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the
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Monday
Report
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This week's report by Steve Kostecke, ULA Editor-in-Chief
An Interview with Rebekah Presson
Mosby, Editor of Poetry on Record
It’s not too often that we undergrounders get the opportunity to toss
a few questions at those above ground – or succeed, as well, in
getting serious responses – but I recently had the opportunity to ask
Rebekah Presson Mosby (former hostess of NPR’s New Letters on
the Air) a few q’s about her latest endeavor, a four CD compilation
entitled Poetry On Record. The project consists of recordings of
poetry from the 1880s (Alfred Lord Tennyson!) to the present. It’s
quite a noteworthy effort – even though no ULA-er, I have to
protest, got burnt into polycarbonate plastic this time around.
Next time down the line, things had ought to be different…
Here’s the exchange…
SK:
Can you explain who a few of the youngest, newest, or most
unknown poets to the Poetry on Record collection are, and how they
came to your attention?
RPM:
Poetry on Record is an expanded and updated version of In Their
Own Voices: A Century of Recorded Poetry, which was published in
1996 by Rhino Entertainment. That collection includes 80 poets and
ends with Li-Young Lee, who was born in 1957. (Poetry Speaks
features only dead poets.)
In Poetry on Record, ten poets are added to the first disc. They
include Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Edgar Lee
Masters, James Weldon Johnson, Carl Sandburg, H.D., T.S. Eliot,
Dorothy Parker, Sterling Brown and Elizabeth Bishop. Another ten
poets, younger than Li-Young Lee, are added to the fourth disc.
There are other changes throughout the collection.
I found the younger poets in a variety of ways. Deborah Garrison’s
9/11 poem, “I Saw You Walking,” was one of many that appeared in
my email box after the attack on the World Trade Center. I loved the
poem immediately and copied it and determined to use it at some
point. I knew the work of Carl Hancock Rux from working on Our
Souls Have Grown Deep Like the Rivers: Black Poets Read Their
Work (Rhino, 2001) and from producing a profile of him for NPR. I
found Vijay Seshadri, Elizabeth Alexander. D.A. Powell and Suji
Kwock Kim through their books. I’d known Kevin Young’s work for
many years.
It may be worth noting that eight of the poets on disc four were
recorded specifically for this collection and another eight were
recorded by me at an earlier time, usually for New Letters on the Air,
the syndicated public radio program that I produced and hosted from
1983-1995.
SK:
For the youngest and newest poets who were added to Poetry on
Record, what were the criteria for their inclusion? What did you
believe made them suitable to be amongst such historical greats?
RPM:
It was my intention to create as full a picture as possible of what has
gone on in poetry in English since Edison’s invention of the
phonograph in 1888.
Many of the poems were chosen because they are so beloved, such
as Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and Langston Hughes’
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” However, this is not intended to be a
collection of the greatest poems by the greatest poets. The great
poets are here, but the overall effect is to cover the movements and
ideas that have taken hold in the poetry world. To this end, there are
poems about nearly every war (including one about 9/11), love
poems, death poems, family poems, odes, ars poetica (poems about
poetry), jazz poems, poems set to music, poems about growing up
Black, Latino, Native American and/or Asian in America and lots of
funny poems as well. The major poetry movements are also covered:
romanticism, modernism, neo-formalism, free verse, the Harlem
Renaissance, Black Arts Movement, surrealism, etc.
What I was looking for with the young poets was to complete the
portrait of contemporary poetry in English. So we have D.A. Powell’
s brilliant poem about being a gay man who is H.I.V. positive, Peter
Balakian referring to the Armenian genocide and Jonathan Lamfers
writing in the voice of one who came of age post 9/11, about the
helpless, empty feeling he has during a campus “hook up.”
I can’t possibly know what will endure, but I am confident that the
poems in disc four are good poems. Would I pick the same poets to
read alongside W.B. Yeats and Muriel Rukeyser 50 years from now?
I don’t know!
SK:
What year was the Walt Whitman recording made which is on Poetry
on Record, and do you know the technology which was used? What
do you think the impact of modern technology – the internet, MP3s,
file sharing, podcasts, and so on – has on poetry today and might
have on poetry in the future?
