Wednesday, February 2, 2005

A Stanford Threesome Paul Lake is the Poet of the Month, and has four poems at the site — "A Lesson in Hermeneutics" is a very funny and devastating attack on pomo theory. There are other poems here, and he has several fine essays in the archives at Contemporary Poetry Review. Given the situation alleged below, it's no wonder he didn't go on to Stanford's doctoral program. Jonathan Mayhew doesn't give a link or any other source beyond the title of an article, but he reports that Marjorie Perloff — you know, the one who can't tell anapestic tetrameter from iambic pentameter — says "At Stanford University … we have English PhD candidates who have never read Keats' 'Ode on a Grecian Urn,' much less Milton's 'Lycidas.'" Maybe they need higher standards for their students and their teachers. I've quoted it here before, but all day I've been hearing J. V. Cunningham's "For My Contemporaries" (from The Poems of J. V. Cunningham): How time reverses The proud in heart! I now make verses Who aimed at art. But I sleep well. Ambitious boys Whose big lines swell With spiritual noise Despise me not, And be not queasy To praise somewhat: Verse is not easy. But rage who will. Time that procured me Good sense and skill Of madness cured me. 7:39:26 PM    comment: use html tags for formatting []  trackback []

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2006 Michael Snider.

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