Comments on: Trust http://www.constantcritic.com/christina_mengert/trust/ Timely poetry reviews Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:57:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: John Peterson http://www.constantcritic.com/christina_mengert/trust/comment-page-1/#comment-12903 John Peterson Wed, 24 Mar 2010 17:15:25 +0000 http://www.constantcritic.com/?p=546#comment-12903 It is good to to read a review that asks philosophical questions about poetry. And it is good to be introduced to a work like "Trust" by Liz Waldner who likewise takes on these kinds of questions. To a large extent poetry has shied away from these kinds of question of late, to deal more with the immediate experience, a kind of snap shot of the real and the day-to-day. We are asked to show and not tell, to engage the readers feelings in the moment and steer cautiously around philosophical meaning. The best of contemporary poets embed their philosophical views inside the experience of the poem, I am thinking of poets like Gary Snyder whose Buddhism permeate his poetry. Maybe this is what Mengert is getting at when she says of Waldner's poetry, "Waldner offers poetry that is not so much concerned with hierarchies of poetry and philosophy as much as the possibility of sublimation, such that these two endeavors almost holographically fold into one another." This then may be the best of what poetry can and must do. John Peterson It is good to to read a review that asks philosophical questions about poetry. And it is good to be introduced to a work like “Trust” by Liz Waldner who likewise takes on these kinds of questions. To a large extent poetry has shied away from these kinds of question of late, to deal more with the immediate experience, a kind of snap shot of the real and the day-to-day. We are asked to show and not tell, to engage the readers feelings in the moment and steer cautiously around philosophical meaning.
The best of contemporary poets embed their philosophical views inside the experience of the poem, I am thinking of poets like Gary Snyder whose Buddhism permeate his poetry. Maybe this is what Mengert is getting at when she says of Waldner’s poetry, “Waldner offers poetry that is not so much concerned with hierarchies of poetry and philosophy as much as the possibility of sublimation, such that these two endeavors almost holographically fold into one another.”

This then may be the best of what poetry can and must do.

John Peterson

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