Introduction to Focus: New Lyric Poetry

Introduction to Focus: New Lyric Poetry Alan Michael Parker, Focus Editor Apologia I would like to pretend that I know what "The New Lyric" might be. Having chosen seven reviewers and asked them each to select a recent book of poetry to review for this feature, and having participated in the choice of the books under review with an eye on including collections by poets in various stages oftheir careers, and having edited the various reviews—barely, really, these people are good—I should know more than I do. Or, at least, I should be able to conclude more, at least presumptuously. Seven Hypotheses "The New Lyric" assumes the demise of an Old Lyric. "The New Lyric" asserts a linear idea of history. "The New Lyric" acknowledges its obsolescence . "The New Lyric" is not "A New Lyric." "The New Lyric" corresponds to a categorical imperative. "The New Lyric" implies the irrelevance of style. "The New Lyric" offers a New Lyric "I." Another Introduction The temptation is to argue for a new kind of eclecticism at the level of diction. What seems true about all seven collections of poetry is that each displays idiolect, to quote from Ravi Shankar's consideration of Julie Sheehan's Orient Point: that is, "manifestations of grammar and diction and syntax unique to their user." But "formally restless" (Hogue), "linguistic inventiveness" (Barnstone), and "vernacular spontaneity" (Bakken) necessarily "connect to the historical" (Foreman), and may yet suggest "at least the possibility of stepping outside the self (Hazelton). Such a description should seem familiar: it's of the Old Lyric. Which means that The New Lyric presents, as the internist would say, recognizably. Nonetheless, while the idiolect is what we expect from a good poet, after all—and all of these seven poets are good poets—something's amok here in the "formal chops" (Shankar), the poets each with a "formal gift" (Graham). The New Lyric is not "A New Lyric/' In terms less collagist, The New Lyric offers a vast array of dictions and syntaxes that accommodates the boundlessness of the language: were these poets all singers in The New Opera, we would be noting the cast's multi-octave range as well as the quality of the singers' head and chest voices, and reveling in the colors. Which isn't to say that all of their poems are "good." That's a concern reserved for the editor who presumes to edit an issue ofthe American Book Review dedicated to "The Good Poem." And it's not my job, thankfully, although such an onus does fall to the seven reviewers here, each of whom has rassied in some articulate way with the question of whether aesthetic accomplishment and technical expertise need produce art. "Chops," as we learn, are necessary—but not necessarily sufficient. Hypothesis One Is there an Old Lyric that has died? Perhaps the kerfuffle surrounding last year's publication of Legitimate Dangers might imply so, or the folks at Wave Books might like to think so, or the doyens of the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets (the academics , that is, who were radical themselves once and now are tenured radicals) might suspect so. Perhaps our William Logan in The Hudson Review might think so, bemoaning as he does the illiterates at the gates. But 1 think that rumors of the death of the Old Lyric have been circulating, well, since lyrics themselves— and, as a result, such a claim seems apocryphally premature if not intellectually disingenuous . Perhaps the Old Lyric is merely moribund, anyway, even to those who revile what the Old Lyric might be. Or The New Lyric is the Old Lyric refashioned, reconstructed, revitalized, rehabilitated, revived, resurrected, reconstrued, reimagined, reaffirmed, reincarnated, redeployed, renewed, redivided, redeemed , re..., re..., re.... Hypothesis Two Are we aged two when we learn causality? Are we aged seven when we learn how to manipulate causality in the narratives we tell ourselves? Are we aged fourteen when we learn how to manipulate causality well in the narratives we tell others? How old are we when we realize that chronology is not causality {post hoc ergo propter hoc), and that history itself is only History when we...