RPM:
Tennyson, Browning and Walt Whitman were all recorded on the
earliest Edison phonograph, which used a wax cylinder. The
recordings date to 1888 and 1889. (Whitman’s poem, “America,”
was included in the 1889 edition of Leaves of Grass.) Although these
recordings have been brilliantly remastered, they still sound 115
years old. All the wax cylinder poems are printed in the book that
accompanies POR and I recommend reading along the first time
anyone listens.
One of the really interesting things about listening to POR is hearing
how the technology changes as it moves from wax to acrylic to vinyl,
to magnetic tape to digital media. As the media change, so do the
performances. The 19th century poets, especially Tennyson and
Browning, were accustomed to reading before large audiences, which
required projection. As time goes on, the poets become more familiar
with the microphone and their readings become more intimate.
Just recently, two widely-published poets (both included in POR)
contacted me about making CDs of their own work. I advised them
that they can rent a professional studio for a reasonable amount of
money and make the recordings themselves. It’s unbelievably
inexpensive to do this these days. Of course, this is partly because
the poets own the rights to record their own work and don’t have to
pay licensing fees. The downside is that once the CDs are made, the
poets won’t have a distribution network other than to sell the discs on
their websites or at readings. However, both of these poets give
readings and should be able to sell some CDs that way.
In addition, the internet is absolutely loaded with sites devoted to
poetry. At this point, not much audio is included, but that, no doubt,
will come.
SK:
In Poetry on Record you included several of the Beats – Ginsberg,
Kerouac, Snyder, Ferlinghetti – who originated in the underground
culture of their time. Recently the Underground Literary Alliance
staged a protest at Columbia University during a 50th year
anniversary reading of Howl which was hosted by several of today’s
leading literary establishment figures (or the “gliterati” as the ULA
likes to call them). The ULA protested against them for hosting an
event in remembrance of one of the most vital underground works of
poetry ever produced in America when they – the “gliterati” –
represent the system of publishing which, the ULA believes, is just as
closed to outsiders today as it was fifty years ago. What do you think
of this protest and of ULA-style “literary activism” in general?
RPM:
This is a great question! We tend to think that censorship is pretty
much behind us but in 1988 I had an amazing experience during an
interview with Allen Ginsberg. My colleague, Robert Stewart, and I
were talking with Ginsberg about the Howl trial when he became
quite excited over a recent censorship incident. It seems that a NPR
affiliate had pulled the plug on a recording of him reading his poem
“Birdbrain.” Amazingly, it turned out to be our show, New Letters on
the Air, which he was talking about!
I had put together a program of various poets reading on LPs and
“Birdbrain” was one of them. While the poem is very suggestive, it
didn’t have any of the “seven dirty words” in it, so I thought it was
safe. But the station manager at one of our affiliates felt differently
and stopped the program mid poem. When a listener, a friend of
Ginsberg’s, called to ask why, the station manager just said it wasn’t
suitable for families. No one ever told us and we learned about the
incident from Ginsberg. At the time, Ginsberg was furious and
wanted to sue but to my knowledge, nothing ever came from it.
As an aside, I had an experience much like yours with the
“glitterati.” A friend took me to the press junket for the 20th
anniversary of Disney World. At the opening parade, actors dressed
like rock stars from the 60s and 70s paraded around—apparently in
celebration of the time. I was furious because I am old enough to
remember that long-hairs who resembled Jim Morrison and Jimi
Hendrix weren’t allowed in the park at the time!
SK:
Jim Morrison made many powerful and distinctive recordings of his
poetry. A collection of his poems (American Night, reprinted in
1991) is currently ranked in the top 100,000 at amazon.com while
many of the poets in Poetry on Record rank far lower for much more
recent works. What do you think of Jim Morrison as a poet, and why
does his poetry (as popular and influential as it continues to be) not
fit into an anthology such as Poetry on Record?
RPM:
I can honestly tell you that poets in POR were not chosen for their
Amazon rankings. That said, I confess I don’t know the Morrison
recordings. I adore Jim Morrison, though I haven’t had the best luck
getting permission to use work by rock stars. I’ve tried, without luck,
for Patti Smith in the past and Leonard Cohen was on In Their Own
Voices: A Century of Recorded Poetry. But it tends to be too
expensive to include such artists. All the same, I’ll look into the
Morrison recordings. Thanks!
