We read that "Hollander made his mark when his first collection, A Crackling of Thorns (1958), was chosen by WH Auden for the Yale Younger Poets series."
I am not sure John Hollander survived his early fame. Critics usually mention his technical facility, which I take as a means of pointing to the superficialness beneath much of Hollander's poetry. That he won a Bollingen, and a MacArthur Fellowship (1990), may just reflect the extent to which Hollander was a creature of his time. From his long poem "Kinneret" we mention:
The night in which all pages are the same/
Black: The Hegelians must shut up shop.
Except Hollander doesn't. He goes on and on, which stresses the cheapness of his conceit. It is possible the Humanities as a field are measuring today the cost of decades of poetry being sufficient unto itself.
In this verse Hollander does broach something outside himself.
Remembering my dear dead black cat sometimes returns/
Others to my sight -- Christine, her kittens Chatto and/
Windus (and Fergie), Emmeline and hers, cross Pumpkin/
Bertha of the placid gray, and quiet young Eggplant,/
Flora, Bert, nasty Zoltan, Wolfgang and Ludwig's sweet/
Mother Priscilla (out of whom by Wilson they were;
Where are the Others' cats I knew -- Georgia, Maisie, Wow/
Of these only noble Rose remains). Where are they now?
And where are all their days, the yesteryears and images/
That melt like black snow along a dark familiar rug?/
Furred felicities absent them from us in a while;/
Months ago I promised you something for poor Wolfgang:/
What can be said of dead cats that is not dead itself?/
"Requiescat" goes on, and is worth reading. It is in his Selected Poems (1997). The distance from Francois Villon to John Hollander may be a slide into subjectivity, but I am not sure that is a necessary fate of an individual person. Or that a wet rug will sustain a poetic reputation. His Guardian obituary is jollier than I am on the subject.
Black: The Hegelians must shut up shop.
Except Hollander doesn't. He goes on and on, which stresses the cheapness of his conceit. It is possible the Humanities as a field are measuring today the cost of decades of poetry being sufficient unto itself.
In this verse Hollander does broach something outside himself.
Remembering my dear dead black cat sometimes returns/
Others to my sight -- Christine, her kittens Chatto and/
Windus (and Fergie), Emmeline and hers, cross Pumpkin/
Bertha of the placid gray, and quiet young Eggplant,/
Flora, Bert, nasty Zoltan, Wolfgang and Ludwig's sweet/
Mother Priscilla (out of whom by Wilson they were;
Where are the Others' cats I knew -- Georgia, Maisie, Wow/
Of these only noble Rose remains). Where are they now?
And where are all their days, the yesteryears and images/
That melt like black snow along a dark familiar rug?/
Furred felicities absent them from us in a while;/
Months ago I promised you something for poor Wolfgang:/
What can be said of dead cats that is not dead itself?/
"Requiescat" goes on, and is worth reading. It is in his Selected Poems (1997). The distance from Francois Villon to John Hollander may be a slide into subjectivity, but I am not sure that is a necessary fate of an individual person. Or that a wet rug will sustain a poetic reputation. His Guardian obituary is jollier than I am on the subject.
No comments:
Post a Comment