BELIEVE in rhymes and strict
forms," X. J. Kennedy declared.
He also believes in Yeats, who
is. "for my money, the great poet
of our time," that poetry should be
difficult, and that William Carlos'
Williams was right when he said
that "you don't publish until you
can say it differently from any-
one else."
Kennedy, a poet (Doubleday will
publish his first volume in August,
and he has appeared in numerous
journals and magazines) and an
instructor in the English depart-
ment, said there is a "serious
crisis" in contemporary writing,
due to the emergence and oppo-
sition of "two warring camps-
the academic and the beat. Poets,
in recent years, have been flocking
to the universities in unprece-
dented numbers,m a phenomenon
which has provoked much com-
ment, the major objection con-
stituted in a fear that this will
result in a peculiarly academic
poetry.
"This appalls me personally," he
said, and cited two "awful evils" of
the growing tendency.
FIRST, the approach of Robert
Bly, editor of The Sixties (a
journal which, logically enough,
used to be called The Fifties) is
particularly dangerous. "Bly him-
In Writing - Two Warring Camps
self is trying to pattern his poetry
after the best of continental
poetry; he admires those who've
gone through surrealism, and puts
an emphasis on dream images,"
Kennedy explained.
"His pitch is that rhyme is ut-
terly worn out, that poetry must
seek concrete images." Describing
Bly as "influential," he cited his
success in persuading James
Wright to give up rhyme, on the
grounds that "most rhymed poetry
any more falls into a singsong'
pattern," and poets should, there-
fore, try working without it.
"I think he's confusing things.
There are enormous possibilities
for the use of rhyme," Kennedy,
insisted. "For example, Yeats just
scratched the surface In his use
of off-rhymes."
"Any kid in the street knows
that rhymes are not exhausted.
I'm all for searching for new
forms," but they'll have to be very
strict ones if poetry is going to use
Carol Leventen is majoring
in history in the literary
college.
the power it gets from being con-
fined."
KENNEDY recalled Richard Wil-
bur's image of the genii in the
bottle as particularly pertinent:
"the force," he insisted, "comes
from the genii's being locked up,"
just as the poem is locked up in
its metrics.
He believes that there's nothing1
intrinsically wrong with writing
in a university atmosphere, and
"the danger of the academic life
is simply that it takes too much
time." But the academics, writing
what they know best, unfortu-
nately come up with things like
"novels about campus life and
poems about classrooms," he com-
plained.
Example: "in the magazines of
the past year, maybe a dozen
poems have appeared addressed to
'My Students in English Compo-
sition'. They're looking too hard
for subjects to write about."
There's a real danger in this type
of thinking, Kennedy asserted,
because "a poem should not be
allowed to choose its own subject,
instead of having one forced upon
it.
"Yeats did not sit down and say,
'I am going to write a poem about
Byzantium,'," and, by the same
token, "Blake's 'The Tiger' is cer-
tainly about a tiger, but it's also
about a zillion other things you
could hardly think of."
IN THIS context, he referred to
Robert Frost's statement that if
a man's going to be a poet, "he'd
better be a farmer, or else cheat
his employer."
Kennedy's second "awful evil"
is the prevalence of "formula" or
"equation" poems which are en-
couraged by "bad creative writing
teachers." John Logan, teaching at
the University of Chicago, "turns
out 'little John Logans'," he said.*
"I used to be sceptical myself, un-
til I worked with Arnold Bader,
who doesn't try to impose him-
self on young writers. "Besides,"
he reflected, "it's of some use to
have an audience."
Beats are "rearing up on their
hind legs and saying that the
world's going to pot." But "I sym-
pathize with them, though, for
refusing to join the society in
which we live."
He objects to their writing be-
cause they "throw out all forui.
They pretend to seek new ones
but in actual practice," he thinks,
along with Truman Capote, that
"beat writing is merely typewrit-
ing." Kennedy excepted Duncan
Continued on Prage Three
CONSERVATIVES are making a
strong showing in the Ivy
League. The Yale Calliopean So-
ciety, which was once the virtual
laughing-stock of the campus, now
has to limit the size 'of its ranks
to keep from -growing unwieldy.