SK:
What do you think of the website foetry.com, which reports on such
things as the perceived corruption of poetry contests and awards?
What do you think of their assertions that $20-25 entry fees should
not be required and that too many of these contests result in awards
being given to judges’ “students, friends, and even their lovers”?
RPM:
I’ve been a judge for many poetry and playwriting competitions and I
can tell you that entering one can be a crap shoot. Hundreds of
people enter and they can get shot down in the first round by a reader
who isn’t on his or her wavelength. However, that said, I will add
that many of these competitions are legitimate and are run in a
conscientious manner. Little literary magazines sometimes run them
as fundraisers since everyone wants to be published, but no one
wants to buy poetry publications! Of course, much of the money goes
to paying prize money and to publishing the winning works, however,
the contests are often a way to keep the magazine afloat.
Do not send your money to anyone who guarantees publication!
The best thing is to find the literary magazines that publish the type
of work you like and submit your poems. It is always free to submit
your work to any legitimate publication and most little magazines
read each and every submission. However, because they often
depend on volunteer readers, it can take months before you get an
answer.
SK:
According to Ben Bagdikian in The New Media Monopoly, the
number of corporations controlling most of America’s daily
newspapers, magazines, radio stations, television stations, and book
publishers has dwindled from fifty to less than ten over the past
twenty-five years. What kind of a threat to self-_expression and
poetry do you consider this continual consolidation of the media into
fewer and fewer corporate hands to be?
RPM:
This is scary business indeed. And those ten are obsessed with a
handful of pop stars who wouldn’t know a complete sentence from
their asses. I don’t get it. All the same, I do have faith in humans and
believe in the power of language. I think people hunger to hear words
used well and truthfully and that, at some point, those of us who want
to matter, will find a way to do so. It is calming, in a way, to think
that the world’s richest person is a nerd with a billion dollar
foundation. Alas, that is balanced by the knowledge that—what is it?
—four of the ten richest people in America are Wal-Mart heirs who
have found a way to build an empire using welfare employees.
Obviously, I don’t know the answer to this question. I’ve never made
much money, but I’m proud of my work and I realize that I’ve
managed to tap into a reasonably large audience. I believe in voting
and participating in the system but I also believe in the power of
individual effort. You, for example, are striving to make people think
and if you succeed with 20-30 people, you’ve done a great thing.
SK:
Charles Bukowski’s poetry (which is included in Poetry on Record)
continues to be extremely popular. For instance, a volume of his
poems from thirty years ago (Love is a Dog from Hell) is currently
ranked about 12,000 at amazon.com. What do you think accounts for
Bukowski’s long-lasting appeal?
RPM:
Bukowski explains his own popularity in the poem on POR. I had an
alcoholic (recovering) boyfriend once and he loved Bukowski.
Frankly, I don’t love Bukowski, though I do get a big kick out of
“The Secret of My Endurance.” In this poem, I think he shows real
insight into his life and appeal. I think it goes back to the old Oscar
Wilde adage (paraphrased here), “The secret to success is sincerity.
Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
SK:
Does it sound to you as if any of the poets were “experiencing
inspiration from Bacchus” while making their recordings? With
Dylan Thomas, Jack Kerouac, and Charles Bukowski on the line-up,
I have to ask.
RPM:
It’s a chicken and egg question as to whether those with substance
abuse issues go to poetry or poetry goes to them. All the same, there
is no question but that the incidence of alcoholism, drug abuse and
suicide are higher among poets than among “average” folk.
Bukowski, bizarrely, lived the longest of this lot but Dylan Thomas
didn’t make it to 40 and Kerouac died of cirrhosis of the liver at 47.
Sylvia Plath, of course, killed herself at 30. The list of poets who
committed suicide and/or drank themselves to death is long. All the
same, I think poetry has real power to comfort and heal.
There are some fears and some pains that just can’t be conquered,
but on the whole, I believe that poets can help us negotiate life’s
more impenetrable questions.
………………………………………………………………………
Poetry on Record is available at amazon.com.
Information about Rebekaah Presson Mosby is at her webpage,
www.rebekahpressonmosby.com
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