I had him as a visiting prof in grad school. He told me to give up on fiction because I was as bad at writing as Michael Powell was at making movies (I had made it known previously that I was a big Michael Powell fan).
A few times. Strand's actually a very nice guy, but I honestly haven't read him all that much. Then again, I don't read much poetry, period - mainly Yeats and Lorca, but that's about it.
I was about to suggest that he probably dislikes Powell because Lacanian theorists have embraced Peeping Tom, but it's probably just his bad taste. Where did you go to grad school?
I've met him a few times, too, and have been pleasantly surprised to learn that he's a pretty nice fella. I can't stand his poetry, however.
The James Michener Center for Writers bases at UT-Austin. This was back when Michener was alive. Talk about a bastard. Every semester, the Center had a formal dinner. We would draw straws to see who had to sit by the old addled son of a bitch. He would threaten to take away your fellowship if you didn't turn in your work, then proceed to quote entire passages from the Illiad.
Ah, but I believe the challenge related to "the last 100 years" And even in the 18th and 19th, you'd be hard pressed to point to America's laurels in the field of classical composition.
Michener gave Iowa a pretty substantial amount of money to create a coveted grad student teaching position. Did you teach any undergrad writing classes while you were there? A friend of mine from Iowa, Jake Bohstedt, did his undergrad at UT-Austin. Either he stopped pursuing publication or simply couldn't get his stories published, which is a shame, because he was the best fiction writer during my time in the program.
You were at Iowa? That's supposed to be the best one, right? Michener was modeling our program after the one at Iowa. I never taught any writing classes- I was in the screenwriter branch of the program pursuing the "lesser" art. I taught some film classes iover at the RTF Dept.
You overeducated fools, you're supposed to be focusing on bashing religious people. When we win this war on religion, you better watch out. If you've been found to be derelict in your duty by talking about poetry - well - our secret leadership committee don't like that. You might find yourself locked in a cell, forced to listen to William Shatner's spoken word poetry for a few years.
Yep, I was at Iowa in the mid-90s on the poetry side. It would have been funny if you knew Jake, as bigredfutbol and I have a mutual aquaintance via Iowa.
If that's the penalty for talking about poetry, I shudder to think what penalty I could get for actually writing the damned stuff.
Shaw - born July 26, 1856 in Dublin, Ireland Yeats - born June 13, 1865 in Sandymount, Ireland Joyce - born February 2, 1882 in Rathgar, Ireland I suppose they were technically 'born in the UK' because the Irish Free State wasn't formed until 1922, but all three were born within 30 miles of Dublin in what is now the modern-day Republic of Ireland. And the UK can't claim Oscar Wilde, either, because while he lived most of his life in London, he was born in Dublin. My favorite scene from Gross Indecency: the Three Trials of Oscar Wilde: Queensberry: So you agree that this doesn't continue? On your word as an English gentleman? Wilde: Of course. Narrator: Queensberry failed to realise, however, that Wilde was an Irishman.
Used to live in Belfast... As a Literature student this so intriguing yet so utterly pointless at the same time.
bojendyk don't tease the lad by attacking his low intelligence. I liked the Auden reference btw. Quite sharp.
Talk about insulting. If you were in front of me, I would slap your face with my glove. Why, the words "William Shatner" are by themselves enough to prove North Ameican cultural superiority over the continent.
It's a shame that Iowa City is still better known for Tom Arnold and Ashton Kutcher glomming on to the Hawkeyes than for its writing program. Was given Coetzee's "Disgrace" as a gift one year. A downer. England did give the world Orwell and Wodehouse. And Monty Python.
Obviously you haven't heard of Virginia Woolf, Evelyn Waugh or D.H.Lawrence. Maybe even George Orwell. Nevermind. Well, I suppose I could mention that Cary Grant and Vivien Leigh were British, other than that those early years were a little lean for us.
I'll give you Woolf, but do lesbians really count? You guys had Grant the first 25 years and all you could make of him was a prat fall ******. We had him the next 25 years and turned him into the greatest screen actor the world has ever known. Same with the sublime Ms. Leigh, Hollywood rules your ass (Hitchcock?).
Now then ... as to the threadjack ... You say not one poet since Phillip Larkin, yet then cite "the first 50 years of the 20th Century" of American poets in comparison. Given that Larkin's works are primarily in the latter half of the 20th Century, you're not exactly comparing apples to apples there. Get past those first 50 years of American poets like Elliott, Frost and Sandburg (you also threw in Steinbeck, Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Faulkner, who although the pillars of American 20th Century fiction, again can't be held up counterpoint to England's poetry), and is there a well-received canon of American poetry that has breached the consciousness of the American public? Aside from maybe Maya Angelou, most people (myself included) would probably have difficulty naming many poets since the beatniks. But back to Britain, since we're talking 20th Century - are Dylan Thomas, John Masefield, Siegfried Sassoon, Ted Hughes, Hugh MacDiarmid and Wilfred Owen, nothing? Auden was already mentioned. Now, I won't try to go toe to toe or man for man - I would hope that the population of the US could manage a few more poets than the British Isles - especially as the Brits seemed to have lost so many promising poets in WWI (or maybe WWI just proved ripe fodder for poetry that was not to be repeated). Regardless, I would not say the isles were exactly barren of poetry. As to literature, I would contest your characterization of the Booker Prizes going to Commonwealth authors as arising out of quality concerns, when in fact the Booker Prize has always seemed rife with political considerations superceding pure merit. Just glancing at names on my nearby shelf, I'd gladly champion the collected works of fairly modern British authors like Ackroyd, Bainbridge, Barnes, Byatt, Crace, Fitzgerald, Ishiguro, Lively, Mackay Brown, McEwan, Swift and Unsworth (as you can see, I alphabetize my shelves). And a host of others have contributed outstanding novels as well. And I believe someone argued that the first half of the 20th C. was barren for British literature? Forster, Somerset Maugham, Greene, Orwell, Waugh ... heck, even Tolkein and Lewis, if you want (and one of my personal favourites, Arthur Ransome). I think part of the problem is nearsightedness in public eduction. Lacking the time and opportunity to sample the best of literature from around the world, modern American eduction sells "the classics", which include British lit prior to the 20th C., but when it comes to the 20th C. itself, perhaps because nothing has gotten the "Over 100 Year And Still Being Read - Must Be A Classic" stamp, it seems that only American novels get taught in American schools (I'm generalizing, of course, but I think it's a fair generalization - similar to how history rarely ever catches up to modern history before the school years run out of time). Again, I'm not trying to say that England is a clear or even marginal winner over America in the field of literature, but I'm not sure it's such a slam dunk the other way around either. Again, especially if you took into consideration their relative differences in population! Now, if anyone wants to debate 20th C. classical music, I don't think America has a chance in hell of winning that debate.
That is soooo weak. How much bigger is our country than yours? Hell, isn't Texas bigger than England? Guess what, buddy. I've spent the last three and a half months driving around the US and Canada and I could spend anotheryear doing this before I even started to think like I'd seen most everything. How long do you suppose it would take me to exhaust England? So go ahead and grasp at your sad little straws.