

[lunabee34]

I didn't deeply dislike this poetry collection, but I didn't really like it either. I feel pretty confident after reading it that Snodgrass is not for me because the collection is essentially excerpts from all his major books; the poems inside span the decades of his writing career and are representative of what he's like as a poet.

Most of his poems rhyme. A lot of the subject matter of his poems is what I call Old Man Poetry--about aging and death and young girls not finding him hot anymore, lots about divorce and separation and relationships not working out. He also has a really crude sense of humor; every time I liked a poem just about, he'd ruin it with the equivalent of a dick joke. *sigh*

For example (viii from Spring Suite): "snarled in the grasses, wild strawberries / shine bright as scabs where thick, dark hair is."

It's just endless shit like that sprinkled throughout all his poems like booger confetti. Hard Do Not Want.

I did like "Heart's Needle," a poem about his daughter after he divorced her mom. I also liked "A Curse," a poem about cursing this guy who took wood off his property to make him a musical instrument but never delivered; I can get behind the wish for a little cosmic revenge on people who suck. LOL I also liked these lines from "Sitting Outside": "I must have been filled / with a child's dread you could catch somebody's dying / if you got too close. And you can't be too sure." Also liked "iv A Leaf's Song" from Spring Suite.

I am up to page 58

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I agree that Snodgrass seems very interested in (as you put it) Old Man Things: his penis, young girls, the fear of dying in a nursing home, not being a good father.

I rather liked the idea (and some, though not all, of the images and language) of The Examination. Alien crows doing experiments on a human and release him.

Some lines I liked from other poems:

From "April Inventory" While scholars speak authority /
And wear their ulcers on their sleeves.

From "Starry Night" Chaos contains no glass / of our caliber

I liked two separate parts of "Heart's Needle."

Like nerves caught in a graph,
the morning-glory vines
frost has erased by half
still scrawl across their rigid twines.
Like broken lines

of verses I can’t make.

And another part which reminds me of The Old Guard Joe/Nicky about their Crusades days (which I'm listening to an audiobook about:

We read of cold war soldiers that
Never gained ground, gave none, but sat
Tight in their chill trenches.
Pain seeps up from some cavity
Through the ranked teeth in sympathy;
The whole jaw grinds and clenches

Till something somewhere has to give.
It’s better the poor soldiers live
In someone else’s hands
Than drop where helpless powers fall
On crops and barns, on towns where all
Will burn. And no man stands.

For good, they sever and divide
Their won and lost land. On each side
Prisoners are returned
Excepting a few unknown names.
The peasant plods back and reclaims
His fields that strangers burned

And nobody seems very pleased.
It’s best. Still, what must not be seized
Clenches the empty fist.
I tugged your hand, once, when I hated
Things less: a mere game dislocated
The radius of your wrist.

Love’s wishbone...

I haven't yet read a poem I wanted to post in its entirety (due to subject matter and the popping up of the Dirty Old Man imagery like the scabs you mention), but I am only on page 58. I will keep going for the next three days.

Re: I am up to page 58

[lunabee34]

Yes! "The Examination" was delightfully odd; I liked that unexpected POV, too.

I hope you find some more to enjoy as you go forward. I'm glad you're reading the collection with me. :)

more

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I am up to page 165, mainly because I skipped all the Hitler ones, which don't interest me because I have enough Fascism in my life right now.

I am very tired of hearing about Snodgress' divorce, and I find it a bit tiresome that poems I am almost liking (about flowers or birds) are rudely interrupted by musings on Old Man Stuff.

For example, I really liked parts of An Elm Tree. I can't find an easy cut-and-paste version to illustrate but I got a birdfeeder at the beginning of the summer and watching the birds (and now squirrel) that come is an interesting pastime for me and I thought parts of it (but only parts) sort of captured that sense of hearing birdsong and recognizing it after a while and running to look at the feeder to see the cardinal or mourning dove or once in a rare while, crow.

Also I really like parts of Phoebe's Nest. I liked the rhythm and the refrain about nests and hair, but of course he has to mention pubic lice. *sighs*

And I liked the description of the apple trees in the apple orchard but he ruined that, too.

And I really liked Mutability, which is a villanelle, which is a form I really like--except for its about dealing with his daughter after/during his stupid divorce. I mean, the subject matter is really not interesting, but the craft is excellent.

I hope to finish by tomorrow.

Re: more

[lunabee34]

I completely understand that decision to skip those. Weirdly enough, I liked those probably the most in the collection because he's inhabiting these characters/historical figures in a way that is interesting to me; also no dirty old man jokes in those poems. I found them very disturbing, though, which is I'm sure their point, but they were disturbing.

I am so glad that you share my reaction to these poems because after bouncing so hard off Ginsberg and then being so frustrated with Snodgrass, I was all--am I prude? Am I just being a prude for not wanting to read about Ginsberg vomiting on the floor or Snodgrass's dick? Am I being The Man? LOL But it's just tedious to me.

Re: more

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I hate Snodgrass' penis. And his divorce. I skimmed through the rest of the poems and moved on the first time he mentioned anything Dirty Old Man (the labia of irises, his prostate surgery, etc). I couldn't find a cut-and-paste version of Noctures part i ONLY and A Presence (the one about the white bear) but those are the two I liked.

I am not a prude. You can check the tags of some of my fics. I never met a kink I wouldn't try to write about and consider.

And Snodgrass is completely tiresome. He reminds me of my father. Obsessed with their manliness and extensions of it, like their car or their job) and how their kids, wives (and the world) didn't understand them or appreciate them enough and lamenting the loss of their youth, virility, and how everything used to me. And like my father, he's smart. I mean he writes a thing like a rondeau (which I appreciate) but he chooses to write (as an old white EXTREMELY heterosexual man) about rap and hip-hop. *eye roll* He is tiresome. There's nothing wrong with you. Or your taste in poetry.

Re: more

[lunabee34]

Ha!

*high five*

Thank you.

*wipes tears of laughter away*

I hate his penis and his divorce, too.

LOL