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A review by annemariewellswriter
On Poetry by Glyn Maxwell
slow-paced
0.0
DNF:
This book is the exact kind of culprit that turns people away from poetry. I am a well-seasoned poet with two published collections, dozens of pieces in literary magazines, I regularly teach poetry classes and workshops, I have a degree in English, and as I'm reading these "craft essays," I can feel my forehead scrunch, and I can't help but to emit an audible, "HUH?!"
Page 34 for example: "Poems deficient in solar meaning are quite easy to spot in the field, because vast trapezoids of critical scaffold have been constructed around them to clank in the wind."
What? I have no idea what he's talking about. I feel like these kinds of arcane commentary are what is found behind the moats of Ivy League MFA programs. If you're smart enough, then you'll get it. If you're not smart enough to follow the elitists' esoteric blathering, then poetry is not for you.
Glyn Maxwell, a white man, has four blurbs on the inside jacket of my copy with reviews such as "should be read by... anyone who's interested in how and why poetry is written... a masterclass in close reading and close writing... this is the best book about poetry I've ever read," and "Maxwell is the best dramatic poet now at work in English." And I wary going into it as I suspected all four of these blurbs were written by white men. Then, upon Googling each byline, my suspicion was confirmed.
Within his pages--and I only read the first two chapters before deciding I was receiving absolutely zero value-add--he mentions more than once the poets "who lasted." I wonder if Maxwell ever bothered to ask himself why these particular poets "lasted" over time. Is it because their work is truly so superior than others'? Is it just coincidence that these "lasting" poets cited through the text are all white men?
Just opening to a random page... page 39, Maxwell cites Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Keats. Opening to another random page... page 88, Frost and Pound. On the adjacent page, 89, Chaucer. Opening to another, 117, Percy Shelley and Dante. Page 140, Yeats.
Not a drop of diversity. The examples Maxwell cites are all from the dead white man canon, save for the occasional reference to Emily Dickinson. (How white men love to cite Emily Dickinson and then think of themselves as progressive.)
If you're looking for a craft book that favors what the dominant white male historians have shoved down society's throat as to what constitutes "good" poetry, whom poets should be revering, and from whom poets should find inspiration, then this book is for you.
If you're looking for a craft book that references poems outside of traditional meter and rhyme schemes from poets who have not been dead for a hundred years or hundreds of years, then I suggest looking elsewhere.
This book is the exact kind of culprit that turns people away from poetry. I am a well-seasoned poet with two published collections, dozens of pieces in literary magazines, I regularly teach poetry classes and workshops, I have a degree in English, and as I'm reading these "craft essays," I can feel my forehead scrunch, and I can't help but to emit an audible, "HUH?!"
Page 34 for example: "Poems deficient in solar meaning are quite easy to spot in the field, because vast trapezoids of critical scaffold have been constructed around them to clank in the wind."
What? I have no idea what he's talking about. I feel like these kinds of arcane commentary are what is found behind the moats of Ivy League MFA programs. If you're smart enough, then you'll get it. If you're not smart enough to follow the elitists' esoteric blathering, then poetry is not for you.
Glyn Maxwell, a white man, has four blurbs on the inside jacket of my copy with reviews such as "should be read by... anyone who's interested in how and why poetry is written... a masterclass in close reading and close writing... this is the best book about poetry I've ever read," and "Maxwell is the best dramatic poet now at work in English." And I wary going into it as I suspected all four of these blurbs were written by white men. Then, upon Googling each byline, my suspicion was confirmed.
Within his pages--and I only read the first two chapters before deciding I was receiving absolutely zero value-add--he mentions more than once the poets "who lasted." I wonder if Maxwell ever bothered to ask himself why these particular poets "lasted" over time. Is it because their work is truly so superior than others'? Is it just coincidence that these "lasting" poets cited through the text are all white men?
Just opening to a random page... page 39, Maxwell cites Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Keats. Opening to another random page... page 88, Frost and Pound. On the adjacent page, 89, Chaucer. Opening to another, 117, Percy Shelley and Dante. Page 140, Yeats.
Not a drop of diversity. The examples Maxwell cites are all from the dead white man canon, save for the occasional reference to Emily Dickinson. (How white men love to cite Emily Dickinson and then think of themselves as progressive.)
If you're looking for a craft book that favors what the dominant white male historians have shoved down society's throat as to what constitutes "good" poetry, whom poets should be revering, and from whom poets should find inspiration, then this book is for you.
If you're looking for a craft book that references poems outside of traditional meter and rhyme schemes from poets who have not been dead for a hundred years or hundreds of years, then I suggest looking elsewhere.