tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5705212129043604002.post6534628904135848911..comments2023-11-02T01:12:33.019-07:00Comments on Brian Palmu: Peter TrowerBrian Palmuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05850783426719352543noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5705212129043604002.post-44124406913808950372008-09-17T12:55:00.000-07:002008-09-17T12:55:00.000-07:00Good points in your first paragraph.And that was p...Good points in your first paragraph.<BR/><BR/>And that was part of my point (your second paragraph): against what Starnino said in his excellent essay, the Black Mountain proselytizers were opposed to crude regurgitation of experience AND polished, formed utterance. More immediately, they had no way of smothering the experiences with theory, and explaining them away.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5705212129043604002.post-40627901328066768002008-09-17T11:20:00.000-07:002008-09-17T11:20:00.000-07:00Part of Acorn and Purdy's success that shouldn't b...Part of Acorn and Purdy's success that shouldn't be forgotten is that they were national poets in a way that Trower wasn't, living east and central as well as west and writing about same. Trower has always been a regionalist, which doesn't make his verse any less worthy of admiration, but makes him much easier to ignore--especially with someone with as little "professional" ambition as Pete possesses. With the exception of Ragged Horizons (now 30 years old and as you say, aging very well), all his work has been published in BC.<BR/><BR/>I'm not so sure that TISH's non-embrace of Trower is as intentional as you say. I think there's definitely some looking-down-the-schnozz going on, but doubt it's as defensive as all that. Trower's kind of poetry just doesn't fit with their (very limited) conception of the art.Zachariah Wellshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02241595894807722933noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5705212129043604002.post-56422510957110401052008-09-17T02:54:00.000-07:002008-09-17T02:54:00.000-07:00Thanks for the link, Zach. I'd read Starnino's "A ...Thanks for the link, Zach. I'd read Starnino's "A Lover's Quarrel", but hadn't chanced upon the Trower piece before. It's fascinating.<BR/><BR/>The only fundamental arguement I have with it is when he (Starnino)conjectures that Trower's neglect may result from reviewers and academics not recognizing the sophistication under the surface. I would submit that -- even were this so -- it wouldn't matter. (The Bowering Boys mock sophistication, anyway, so Trower would be an "anachronism" whether he composed in complex metaphor OR crude semaphore..)<BR/><BR/>No, the more I think about it, the more convinced am I that the entrenched learnery set saw someone who represented a potential threat (more in the way of future influence) to their fame/cash cow, someone who gave less than a sour dump for "words made from words" (quoting Starnino quoting Trower), and, should that tack prove attractive to future versifiers, would therefore doom the listless, theoretical self-importance of the powerbroking clan. To be short, it was (and is) a case of self-protection, and had/has little to do with perceptions of artistic merit on their part. It's also an intriguing explanation for Acorn's success, even though there were many similarities between Trower and the PEIer: Acorn's praises were sung before the language/deconstructionist/theory driven drivel gained ascendency (it had risen in prominence, but still competed at the time with a tougher, experience driven poetics). And imagine Trower being hastily crowned with his own national "Poet of the People" award today, if the SFU prof won another GG the same year as HH + HV's release. I hated the West Coast's dominant aesthetic 35 + years ago, and hate it more today, since the entrenchment is deeper and wider.<BR/><BR/>Yikes, this is becoming an essay. Time to wash my wooden dentures and catch a nap.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5705212129043604002.post-322123184808495572008-09-16T22:51:00.000-07:002008-09-16T22:51:00.000-07:00Great to see you posting enthusiastically about Tr...Great to see you posting enthusiastically about Trower, Brian. I first encountered his work in the Tom Wayman anthology _Going for Coffee_, which I picked up in the gift shop of a BC Ferries boat about seven years ago. I was interested in writing about work because I'd been writing a fair bit about my own work. The anthology was largely disappointing, leaning as it did towards an emphasis on content over form. Head and shoulders above the rest were poems by this Trower person I'd never heard of before. And yes, it was their sophistication that made them stand out. I've since tracked down many of his books new and used and have had the pleasure of spending a bit of time with the man, who's still sharp at 78. I also turned Carmine Starnino on to his work, the result of which is probably the <A HREF="http://www.booksincanada.com/article_view.asp?id=4456" REL="nofollow">best appraisal</A> of Trower's poetry ever written.Zachariah Wellshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02241595894807722933noreply@blogger.com