(direct Amazon links for you forthcoming)
On Frederick Seidel, Poems 1959-2009
Joseph Beth Books just received a copy of Frederick Seidel’s massive Poems, 1959 – 2009. So I poached it off their shelves. The hardbound volume was $40, rather expensive, but Seidel’s works are hard to get a hold of in retail chains, and this book was a complete compilation of all of his prior published work.
The public has a complicated relationship with Fred Seidel. To say the least. Seidel’s often recognized as a “bad boy” of modern poetry, sort of an American version – though less self loathing, more erudite, and more louche – of M. Houellebecq, though writing in verse instead of fiction.
The Houellebecq analogy fails a bit; first of all Houellebecq too is an accomplished poet, perhaps a better poet than novelist (I suspect that much ado over his novels is because of their brutal and stark sexuality and his vague right wing leanings). Houellebecq himself, from my understanding, feels his poetry is his best work.
Seidel, in any case, is a damn good poet. He verse can seem quite obnoxious, politically incorrect, sexist, racist, and even anti-Semitic – in spite of being a Jew some of his verses have provoked disquietude and overt claims of anti-Semitism.
I think people look for simplifications – politically Seidel seems to fit neither fully in a sort of East Coast Liberal milieu, nor in a Conservative milieu. And why would he? He seems to be a type of man who can see human complexity, and poke it with a stick.
People who hate Seidel or find him piggish should reflect that a good deal of his verse is self parody. Is Seidel a racist, or sexist?
Do these questions even matter, that is to say, is his art independent of his politics? My reading of the man is that he’s a provocateur and highly mischievous.
I don’t see much real racism in his work at all, as an incredibly wealthy, Jewish, industrial heir naturally he sees, and can speak of, class and race divisions without a sort of hypocrisy. The man is incredibly sarcastic; with his wealth indulging in any sexual desire at a certain age is far easier, it is easy to observe the hypocrisies in communications between sex and gender, class, and race, when you have little to lose. This a sort of liberation.
He provokes, and prods, the self righteous expectations of the readers. He is difficult in this way, and why not? Self righteous consensuses, whether correct or incorrect, should be deflated slightly for the public’s good.
Seidel is a private poet, his writings are not part of the MFA graduate circuit of modern professional poetics, and in fact the only way the guy gets published is because, frankly, he’s independently wealthy.
I consider Seidel to be one of the strongest poets of his generation still writing, his imagery is good, and his rhymes being rather obvious actually shock the reader into a slightly carnival like atmosphere, enabling incredibly brutal topics to be discussed with a certain off handedness.
Seidel’s verses have a surreal edge, a sort of world weariness and cognizance of the ravages of time. Some are intensely sexual, but not really erotic – there is a journalist like detachment in discussing his own sexuality. He has a keen eye for hypocrisy and the fragility of the world in which people live. Yes his voice is from on high, he’s filthy rich, and oddly this gives him a freedom to observe some things more keenly than many would.
Charles Upton, The Wars of Love
Charles Upton, is most known for his metaphysical writing – his days as a Beat Generation poet in San Francisco, friend and in a sense student of Lew Welsh, and member of the Counterculture and Peace movement, Upton’s verse is known by some. His essay “Fuck Mysticism” can still be found in the City Lights Anthology.
He recently finished and published his modern epic, The Wars of Love: A Fall-and-Redemption Cycle. In it Charles Upton attempted something few modern poets even bother with, producing a defining masterpiece.
The work is an exploration of the Shadows of God, from a perspective steeped in the Traditionalist metaphysics of writers like Rene Guenon, Ananda Coomarswamy, Frithjof Schuon, and Seyyed Hossein Nasr, molded by decades of the author’s active, passionate, intensely painful at times, and courageous engagement in the Spiritual path. His Wars of Love will be appreciated by a few, few readers I suspect have what it takes to engage the work, and appreciate his message.
Wars of Love is very much a passionate, inflamed, Eleventh Hour reaching for God, what Milton would try to do if he were alive today, and fail lacking the sapiential edge to slice behind the subjects he wrote of, Upton with pain and passion grabs, as a man grabbing the fires of the son itself, and succeeds. This is beautiful poetry, but in a materialistic age, I wonder how many have the perception to see its beauty.
There is nothing pretentious about it.
Upton is in some ways a difficult poet, full allusions, but they are fire breathing allusions not there for their own sake. Upton’s aims are metaphysical, and like Blake, there are important lessons in verse for the one with both the mind and heart to grasp.
There is also subtle craft in Upton’s verse, he is a distant descendant of a provincial troubadour noble, and perhaps some of this is carried in the blood. To be wrought upon with effort, and a dedication. Personally Upton sees poetry as a very dangerous vocation, a Titanic attempt to speak into being the fire of the gods. One with great perils to the self, as the widespread bleak alcoholism, suicide, obsessive sexual addictions, and drug addictions that litter the personal lives of so many of our best poets in English.
Upton seems to feel that poetry seems to require something, and consume something, very dangerous in a person. I think Upton is on to something here.
I recommend getting a hold of the Wars of Love if possible.