Thursday, December 29, 2011

Dan Beachy-Quick's Poetry Off the Shelf Podcast: On Memory, Originality, and Influence

          Poetry Off the Shelf had an interesting podcast the other week. Host Curtis Fox interviewed poet Dan Beachy-Quick about his proclivity for memorizing poems he admires. This topic alone is one I find intriguing. These days, I’m not aware of much poetry memorization that goes on outside of a classroom setting, and the podcast mentions a trend that I’ve also noticed and found interesting – how the process of memorization in general has gotten pushed to the margins in the age when so much information is easily accessible via the Internet. Thus just to hear a major contemporary poet speaking of his habit of memorizing poetry is reason enough to check out this podcast.
          But what really interested me most was when Beachy-Quick describes the reasons why he memorized poems. He describes a process of assimilation that takes place during the procedure, through which by setting the poems to memory, they become a part of him (hence the title of the podcast installment – “Inscribe the poem on yourself”). He likes having every little bit of these memorized poems incorporated inside him so that whenever he feels he needs some bit of the language or sentiment, it’s readily accessible. (Listen to the podcast and you’ll hear that Beachy-Quick does a much better job describing this process; my paraphrase is butchering it here.)
          One tangent my thoughts took after hearing this podcast was to musing about Harold Bloom’s influential and well-known 1973 poetic theory work, The Anxiety of Influence, one of the few theory works I actually remember by name. Before proceeding, be forewarned that I’ve never actually read the work in its entirety and only know the basic gist of it. But from what I understand, Bloom’s premise is that poets are inevitably influenced by the writings of their predecessors. Since their work is consequently derivative, the originality of their poetic visions are automatically compromised. Only the strongest poetic voices of each generation is able to survive and demonstrate a truly original poetic vision, and the rest becomes merely white noise. It’s an interesting theory, and the logic behind it does make some sense. I feel at some point in my life I’ll need to read Bloom’s book fully to learn the details and see to what extent I agree with him. . .
          At any rate, you can probably see now where I’m going with this. I think it’s interesting to compare Bloom’s theory side-by-side with Beachy-Quick’s comments. No matter how you feel about Bloom’s critical thoughts, most of us would probably think it’s safe to say that poets as a whole prefer to focus on their originality more than anything else. Thus, it’s refreshing to hear about a major poet speaking of willingly incorporating others’ works so thoroughly into his psyche, where he may, on occasion, pick up little snippets of influence to work into his own verse either intentionally or unintentionally.
          Of course, based on the few poems I’ve read by Beachy-Quick, it seems clear he’s a confident and original poet whose work does not, to my eye, risk falling headfirst into derivative imitations. Maybe it’s this confidence that allows him to so fully incorporate the thoughts of others into his subconscious without subsequent anxiety as to their influence encroaching upon his own originality. However, I prefer to think that he welcomes whatever influence may come. After all, poetry in many ways is an ongoing conversation, and if it is not building upon the past, then there is only so far originality can take us.
          Well, yet again, here’s another random post that doesn’t really bring us to anywhere in particular, but which nonetheless contains a few interesting thoughts that have popped into my head. I’d be interested to hear somebody else’s thoughts on the topic.
Finally, a brief side note to anyone in the area – Dan Beachy-Quick is scheduled to give a reading in Alabama this upcoming spring (in Tuscaloosa on April 5). I’m hoping I’ll be able to see it – we only have a few readings of that stature that take place in the area each year, so you have to take advantage when you can.

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