Did I Piss off Ray diPalma? You Tell Me?

I blame it all on Ron Silliman lol.

I blame it all on Ron Silliman's omniscience, to me more precise, that he found what I posted on Ray DiPalma at my new blog Cerebral Douchebag and linked to it.

I thanked him for linking to it.

Ron, you got me in trouble!!

Okay, maybe I did it to myself. Just a little bit.

(AFTERTHOUGHT AND CORRECTION: Mr. Silliman did NOT link to the DiPalma piece; he linked to the Taggart appreciation above it. Ay de mi! So how long before I get mail about the "Ashbery cookie dough" recipe poem also lurking nearby?)

Granted, the blog is titled Cerebral Douchebag, because I wanted to have a venue where I could speak with a little more candor...the way we all think about poetry, as opposed to the way we think critically "in print"...with the bone-stayed corsets squeezing the bejeesus out of our kidneys and all that...

Anyhoo, I got this email from Ray tonight:

Hello Wm,

A handful you obviously missed, etc:

LE TOMBEAU DE REVERDY (Translated by E. Hocquard & others), cip/m & Un Bureau sur L’Atlantique, 2002.
LETTRES (Translated by Vincent Dussol), Éditions Virgile, Dijon, France, 2003.
GNOSSIENNES, Seing Eye Books, L.A., 2005.
QUATRE POÉMES, (Translated by Vincent Dussol), Editions Comp’act, Chambery, France, 2006.
CAPER, Volume I, ML & NLF, Piacenza, 2006. [Poems with Italian translation en face]
L’USAGE ANCIEN DE LA PIERRE, (Translated by Vincent Dussol) Éditions Grèges, Montpellier, France, 2007.
BORDER MUSIC, Or #2, Los Angeles, 2009.
THE ANCIENT USE OF STONE, Seismicity Editions/Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, 2009.
PENSIERI, Echo Park Press, Los Angeles, 2009
FURTHER APOCRYPHA, Pie in the Sky Press, Los Angeles, forthcoming, 2009.

Plus work translated and published in Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Danish, etc as well as writings published in dozens of magazines, journals, and anthologies on both sides of the Atlantic.

DiPalma's papers are now part of the permanent Archive of American Literature at the Beinecke Library/Yale Univ.

He teaches full time at the School of Visual Arts--including courses in 19th & 20th century American Lit and separate courses on Shakespeare's plays and poetry and Literature and Writing with lectures on Homer, Sophocles, Chaucer, Voltaire, Joyce and Camus, et al.

And he still makes time to sort you out.

You're welcome & All the Best
RAY



Okay, more than a tad defensive and a few little rabbit punches, right?

But he has been busy. So he's got a point that I'm being a lazy researcher. But I hadn't been seeing the work in American mags as I used to, quite often, and many of those recent titles of his are not that easy to find, so from a practical point of view my heading is still pretty much correct.

So, here's what I wrote back.

Does it sound bitchy?

I don't think it sounds bitchy.

Only in places where it addresses the poet's bitchiness, right?

Hello Ray,

I thought the brief appreciation of your work (and I did mean it as an appreciation) made it clear that the title "Whatever Happened to..." was meant to be rather rhetorical/regretful....not a slight....this is why the comparisons were made with Guest's work (a poet I adore).... because I see affinities and I similarly miss her (although I think she's REALLY gone. I can see now--happily--you are not).

The tone of your email sounds as though you took it as a slight..the title of my blog sort of points to the fact I intend to approach work I consider serious with a little bit of cavalier humor as well. Perhaps you chafed at the bits I didn't appreciate in your work, as opposed to the majority I did?

I was happy Ron Silliman linked to it, as I figured it would point people in the direction of your books. If you find the squib annoying, perhaps you should ask him to remove the link. I would hate to think you felt people would read it as something less than an appreciation, even if I spoke honestly of what I liked in your work, and what I did not. I think the scales clearly tilt one direction.

I'm of an age where I feel humor towards one's own failings is pretty serviceable....and that applies to art as well as conduct....some poets seem to lack the ability to laugh at themselves or laugh at the impossibility of the task of always being en pointe...and it is impossible...whether you're W.S. of Stratford or W.S. of Hartford...not saying you're one of those unlaughing lugs who is positive he only vaticinates and never vexes readers...sure hope you aren't under that delusion...

I can only assume that's what's behind the use of such funny phrases as "sort(ing) (me) out" and the fact that you end your email with a punchy "You're welcome" is a feeling of injury, and if that's the case I apologize for injuring you. I believe the custom is actually to thank someone for taking the time and effort to purchase, read and then promote one's writing, no?

Or does that always apply only to unqualified reverence, and nothing less?

I'm happy you're well and productive and I'd be very happy to see your latest productions.

Congratulations on being translated into so many languages and having the good fortune of teaching some wonderful writers to young minds in respectable institutions.

I don't know what else to say to that. I guess that was more of the "sorting me out" part, c.v.-wise.

Should I publish your email on my blog, to let people know how busy you are and make a sort of amends? I'm certainly humble enough to allow others to enjoy my drubbing, and it might go a great ways towards establishing your stature, in case anyone might be so dull-witted as to have misinterpreted my appreciation of your oeuvre as some sort of anemic elegy....rather than the "I miss seeing...." sort of thing it was....

In Admiration and Well-Sorted,

Bill