Robert Bly 12-1-1971 Part 2
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Issue Date
1971-12-01
Authors
Bly, Robert 19711201_Part2
Publisher
SUNY Brockport
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Abstract
This is the continuation of an interview with Robert Bly on December 1st, 1971. The first part of this video can be found here: https://hdl.handle.net/1951/84616
Robert Bly opens the second half by reading four of his poems. The first three are from his poetry collection, "A Light Around the Body". The fourth is long form poem, of which he read two sections for the discussion. Below is the reading order of the poems Bly read, along with their time stamps.
0:36 As The Asian War Begins - From "A Light Around the Body"
1:30 Watching Television - From "A Light Around the Body"
2:40 Asian Peace Offers Rejected Without Publication - From "A Light Around the Body"
4:10 The Teeth Mother Naked At Last - By Robert Bly
Leading the second half of this discussion are Professors Anthony Piccione and A. Poulin Jr. of the SUNY Brockport English Department. The first topic is an exploration of criticism of The Teeth Mother Naked At Last. The criticism is that some of the lines are opinion and Bly speaks to what drove the creation of that poem. In this case, Bly's clarifies an exploration of a possible link between an increase of wealth creating a decrease in a capacity to love humanity in American society. For Bly, this was driven by a story of St. Francis when he chose to give up his inheritance.
A student invites Bly to speak about a reference to Allen Ginsberg's poem "Wichita Vortex Sutra" which suggests Wichita, Kansas is a vortex for war. Bly speaks on what he feels is a shared sense in both his own work and Allen Ginsberg's work: that the people of America, specifically in Ginsberg's experience of Wichita, are in a poverty of culture which led to the desire to eliminate the local Indigenous population during its earlier history. The conversation turns to the exploration of the statements made in The Teeth Mother Naked At Last. They dig into the critical thinking piece that comes with general statements and Bly's effort to create surrealist statements by smashing together two realities: the American suburban reality and its grotesque existence alongside the reality of the atrocities of the Vietnam War. A. Poulin Jr. extends the scope of the discussion to political poetry. In reference to Yate's sentiment that poets ought to remain silent on the subject of war, Bly swiftly responds with his disagreement and why he believes poets have a unique responsibility to give and explain the psychological reasons for the war. A student invites Bly to talk about each of the mother goddesses referenced in his work, specifically the teeth mother, and the effects of these forces, as Bly understands them, has on his poems. He elaborates on the cycle of horror that whirls through the entirety of The Teeth Mother Naked At Last. He clarifies the link he makes to what America had learned from the European countries that settled the United States with regard to the violence present at that time. Another student asks Bly to talk more about his poem "Those Being Eaten by America". Bly expands on what he's talking about with the surrealist images he created in this poem. In closing, Bly talks through his understanding of how persona works and how that is different from the self and the feeling, and effect of separating the self from the persona and then shedding it. He goes on to discuss principles of Carl Jung and how that applies to this topic.
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