Soundings new canadian poets [edited by Jack Ludwig - (AUTOGRAPH) and Andy Wainwright]

Soundings new canadian poets

edited by Jack Ludwig and Andy Wainwright 

Toronto 1970, Anansi 

Str. 126, [6]

Oprawa broszurowa, 23 cm 

1 ilustracja 

Stan db+. [niew. otarcia kraw. okładki]. 

    Dedykacja Jack'a Ludwig'a dla Julii Hartwig, Artura Międzyrzeckiego i ich córki na stronie tytułowej. / Book dedicated by Jack Ludwig to the Polish poets - Julia Hartwig and Artur Międzyrzecki.

       INTRODUCTIONS 

       In these days of language batterment a poem is almost a reminder. Words are fished out of a coated Lake Ontario, held up to sunlight, given a new life in air and possibility. Years ago Joyce watched the assault and battery of words and chose to make a new language. His was one way. Other possibilities abound. One skins the word of its connotative coating. There are seeds which lie buried in desert soil for years and years, till the right kind of rain and soil condition sets the symbiotic moment for bustout and new birth. Poets are truly underground men salvaging underground words. Partisans. The Cold War is language's dark night of the soul. Any gleam is a reminder of sunlight. What Andy Wainwright and I have done is slight, but, I think, important. We've gathered the messages of Canadian partisans, and, in doing so, flashed the news that poetry is here, now. Poetry begets poetry. A collection like this one is as important for the poets it will encourage and awaken as it is for the poets it presents. We don't need Women's Lib to remind us too many of our voices are men's. We don't need the Movement to remind us too few of our poems are political. We won't need critics and reviewers to point out we're too traditional, not visual enough, unconcrete, unprojectivist, unMaritime, unWestern, unrural, unFrench. Let this book tell those we've failed to reach that it's time we put the world and the word together. Canadian publishers grow more querulous, predictable, computerconstricted, defeatist. Indeed, statistics are against the publisher who decides - like Anansi - that now is the time to sound the new possibilities; any salesman or distributor could demonstrate a thousand times over that now is not the time to publish unknown writers of fiction or poetry. Partisans in Yugoslavia, or France, or Norway, Holland, similarly rejected the proofs of "reality." History proved them right. Andy Wainwright and I believe the underground language men will prevail, and thole, celebrating the word and poetry's possibilities. I'd like to see a wilder, wavier, wispier Soundings next year. We're delighted to present the poets of this collection. They all join with us in inviting the underground women and men of the word to surface. Poets of the word unite! You have nothing to lose but their chains! 

Jack Ludwig New York, June 1970 

       W.H. Auden once said that when one reads a translation, all one gets is the sensibility, and either one likes it or one does not. In a way, this anthology is like a translation - we have taken what we can from a larger original (the poet's manuscript) and have given the result to you. The sensibility is still intact. The reasons for our choice no longer matter; they will soon be forgotten. The poems that are the result of that choice must now stand alone. They seek to be lasting things - and must be judged accordingly. 

Andy Wainwright Toronto, June 1970