Robert Pinsky, former United States poet laureate, loves Bukowski!

[mjp]

We leave the sandwich shop and walk the short block to Inman Square Hardware so Pinsky can buy bulbs for his porch light, passing Bukowski's on the way. Does he ever grab a beer there?

"It's a children's bar," he says, then dismisses the writer it's named after in the same breath. "He's a children's writer, good for 15-year-old boys."

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2008/10/10/robert_pinsky/

 

[Johannes]

Robert who?

 

[roni]

[...] "He's a children's writer, good for 15-year-old boys."

obviously someone who has carefully read.

 

[Purple Stickpin]

He's right about the bar, but it's "Bukowski Tavern," not "Bukowski's (Journalist's error)." I also buy lightbulbs at Inman Square Hardware, and now I have an opinion about Mr. Pinsky, of whom I had not heard until now. Roni expressed it rather well.

This would appear to be another example of an academic dismissing Buk's work in that "it's all about booze and women and gambling" kinda way that shows a profound lack of understanding of his work. But it's an easy position; comfortable like academia.

 

[mjp]

Funny, I looked up some Pinsky poems, and found this oh-so-very-clever alphabetical stanza:

Ankh Badge Cross.
Dragon,
Engraved figure guarding a hallowed intaglio,
Jasper kinema of legendary Mind,
Naked omphalos pierced
By quills of rhyme or sense, torah-like: unborn
Vein of will, xenophile
Yearning out of Zero.

And - maybe it's just me - but that reads suspiciously like an exercise. An exercise for, oh, I don't know, 15 year old boy poets. A dull and pretentious exercise for 15 year old boy poets.

I think shortly after they crown you poet laureate, a vanload of mysterious types come around in white coats and surgically remove your sense of humor and replace it with a bag of wet sticks and leaves, and 16 pounds of freshly ground ego.

 

[Digney in Burnaby]

Pinsky has been consistent. Here's a online exchange from The Atlantic back in 1995, a bit before he got to be poet laureate:

Question : Have you seen the CDROM Poetry in motion? Specifically the Bukowski piece? Why is he seemingly underrated by the academic establishment?

RPinsky136 : Hi, Tim--sorry, Bukowski seems to me a very appealing and charming children's author...

Link is here.

 

[hoochmonkey9]

Bukowski v. Pinsky A-Z

always, Bukowski creates
delicious envy.

ferocious, galling,
hellacious ire.

juvenile klaxons
lament mediocre noodlings?

o, please quiet ridiculous
screams. try understanding:

virtuous writing x-rays
yammering zealots.


(sorry, best I could do in 5 minutes.)

 

[ROC]

Wow. That better than Pinsky's by a bunch.

 

[Black Swan]

Hooch ,
I would keep this one

 

[marina del rey]

His comments might offend me if I had ever heard or him.

Or if I had any regard for poets laureate in general.

Quick, off the top of your head, who is the current poet laureate of your home state? of the United States?

...Exactly.

 

[Bukfan]

Funny, I looked up some Pinsky poems, and found this oh-so-very-clever alphabetical stanza:

Ankh Badge Cross.
Dragon,
Engraved figure guarding a hallowed intaglio,
Jasper kinema of legendary Mind,
Naked omphalos pierced
By quills of rhyme or sense, torah-like: unborn
Vein of will, xenophile
Yearning out of Zero.

Now I remember why I never read poetry before I was introduced to Buk's poetry...:D

 

[Purple Stickpin]

I told this story to my wife (who has also bought light bulbs at Inman Square Hardware), and she said "Ah, which is why 'those who can, do, and those who can't, teach'."

Not everyone on the east coast is a snobby intellectual; it just seems that way. :D

 

[jordan]

the fact that he has repeated that line about bukowski being a children's author over a period of years leads me to believe that, when he first thought of putting it that way, he must have thought he was so fuckin clever. like, you know, future poet laureate clever.

 

[number6horse]

Quick, off the top of your head... who is the current poet laureate of the United States?

Last I heard it was Ted Kooser. I read a couple of his poems years ago that were not complete wastes of time (how's that for high praise). In general, I agree that whoever appoints these people are just looking to play it safe and not looking for artists.

Here's one from Kooser:

Selecting A Reader

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned." And she will.

(C)1980TedKooser

The guy has a sense of humor about himself, right ?
At least in 1980 !

 

[hoochmonkey9]

well, I like that one.
self depreciating humour is undervalued in poetry.
although, in 28 years quite a bit can change. unicorns are being favoured by laureates now, I hear.

 

[mjp]

the fact that he has repeated that line about bukowski being a children's author over a period of years leads me to believe that, when he first thought of putting it that way, he must have thought he was so fuckin clever. like, you know, future poet laureate clever.

Yeah, didn't you know? Every poet laureate is required to come up with a stock Bukowski put-down line. So he was smart to think one up in advance. That way the board didn't have to assign him a generic one at the last minute.

 

[falcune]

i wasn't too irritated with this when i first read mjp's post and the linked article but when i watched a few interviews of this guy i just didn't like him. i don't see anything interesting about the man. a pleasant looking, well spoken ceo type. i'd of hated to write this tiresome article on this guy. i have to say, the bukowski hatred was the most interesting thing about him. that, and the fact that he gets a boner thinking about reuben sandwiches.

