Correspondence with James Berger
Hi Prof. Berger,
Thank you so much for your email and for your generosity with the extension. If it really isn't a problem, I'll plan on taking two days and will have the paper to you before 2pm on Saturday since I'm beginning to feel a bit better but am still running a fever and coughing. Hopefully this nonsense is over soon, but I'm getting a second covid test just in case. Fingers crossed for a negative result!
As for Because of Poetry I Have a Really Big House — I absolutely loved it. I loved Kent's ability to use the poetic art form to criticize not poetry itself, but the popular trends that muddy and obscure poetry by forcing all of us to dig through the garbage to find actual substance. I was most struck by his argument that even the poets themselves have been swept up in this nonsense, which stifles and obscures true honesty (“Poetry will Save Your Life” introduces this theme, which appears throughout).
Poetry is interesting because people are interesting, and if Kent Johnson is anything, he is interesting. I studied Kent Johnson in my undergrad, and I daresay I wasn't really ready for his biting wit and could go so far as to say that I found his satire nearly sacrilegious, which says much more about my estimation of poetry than my understanding of the poet. But, approaching it a few years later with a good bit more life experience under my belt, I am beginning to understand what he is pushing back against — the commercialism and sensationalism of modern poetry, thanks to the hard work of organizations like the Poetry Foundation and Rupi Kaur (*gag*). It's shallow, silly, and overly sentimental. Kent seems to loathe this trend just as much as I do.
I did a bit more poking around to see if I could find more information about the poet and the critical response to this book, and came across your essay “Those Who Come After...And Before,” in the Caesura publication and very much enjoyed reading it. I was really struck by the paragraph opening with “The defense of poetry stands at the same level as the defense of horsemanship. Both pursuits are gracious and beautiful. They rest on the authority of their own histories and powers of ingenuity and, like the other arts and science, they exist without ambivalence in the aristocratic order. Poetry is its own reward and its own defense. Its best advocacy consists in doing it brilliantly.” For years, I have been attempting to marry my love of the arts and poetry with the deeply logical and practical side of my personality in an attempt to justify my interest in the arts — to myself. The biggest realization that I have come to is that, like you say in the quote above, these artistic pursuits may not have a defense (the best attempts to defend it — I’m looking at you, Shelley — fall short), and that their greatest defense is their very existence and the fact that, despite their lack of practical application, they have continued to exist throughout the centuries because each of them illuminates truths about our humanity and common experiences that people need to share to feel less alone. My acting teacher tells me all the time that I am not here for myself, that I don't get the privilege of withdrawing into my emotional bubble and marinating in the delicious marriage between text and music that makes me feel the catharsis of experiencing and expressing the emotional realities of the poet and composer. Instead, my job is to make room for others to experience the truths presented by the art, in the same way that I got to experience when I heard the music for the first time, and pored over the texts and the score for hours to prepare for the performance.
So what does it mean that poetry’s best advocacy is itself? I think, as Sylvia Plath writes in her journal, that its goal is to “live, love, and say it well in good sentences”; poetry’s best defense is the expression of life, in such a way that people say to themselves, “this author was able to express what it is that I feel/experience, without pretension, occlusion, or anything unnecessary.” I think, as with music, that one of the biggest risks we can take in poetry is maintaining authenticity and focusing on using it as a vehicle to illuminate truth. Ironically, this can’t really be done when we focus too much on the rules of expression or the oversaturation of emotion — as Paul Verlaine said, “prends l'éloquence et tords-lui son cou” (“take eloquence and wring its neck”). Truth is not always pretty, elegant, eloquent, or emotional, and adding those elements unnecessarily obscures the art and keeps it from saying anything at all. I think Kent would agree. Like any art, the composition of poetry is a delicate balance, and I’m not sure that I’ve really “figured it out,” but I think this class helped me a bit along the way.
I have a fever, so I’m not entirely sure that this ramble makes much sense, but I hope that I was able to express what I have learned from this class about poetry’s definition, philosophical essence, and raison d’être. Thank you so much for a great semester! I’ll be in touch soon with the paper.
Best,
Anna Kelly
Percy Shelley leaning on a desk, artist unknown. Countercurrents.
Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 9:49 AM
Hi Anna,
Yes, Saturday is fine for the essay.
Thanks for the very insightful note on poetry and Kent Johnson. I love the Verlaine quote, and will try to carry it out.
