David Lehman- Wherefore?

TOP61-DES58
This Old Poem #61:
David Lehman’s August 15
Copyright © by Dan Schneider, 7/19/03

Recipe for becoming a Dead White Male: 1 drastic lack of poetic talent, 3 pinches of total lack of interest in the art, loads of poor critical articles, 2+ decades of promoting talentless hacks in to positions where they can turn around & publish your doggerel, a little (exceedingly little) bit of testosterone, a wholesale lack of melanin, & absolutely no pulse. In other words- be like Davey:

David Lehman was born in New York City in 1948. He graduated from Columbia College and attended Cambridge University in England as a Kellett Fellow. He is the author of five collections of poems, The Evening Sun (Scribner, 2002), The Daily Mirror: A Journal in Poetry (2000), Valentine Place (1996), Operation Memory (1990), and An Alternative to Speech (1986). His books of criticism include The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets (Doubleday, 1998), which was named a "Book to Remember 1999" by the New York Public Library; The Big Question (1995); The Line Forms Here (1992); and Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man (1991). His study of detective novels, The Perfect Murder (1989), was nominated for an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America.

David Lehman has also edited such books as Ecstatic Occasions, Expedient Forms: 65 Leading Contemporary Poets Select and Comment on Their Poems (1987; expanded, 1996), James Merrill, Essays in Criticism (with Charles Berger, 1983), and Beyond Amazement: New Essays on John Ashbery (1980). He is, with Star Black, co-director of the KGB Poetry Reading Series in New York City. In addition, he is series editor of The Best American Poetry (Scribner), which he initiated in 1988, and is general editor of the University of Michigan Press's Poets on Poetry Series. His honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts, an award in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writer's Award. He is on the core faculty of the graduate writing programs at Bennington College and the New School for Social Research and divides his time between Ithaca, New York, and New York City.

The horrid Best American Poetry anthologies are the only real reason Davey has any Q rating in the poetry world. This laughable series has seen any # of doggerelists let loose to publish the dreck of their pals, ex-lover, ex-teachers, ex-students, & all paying homage to Davey & the notion that there has never been a better time to be a ‘poet’. This nonsense is reiterated in virtually every interview Davey gives or conducts.
As a poet he has absolutely NO music, reason, style, skill, or- well, you get the point- he’s a total hack- but he has carved himself a niche. Usually Davey tries to bring the banality of contemporary poetry’s ‘plain speech’ to levels of prosaicism that would leave William Carlos Williams’ mouth dry. Here’s a typical ‘poem’ called The Difference Between Pepsi And Coke. Note this snippet from the ‘poem’ as poem- & then as prose. Then tell me the function the line breaks serve:

The Poem Version:

Still, Pop can always tell the subtle difference
   between Pepsi and Coke,
Has defined the darkness of red at dawn, memorized
   the splash of poppies along
Deserted railway tracks, and opposed the war in Vietnam
   months before the students,
Years before the politicians and press; give him
   a minute with a road map
And he will solve the mystery of bloodshot eyes;
   transport him to mountaintop
And watch him calculate the heaviness and height
   of the local heavens….
 
The Prose Version:

Still, Pop can always tell the subtle difference between Pepsi and Coke, has defined the darkness of red at dawn, memorized the splash of poppies along deserted railway tracks, and opposed the war in Vietnam months before the students, years before the politicians and press; give him a minute with a road map and he will solve the mystery of bloodshot eyes; transport him to mountaintop and watch him calculate the heaviness and height of the local heavens….

Now, I’m not even gonna mention the obvious that this snippet has, at least, 8 clichés of both the stand-alone & specific varieties. But, it is PROSE! The clichés & the imagery are banal- & where is even any attempt at music? Oy!

As if this nonsense were not enough, Davey attempted the old write a poem a day BS that countless doggerelists have done, & that poetry’s Daemon of Doggerel, Robert Bly, would later bring to inane heights in his Morning Poems. Davey has boasted countless times that he wrote a ‘poem’ very day for 140 days, at his longest. Could not a single worthwhile effort result? Of course not.

Here is a bit from the ‘memorable’ June 19. At least he attempts rhyme:

What is it about the Abyss
that tempts the young poet to kiss
the air and head for the nearest cliff? This
unreasonable attachment to the bliss
of falling -- what accounts for it? Unlike the hiss
announcing a reptilian presence, the word Abyss….

More clichés in almost every line, plus the whole trope of the poem is as predictable as Davey’s career arc. On to the titular doggerel:

August 15

Does Davey even have a modicum of an idea about what poetry is? Bad line breaks- why is Sandra Bullock’s name split? Even now, in the toddlerhood of the Internet, this poem is puerile in its wink-winkiness over Davey’s presumed ‘insider’ knowledge. &, is there any music, or relation to the date? Or is this just another diaristic poem? Ain’t that unique? The rewrite:

~~August 15~~

My new Web site is dropdead.com
It's interactive you get to choose how
you'll die, where, and at what age
and it'll still come as a complete
surprise to you I guarantee
but let's not get morbid it's a game
it's more fun than bullshit.com and a lot less
narcissistic than kissmyass.com
Michael Douglas will play the lead with Sandra
Bullock as a baby in an out-of-control
baby carriage going down the Odessa Steps
but that's just one scenario you can
create your own we're going to have an IPO
tomorrow you can buy shares at getrich.com

I admit it; there have been poems I could not complete a passable rewrite of, & 1s I should not have even bothered with. This is 1 of them. Just scrap this whole deal- after all, Davey does not even give a shit to give his readers a real attempt at a real poem. Why should I respect this fraud enough to give succor to his ‘effort’? I shouldn’t. Shame on Davey & his ilk. Last part of the DWM recipe: keep in oven on BROIL until burnt to an unrecognizable crisp. Turn the knob!

Final Score: (1-100):

David Lehman’s August 15: I (ncomplete)
TOP’s ~~August 15~~: I (ncomplete)

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