tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6531553.post3205680943959993788..comments2023-06-27T01:34:35.359-07:00Comments on Ted Burke LIKE IT OR NOT: A page for Paul BlackburnTED BURKEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16610296721891201100noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6531553.post-88338396950973440052008-05-19T14:10:00.000-07:002008-05-19T14:10:00.000-07:00I wonder if anyone reading this poem would seek ou...I wonder if anyone reading this poem would seek out more of Blackburn's work. For me it's too studied, a fairly pedestrian attempt at allegory. The language at its best ("distant churn of water between the small waves") is very fine but at its worst ("my heart you may swim forever / out", "The swimmer is himself", etc.) is flat and pseudo profound. These dueling qualities make Blackburn one of the more frustrating poets to read, because with a few exceptions they result in poems that don't cohere. Most of his poems, in fact, read like undigested notes toward poems, and all the poet's skill with line endings and jazzy sound effects can't make them more than they are. One only has to read Blackburn beside certain of his contemporaries—<A HREF="http://www.longhousepoetry.com/corman.html" REL="nofollow"/>, <A HREF="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/41" REL="nofollow"/>, <A HREF="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/184" REL="nofollow"/>—to hear and feel the difference. From my perspective, Blackburn's best work lies in his fine translations: his troubadour anthology <I>Proensa</I> is magnificent, as are his translations of Lorca and Cortázar. Maybe the <I>givenness</I> of the original work, its substantiality and coherence, provided what Blackburn's sensibility could not provide for his own writing.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6531553.post-20354527010590561772008-05-19T09:02:00.000-07:002008-05-19T09:02:00.000-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com