Princeton's oldest political dis-
cussion group, the Whig-Clio club,
is now seeking to affiliate with
some national right-wing organi-
zation. A New Conservative So-
ciety has sprung up at the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania, beckon-
ing to both undergraduates and
graduates.
"At Harvard, where Fair Deal-
ing professors (historian Arthur
Schlesinger Jr., economist J. Ken-
neth Galbraith) carry on the tra-
dition of the old radicalism,"
Chamberlain of The Wall Street
Journal writes, "the new presi-
dent of the student council turns
out to be anti-Schlesinger and
anti-Galbraith, a crusading con-
servative in an almost forgotten
mold."
Outside the campuses, college,
BUT OF LATE these conserva-
tive publications have taken
new leases on life from a crop of
young-blooded and perceptive new
writers and editors. Some publi-
cations so blessed are: Human
Events, a conservative Washing-
ton newsletter with a paid circu-
lation of 42,000; National Review,
New York publication of William
Buckley; Modern Age, new quar-,
terly published in Chicago; and
Freeman, issued by the Founda-!
tion for Economic Education at
Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y. -
Similar transitions are in evi-
dence in the editorial offices of
conservative newspapers in Rich-
mond, Va., and Indianapolis, Ind.,
for example.
"The quality of writing provid-
ed by the new conservative re-
cruits from the American cam-
puses is far above anything that
has been published by young writ-
ers in the left-wing journals in
recent years,'" Chamberlain notes.
"Indeed, the Schlesinger-Gal-
braith generation-now in its late
40s and early 50s-is the last to
contribute anything of note to
,left-wing polemical literature."
CONTENTS
POETRY-BEAT VS. ACADEMIC
By Carol Leventen
CANADIAN HOCKEY
By Dave Cook
STRUCTURES SYMBOLIZE ENERGY
By Pot Golden
SEE RIGHT-WING STUDENT SHIFT
By Peter Stuart
EVOLUTION OF CLASSICAL MUSIC
By Boyd Conrad
RECORD REVIEWS
By Boyd Conrad
Page Two
PThage Three
Page Four
Page Five
Page Six
Page Two
Page Six
One difficulty young writersIN I
share is that of getting published. he
The problem occurs when new poem
journals, opposed to- the current Minu
style, or tradition crop up but York
they, in turn, become strictly or- Moss
line,
stay
fot.
back,
m~requE
By Brahms
theI
By BOYD CONRAD and
Johannes Brahms: Concerto for chan
Violin and Orchestra in D Major, conv
op. 77-Yehudi Menuhin, violin; themr
Orchester der Festspiele Luzern con as i
ducted by Wilhelm Furtwangler. 1si
Electrola 90013, $5.98. Th
, the
With the large number of re- foldi
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The late Wilhelm Furtwangler 0i
more than lives up to his reputa- poet
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characteristics of his style. What of
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Wolensak1
Webcor1
Gemork
Voice of Music!T
Always the
TAPE REC(
anda
Special Low Pi
Goldwater's book
fantastic demand.
WAR-SAW PHILHARMONIC
WITOLD ROWICKI, Conductor
WANDA WILKOMIRSKA, Violin Soloist
MAGAZINE EDITOR: THOMAS KABAKER
PHOTOS: Cover: Top, David Giftrow; Right, NYSPIX-Commerce; Bot-
tom, News Service; Page Two: John F. Smith; Page Three: David
Giltrow; Page Four; Left, United Nations; Bottom: News Service;
Page Five: Top: New York Times; Bottom: Associated Press; Page
Six: David Giltrow; Page Seven: Top, David Giltrow; Bottom:
Daily.
IA
11
I'
I11
Hill Auditorium
8:30
II
WEDNESDAY. JAN. 18
PROGRAM:
Overture 2 "The Bartered Bride"-by Smetano
Violin Concerto No. 1-by Szmanowski
Four Essays by Baird
Symphony No.- i in-C Minror-by Brahmis
TICKETS: $3.50-$3.60-$2.50-$2.00-$1.50
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