Aberration in Modern Poetry. Essays on Atypical Works by Yeats, Auden, Moore, Heaney and Others

257 Pages·2011·1.502 MB·English

by  Lucy Collins,Stephen Matterson

Aberration in
Modern Poetry
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Aberration in
Modern Poetry
Essays on Atypical Works by Yeats,
Auden, Moore, Heaney and Others
Edited by LUCY COLLINS and
STEPHEN MATTERSON
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
Aberration in modern poetry : essays on atypical works by Yeats,
Auden, Moore, Heaney and others / edited by Lucy Collins
and Stephen Matterson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-6295-7
softcover : acid free paper
1. Poetry, Modern—20th century—History and criticism.
I. Collins, Lucy. II. Matterson, Stephen.
PN1271.A26 2012
809.1'04—dc23 2011046537
BRITISHLIBRARYCATALOGUINGDATAAREAVAILABLE
© 2012 Lucy Collins and Stephen Matterson. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Front cover design by Victoria Fenstermaker
(www.showcasedsign.com).
Manufactured in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
Acknowledgments
All unpublished material from the Marianne Moore Collection is quoted
with the permission of Marianne Craig Moore, Literary Executor for the
Estate of Marianne Moore, and the Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadel-
phia, Pennsylvania. Published poems are quoted with the permission of Faber
and Faber Limited.
Quotations from Paul Muldoon’s General Admission(2006) are made by
kind permission of the author and The Gallery Press.
Parts of Peter Nicholls’ essay appeared in a different version in George
Oppen and the Fate of Modernism (Oxford University Press, 2007). We are
grateful to the publisher for permission to include this material in the present
essay. We are grateful also to Linda Oppen for her permission to quote pub-
lished and unpublished material by George Oppen, including material held
at the Mandeville Special Collections, University of California at San Diego.
Quotations from the poetry of Louise Glück are made with the permis-
sion of HarperCollins and Carcanet.
Quotations from the poetry of James K. Baxter appear with the permis-
sion of the James K. Baxter Trust.
Poetry by Kamau Brathwaite is quoted with the kind permission of the
author, and we are grateful to Penelope Shuttle for permission to quote mate-
rial by Peter Redgrove.
Excerpts from π.o.’s 24 Hours (collective effort press) are published by
kind permission of the author.
Paul Durcan’s Ireland Chair of Poetry lecture “Hartnett’s Farewell” was
first published in The Poet’s Chair, Lilliput Press, 2008. It is reprinted here
with the permission of the Ireland Chair of Poetry Executive and Antony Far-
rell of Lilliput Press.
v
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments v
Preface 1
Introduction: “I learn by going where I have to go”
LUCY COLLINS AND STEPHEN MATTERSON 3
Omission and Aberration in Marianne
Moore’s Poetry CRISTANNE MILLER 19
W.H. Auden’s Detours STEPHEN MATTERSON 36
“Coming up England by a different line”: Philip Larkin
and Louis MacNeice STEPHEN REGAN 49
Participation without Belonging: Apostrophe and Aberration in
Seamus Heaney’s North SCOTT BREWSTER 63
Another Side of Paul Muldoon: The Poet
as Lyricist MARIA JOHNSTON 77
That “Saving Ray of Strangeness”: The Late Poems of
George Oppen PETER NICHOLLS 95
The One Continuous Line: Louise Glück and the
Necessity of Writing LUCY COLLINS 110
“By Writing and Example”: James K. Baxter’s L ong-H aired
Romanticism JOHN NEWTON 126
X/Self: Kamau Brathwaite at the Crossroads LEE M. JENKINS 144
Unsettling Language: π.o.’s 24 Hours PHILIP MEAD 161
Face to Face with Clumsiness: Aberration, Errancy
and W.B. Yeats JEFFERSON HOLDRIDGE 178
vii
viii Table of Contents
Hartnett’s Farewell PAUL DURCAN 193
Time to Send Home the Troops? CAROL RUMENS 214
Cézanne’s Bathers HARRY CLIFTON 226
About the Contributors 231
Index 233
Preface
This is a collection of essays and reflections on how a particular poem
or collection by a poet might be seen to deviate from the c ritically-a greed
shape of their career. As such, the book as a whole is concerned with c anon-
formation and its consequences; consequences such as the marginalization,
suppression or exclusion of work which is considered aberrational. While the
contributions are mostly focused on the work of individual poets, larger con-
cerns are consistently addressed. These include issues such as how the work
perceived as aberrant fits into or challenges the critically accepted oeuvre of
the poet. Does the work, though aberrant in itself, provide a basis for the
poet’s further development? Is aberration primarily a formal or stylistic dif-
ferentiation? A work may appear aberrant at the time of publication but is
later considered important and characteristic, while poets themselves may
declare a work aberrational and seek to suppress it or distance themselves
from it.
The topic of aberration developed over an extended period in our own
conversations about poetry, and this led us to write to possible contributors
with a collection of essays in mind. Almost all of the people we contacted
responded with enthusiasm to our invitation, and the ensuing discussions
with contributors enlarged and reshaped our sense of the subject. As well as
approaching both established and developing literary critics, we also invited
some poets to reflect on aspects of aberration in their own experience as writers
and editors. From the start we were keen that the book should represent a
geographical range, in order to challenge critical approaches to poetry based
exclusively on national traditions.
The introductory essay engages at length with these issues, drawing on
material from a range of periods and cultural contexts. This is followed by
fourteen contributions, looking variously at poets from Ireland, the U.S.
Britain, Australia and New Zealand. Certainly, we hope that readers will
engage with the individual essays, but will also be led to consider the context
provided by the collection as a whole.
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