 

[jordan]

the thing about it that irks me, i guess, is that he's a poet, and i feel like he should be able to have greater depth of insight into bukowski. see, i expect the surface criticism from a comedian like paul f. tompkins (who probably heard someone talking about bukowski at a party and wrote a bit about him based on minimal research), or an academic (who gets obsessed with the hegemonic phallocentrism of bukowski's multilinear subtexts and can't focus on anything else), but another poet, and even one who is a career poet and has the time to sit around and read all day? i feel like he has the least excuse out of all of them to be a closed-minded crank. snap judgments are never becoming, and if that's his level of perception when it comes to other poets, how the fuck can his poetry be worth a shit anyway?

ps- i did derive some enjoyment, being a 15-year old boy and all, writing "fuck" and "shit" in a sentence about a poet laureate.

 

[Johannes]

Good point, Jordan. And very true, I'd say.

 

[Short Bus]

And whats wrong with being a poet for the 15 year old boy mentality-name another?
Cause heres the point Pinsky, it's those years and that mind that frames the next 60 years.
I swear people like him must jackoff with mirrors.

 

[bospress.net]

Notice that as much "fame" as Pinsky thinks that he has being a past PL, he still is not anywhere near as close to the popularity of Buk. That is what really gets these arrogant, politically connected, laureates. They have the education, money and connections, yet Buk has outdone them with his limited money (in the beginning), limited education, limited connections. No matter how many universities bestow Honary doctorates on Pinsky, he will still be a far less famous and far less important poet than Bukowski.

Anyone know what Billy Collins thought of Buk? Hopefully there is one past laureate that is not a complete ass...

Bill

 

[hoochmonkey9]

Billy Collins had a Bukowski poem in his "poem a day" project.

no.6 (from Crucifix)

 

[cirerita]

Billy Collins published Bukowski in a mag quite a few years ago, and he told me that he enjoyed B.'s poetry, at least in the 70's. I think to recall he said he still likes B, but I'm not sure.

And, oh, yes, he planned to publish a chapbook of Bukowski poems back then, but the chap never materialized. He still has all the original MSS somewhere in the attic. I'm serious :D

 

[number6horse]

Somehow that doesn't surprise me.
Collins always struck me as a humble
and good-natured poet without academic pretensions.


Here's to Mr. Collins :

Did I just start my morning off with a beer ?
Oh yes I did.

 

[Purple Stickpin]

the thing about it that irks me, i guess, is that he's a poet, and i feel like he should be able to have greater depth of insight into bukowski. see, i expect the surface criticism from a comedian like paul f. tompkins (who probably heard someone talking about bukowski at a party and wrote a bit about him based on minimal research), or an academic (who gets obsessed with the hegemonic phallocentrism of bukowski's multilinear subtexts and can't focus on anything else), but another poet, and even one who is a career poet and has the time to sit around and read all day? i feel like he has the least excuse out of all of them to be a closed-minded crank. snap judgments are never becoming, and if that's his level of perception when it comes to other poets, how the fuck can his poetry be worth a shit anyway?

ps- i did derive some enjoyment, being a 15-year old boy and all, writing "fuck" and "shit" in a sentence about a poet laureate.

Pinsky is both a poet and an academic. He teaches graduate-level writing at Boston University. But good points, all around.

 

[Ninjerk]

To hang with Pinsky is to know that words matter. And not just words, but sounds. He rolls them around in his throat, forward and backward.

I've got something he can roll around in his throat.

 

[Purple Stickpin]

That sums things up rather nicely, don't you feel? :D

 

[ROC]

I've got something he can roll around in his throat.

That made my day! :D

Weeeeeee!!

 

[bogthing]

Odd, that he would make such a comment. Perhaps he's sick of hearing Buk's name from students. Perhaps also, he needs to get away from "children"

Sure, there's scads more poets out there, before and after Buk, some much more outrageous and vile then the boy from L.A.

Pinsky's job is take those inquiries and open some doors.

Aw Hell, we're all becoming crabby old men.

 

[CRBSMILE]

We leave the sandwich shop and walk the short block to Inman Square Hardware so Pinsky can buy bulbs for his porch light, passing Bukowski's on the way. Does he ever grab a beer there?

"It's a children's bar," he says, then dismisses the writer it's named after in the same breath. "He's a children's writer, good for 15-year-old boys."

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2008/10/10/robert_pinsky/

O.K., I know I'm 'preaching to the choir' here, but... FUCK PINSKY! It just blows my mind that people like him, 'experts', can hold that kind of attitude towards Bukowski. There is no fucking way that this guy EVER read anything that Bukowski wrote. That, or he's a fucking alien with no ability to relate to human thoughts and feelings. I am no expert. I am not an educated writer. But what ever happened to 'poetry for the people'? I mean, even if the people don't give a shit, shouldn't the poet laureate care enough for them? Fuck Pinsky, he's a tool.
I just spent the bulk of my afternoon re-reading 'Burning In Water Drowning In Flame', Jesus H. Christ! The power and honesty;the world ripped wide open-ness of it. How could any literate person, even not liking it's form,style, or content, dismiss it as if it's some kind of prebuscent joke?
I would like to hold esteem and respect for this man. As a poet myself, I would like to know and believe that current or former Laureates have the ABILITY to at least see, understand and convey important things contained within poetry; whether through their own writings, or the promotion/support of others'. Fuck Pinkey-he's a fool. CRB:)