So, what did you read of Kent Johnson at Catholic U.??! It's not my impression that he's on a lot of undergrad syllabi, esp. at religious institutions. (You did go to Catholic, right? I'm not misremembering?). Kent is indeed a pretty extraordinary fellow. I've gotten to know him pretty well over the past several years. He was editor/spiritual advisor and morale-booster for a couple of odd books I put out which you might get a kick out of — The OBU Manifestos, vols. 1 & 2. I'll paste links to their Amazon pages where I believe you get to read the first ten pages or so.
Anyway, I hope your recovery continues. I look forward to reading your essay... and hearing you sing sometime.
all best,
jb
https://www.amazon.com/OBU-Manifestos-B-U/dp/1944682759
https://www.amazon.com/OBU-Manifestos-Two-MARCH-SEPTEMBER/dp/194996681X
Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 10:16 PM
Hi Prof. Berger,
Thank you! This essay is shaping up nicely and I hope that you’ll like it.
I’m glad you enjoyed my little ramble. I feel as if I’m finally getting down to the root of the issue of the humanities, and finally synthesizing the readings we did in this class. The Johnson really pulled it together for me, and the sections we did on poetry were my favorites. I love that you know Kent Johnson personally and that he edited some of your writing; I checked out your book on Amazon Kindle unlimited and I so look forward to reading it (thoroughly enjoyed the first few pages and definitely cracked an ironic grin at several points).
About Kent Johnson — I read his writings and critical commentary about him first in my sophomore year of high school, actually. I had a professor who very thoroughly believed that he was the real-life incarnation of Robin Williams’ character from Dead Poets Society, but who actually did very much encourage my writing and inspire me to consider the study of literature an essential element of my development both as a human being and as an artist. We didn’t really go into much detail about Johnson in that class, since he was brought mostly to contrast with Emily Dickinson, I believe in the unit about honest and authentic expression regardless of form or tone. It was an odd unit. But my professor did end up lending me a few of Johnson's books, and I devoured them.
Once I reached college I ended up taking a class called “Form and Value in Poetry” my sophomore year with Prof. Katherine E. Young. It was actually a required course for a music degree, but ended up being one of my favorite classes that I took at Catholic (don’t get me started on how much I think music needs to do a better job of incorporating the study of prose, poetry, and drama to truly give their students something to work with).
I remember really liking that professor — not as much because of the content of the course, which was an overview of different forms of poetry and exercises in analyzing and writing about them, but because she ended up giving me a much greater gift than lectures on Yeats. I believe she was only visiting us, but she was a no-nonsense type of person who didn’t give a hoot whether Johnson was “appropriate” for the curriculum, and that attitude taught me that poetry isn’t just a collection of sonnets, ballads, and sappy emotions, but actually a vehicle for trying to express truths about human experience.
Still from Dead Poets Society. Independent.
She was also the one to teach me how much DC is a city that loves poetry. She encouraged me to attend numerous seminars and poetry readings everywhere from restaurants like Busboys and Poets, to religious and cultural organizations like the Sixth & I Synagogue, independent organizations like the DC Arts Center, and even gave me tickets to some events at the Library of Congress. I also got to dabble a little bit in poetry translation when I attended some readings at the French, Italian, and Spanish embassies, and I think the experience of poetry in different languages taught me a lot about sound and cadence as a poetic device. I entered that class wanting to understand poetry, and left it with so many more questions than I entered with, which in my mind is the best way to tell whether a class has truly struck a chord and inspired curiosity.
The humanities are the only area of serious academic study that I’ve ever been interested in and in which I felt that I actually had something to contribute. While I was good at math and science, and extremely good at logic and public speaking, I have to say that I have always liked myself best when I am singing or writing, and have always tried to be true to that natural inclination, feeding it with good, strong literature and beautiful music. I ended up taking a few more classes that emphasized poetry while I was at Catholic, and found them quite eye opening and much more progressive than I expected. But I never got to take a seminar in writing poetry, which I’ve always really wanted to do (I actually wrote an entire book of poetry over the course of the last three years that no one has ever seen but me and my cat, and I’d really like to rework and revise it, because some of the pieces in there aren’t bad).
Regardless of how much study of poetry I’ll actually get to do outside of music, I think I’ve truly caught the bug and gotten myself a lifelong addiction — like music, poetry is just so raw and honest and captures emotion in a way that prose and other art forms can’t always do, and I really do think that I need to have it in my life if I am to find fulfillment somewhere along the way — because the real world without the lenses of the humanities is where souls go to die.
