The Niche Narrows

The following is excerpted from a NY Times book review of "New and Selected Poems" by Samuel Menashe. The book has been published by the Library of America (which David Orr describes as "recipient of grants from everybody") and the Poetry Foundation (which according to Orr " has $100 million from Eli Lilly in its coffers") in conjunction with their bestowing upon Menashe The Neglected Masters Award.

The first thing to be said about all this is that calling someone a "neglected master" makes for one hell of a left-handed compliment. Beyond that, however, bestowing an award for neglected mastery is a gesture so fraught with contradictions, ambiguities and obscure hopes and fears that it risks confusion at best, incoherence at worst.

First, there's that strangely self-refuting title — presumably Menashe can no longer be considered "neglected" after getting recognized for his unjustly ignored brilliance, can he? Then there's the notion that the appropriate cure for neglect is an award with the word "neglected" in its name. Then there's the implicit assumption that mastery is something we can identify with certainty in our own lifetimes (after all, if we have "neglected masters," we must have some "un-neglected" masters).

Related to this is the poetry world's obsession with and fear of its own marginality, which in this case results in the hopeful application of the word "neglected" to a single older poet from the West Village, when one easily could argue that the entire art form — even the Lord of the Prize, John Ashbery — is about as neglected as neglected gets.

Thanks to Uri Cohen for alerting me to (and sending me) the review.



Poems by Samuel Menashe

(By the way, I met Menashe, and bought The Niche Narrows from him after a joint reading he did with Dana Gioia on May 9, 2002)

ANONYMOUS

Truth to tell,
Seldom told
Under oath,
We live lies
And grow old
Self disguised
-Who are you
I talk to?

HOME MOVIE

Awake at once
No space between
The day and dream
Seen as it runs
Me off the screen
No time to splice
Slices of life-
No second take.

ADAM MEANS EARTH

I am the man
Whose name is mud
But what's in a name
To shame one who knows
Mud does not stain
Clay he's made of
Dust Adam became-
The dust he was
Was he his name