New Sincerity Reading List
Addendum: I'm not necessarily looking for books written by NS poets, though I welcome those suggestions too. Primarily, I'm concerned with texts that might influence a new sincere poetics. For example, in Octopus Matt Hart recommends Gregory Corso as a kind of model for NS.
I was giving some thought this morning to the shape I'd like my creative thesis to take, and all of the sudden it hit me: NEW SINCERITY! Because if I have to gather all my poetic interests under a single heading, I really think this is the one. With that in mind, I'll need to compile a reading list, to include both poetic and critical texts. So who's game? Which texts are must-reads for a poet hoping to write a collection of poems that's both fundamentally SINCERE and fundamentally NEW? I'll start the list off with the one collection that most profoundly changed me this year (Jorie Graham's, Overlord), and then update it to include your suggestions.
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From a 1968 essay by Patricia Meyer Spacks entitled, "In Search of Sincerity" (College English, vol. 29, no. 8, pp. 591-602)
"The power of convincing you, of making you believe in the reality of the poet's state, is what we try to locate in the term sincerity. Its link with freshness, the consciousness of something new and personal or old but newly utilized, is mysterious but omnipresent...But artifice is the best means to the end."
Comments
There are so many good books, Ginger. I really enjoyed Juliana Spahr's This Connection of Everyone with Lungs. It's written in a diction that's accessible, and it's time-bound: the space between 9/11 and the outbreak of war in Iraq.
Posted by: Laura | November 19, 2005 05:57 PM
Thanks, Laura. I'll have to check that out.
Posted by: Ginger | November 19, 2005 06:33 PM
I wish you'd post more on your reaction to Overlord, especially in terms of "sincerity." I'd love to have more insight into what was for me a very difficult book.
Posted by: pamela | November 19, 2005 09:36 PM
Pamela, I'd *love* to talk more about the book. I'm laboring under the weight of a couple papers right now, but hopefully I'll be able to put together something coherent later in the week.
Posted by: Ginger | November 20, 2005 10:42 PM
I'll echo the Juliana Spahr suggestion (also Fuck You—Aloha—I Love You is very good).
Try also Beckian Fritz Goldberg's Lie Awake Lake.
Posted by: Charlie | November 21, 2005 12:50 PM
Joshua Beckman's "Something I Thought Would Be Different."
James Schuyler
Posted by: Tony | November 21, 2005 07:53 PM
First, a caveat -- I'm not convinced that such a thing as New Sincerity exists, outside of literary theory essays. I'm not sure it refers to any actually existing poetry or body of poetry.
Having said that --
You might be interested in checking out the poetry of Frank O'Hara, Anna Swir, Audre Lorde, and Adrian C. Louis.
A couple of other poets I like very much, maybe somewhat less widely known but of a similar character (their poems, I mean), are Sara Menefee and Sheryl Noethe. Menefee has had a couple of books from Curbstone Press. Noethe's most recent book of poems is The Ghost Openings, from (I think?) Grace Note Press, should be findable online.
All of the above poets seem to me to write the kind of poetry that might speak to someone who identifies with the practices and intentions of what some people are calling New Sincerity.
Posted by: Lyle Daggett | November 22, 2005 12:42 AM