Speaking of music, we are having a virtual concert tomorrow night at 7:30pm, if you’re interested. I’m singing an amazing aria from David T. Little’s 2014 opera JFK, which focuses on the day before Kennedy’s assassination and pays particular attention to Jackie Kennedy’s story, which is so easily overlooked. The libretto is by Royce Vavrek, and the text to that particular aria is as follows:
You shiver.
Mumble childhood stories — where are you Jack?
Where has your mind taken you?
Down some deep nocturnal labyrinth, sleeps subconscious corridors…
Look at you, “American Phenomenon.”
Where are you, Jack.
Where has your mind taken you?
You may not hear me, but you must hear me out —
I shut my eyes, cover my ears, my heart in shreds
at the suggestion, the mere suggestion of women
Again and again and again and again.
Husband and wife.
I will do this, Jack.
I recommit myself again and again,
We wear the mask of happiness, of painless devotion,
As photographers snap, our lives caught by shutter speed.
I recommit, in spite of everything, because I love you — with great hope.
It may sound a little trite, but the music is a perfect setting of the text and imbues it with so much genuine emotion, conflict, and pain. It’s really something, and I’m so privileged to get to sing it. I’d love it if you tuned in.
Anyways, back to reality and my essay (which, between my last two emails, you’ve gotten a really good preview of). I’m really enjoying this one, and particularly liked this article, which I engage with in some detail in my paper. I’d be curious to know your thoughts.
Until soon —
Best,
Anna Kelly
Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 10:49 PM
Anna, Brava!!! I heard the recital and loved it. The song you sang was very affecting, and you really brought it across. Your voice is beautiful and you have presence on stage. The whole show was great. Once some theaters and concert halls get open, there is definitely going to be some great live music from Yale Music alums. I hope you get to be in the Yale Opera production next year.
And thanks for your story and thoughts on poetry, humanities, etc. Keep creating. I think you're destined for an interesting life, and I hope a fulfilling one.
all best, and looking forward to reading your essay.
jb
Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 11:38 AM
Hi Prof. Berger,
Thank you so much for your kind words! I’m really happy that you tuned in to the recital and that you liked my first semester’s big performance — it was kind of a weird one because none of us were allowed to move outside of a square foot that had been drawn on the floor, so all of the messaging of the piece needed to be in the face, which was a challenge, but a great lesson in film acting. I can’t wait until we have the chance to reopen and do some real performing soon. I’m singing most of Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier (yay! my voice likes Strauss) in our scenes program this coming spring, as well as a few other big mezzo roles (Sesto, Dorabella, Charlotte), so I’ll be sure to share the links with you when they’re ready, if that is something you’re interested in. I would love it if you attended!
I am finally finished with this essay, which my stubborn brain gave me a very hard time with writing. I must be flagging a bit — seven essays in 2 weeks will do that to a person, I think! Sorry to have missed my own deadline by nearly 20 hours, but I wanted to turn in something I was actually proud of, so I hope it’s okay.
In this essay, I try to show how the pressures of the multiversity to produce quantitative and measurable work puts pressure on professors and students of Humanities alike to overproduce critical responses to the Humanities (but ironically, not a greater output in actual creative work), and try to apply modern meanings to a form that is meant to merely reflect life and offer truth, not to necessarily explain it, and certainly not meant to explain truth through the lens of our modern values and sensibilities. I criticize the university system somewhat heavily (sorryyyy), with the goal of arguing that the Humanities' only defense is themselves, done well and slowly, because they are not meant to offer concrete, measurable benefits to society, but rather to hold up the mirror and let us learn about ourselves. I make some reference to the texts we studied this semester, but also engage with some additional scholarship about the nature of the Humanities and what their study should truly consist of if they are to succeed at offering truths about life without restriction.
It was really tough to argue this point, but I hope I was able to make it clear. Learning to let the Humanities alone and give my work time to develop and grow has been a big undertaking for me personally this semester, as I like to gobble up and abandon repertoire entirely too fast (to the endless chagrin of my teachers), so please know that this is just as much a criticism of myself as it is of professors and academia. I really look forward to hearing what you think; I may work again on revising and expanding this essay’s ideas over the break, just for my own personal edification. Either way, I do feel that it encapsulates the big takeaways I got from not only this class, but from the study of my own discipline and the advice given to me by those professors as well.
Thanks for a great semester and the happiest and safest of holidays to you and your family!
Best,
Anna
Article thumbnail photo: Jessica Nissen, Pandemic City with Salmon Clouds, 2020