Saturday, March 04, 2006

Check out Aaron Tieger's triumphant return to blogging. Reading the poets he esteems, as well as his own work, I find myself wondering about that old New Sincerity. Seems like Aaron might espouse an aesthetic (an ethos?) that could go by that name; at the same time he and many of the poets in his cohort are ineffably New Englanders, whose punk stance gets some of its bite from Cotton Mather. A yearning for transcendence and election stand behind a poetry that nonetheless continually asserts its rootedness in a damaged and sinful world. As though willing the found objects—bands, buildings, bad jobs—to become signs of the higher life, or at least markers of one's distance from it. Listening to the Sex Pistols (or maybe the Pogues) as via negativa.

Incidentally if you're here in Ithaca and you're reading this, tonight's SOON reading has been cancelled; Dorothea Lasky and Michael Carr couldn't make it. We'll be back on April 29 with Dan Beachy-Quick and Matthea Harvey.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for the mention, Josh. Though I am sympathetic to NS, I feel like I'm more interested in a poetics that reveals some of its own process along the way. Sincerity and "honesty" are important, but only (?) as byproducts (?) of an overall certain attitude regarding polish, refinement, etc. I like the ragged edges.

This probably doesn't come across so much in my first post, but it's something I'm looking forward to exploring.

Bill said...

Enjoy your site mister.

Word,
Jim Kober

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