Poems and projects and themes, oh my

Stuart Ross, in his back-page column for the current issue of  subTerrain magazine (the piece is not yet online) considers why so much of work of Canada's "emerging" poets and other writers seem to be themed "projects". (He speaks as someone who was this year a Canada Council juror.)

"Shouldn't writers who are learning the trade be trying out everything they can, creating a tangle of eclectic experiments, writing about any stupid thing that pops into their churning skull?" he asks.

Of course, being a columnist, he has some answers.

One is that writers are trying to emulate "significant" works like Christian Bok's book length poem Eunoia.

"Now there's a book that you can describe to someone and make it sound interesting: 'Oh, yeah, so each section only uses one vowel! It's really cool. Yoko Ono!' But how do you make Shroud of the Gnome [by James Tate] sound good? 'There's all these poems and they're great and one of them's called Shut Up and Eat Your Toad!' Just doesn't grab in the same way."

Another is that grant applications, with their requirement for a written "project description" tends to lead applicants towards homogeneity.

Another is the growth of Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programs.

"...a Project manuscript sounds important. It's more tangible; you can talk about it with your thesis advisor and it's like you actually have a topic for your discussion. I don't know that it's the way to write exciting poetry, though."

And finally, the sales force for publishers, who wants an 8-second pitch for a book.

"It's way better if we can say, 'A marvellous collection of poems about gardening and suicide' instead of 'Oh, yeah, this is the new poetry book by L. Beau Noodles.'"