- Author : Gabriel Gudding
- Binding : Paperback
- Dewey Decimal Number : 811.6
- EAN : 9780822957867
- Edition : 1
- ISBN : 0822957868
- Is Eligible For Trade In? : Yes
- Label : University of Pittsburgh Press
- List Price : $12.95 (USD)
- Manufacturer : University of Pittsburgh Press
- Number Of Items : 1
- Number Of Pages : 96
- Package Dimensions : 0.30 inches (Height) x 9.10 inches (Length) x 0.37 pounds (Weight) x 6.52 inches (Width)
- Publication Date : 2002-09-25
- Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Press
- Studio : University of Pittsburgh Press
Gabriel Gudding's poems not only defend against the pretense and vanity of war, violence, and religion, but against the vanity of poetry itself. Sometimes nestling in the lowest regions of the body, his poems depict invective, donnybrooks, and chase scenes, as well as the indignities and bumblings of the besotted, the lustful, the annoyed, and the stupid. In short, Gudding seeks to reclaim the tasteless. Innovative, edgy, and dark, here is a writer unafraid to attack the unremitting self-seriousness of so much poetry, laughing with his readers as he twists the elegiac, lyric "I" into a pompous little clown.
- Product Description
Customer Reviews:
Customers rated A Defense Of Poetry (Pitt Poetry Series) 4.0 stars out of 5.0 based on 20 reviews:Matt
by Matthew Anderson (normal, il) - 2006-11-27
This is a great book. The poet uses humor to comment on the human condition. It says so much about life, hate and love. The reviewer who has tagged himself as "a reader" and named his review "Poetry Written by the Intimidated" is not openminded enough to read something of this caliber. He is reviewing poetry but states this claim "I'm not a poet, nor do I have a Ph.D., although I have wasted my time on occasion." Why would this person write a review OF POETRY who feels like poetry is a waste of time? Read it and love it.poop.
by Aught (Seattle, WA United States) - 2004-10-29
This Poop is brilliant. If you like Christopher Smart (Gabe's Smarter), Levine (Gabe's not nearly as boring), or Christopher Twigg (Gabe may be leafier)--you'll like this. To be honest, Gabe's not like any of 'em. He's more like the Clarence Darrow of poetry...and Butt's.Polarizing, Brilliant, and Ultimately Academic (cont.)
by Bobmacabre (Adrift at Sea) - 2004-03-09
(. . . continued)I relish the idea that Gabe is as ballsy as some other reviewers feel he is. I want to see heads roll and walls tumble in the contemporary kingdom of poetry. But if Gabe is a performance-artist-in-print trying to cut down the entire forest with a herring . . . the joke is only on him and not on Poetry at all.Gudding may have the charisma to command the barbarian hordes, but the hordes donýt live inside the academy walls . . . theyýre in the wild. I think Gabe needs more canon fodder from the wilds (rather than the ýcanoný fodder of academia). Heýs got a big, black, iron gun, but heýs stuffing it full of the kind of yellowed pages Eliot and Pound drooled lasciviously over and were later castrated for. It needs buck shot and marbles, big hunks of porcelain, gravel, locusts and walnuts, coke bottles (reissues of the old fashioned ones), and the rusted pieces of transmissions. Too often ADoP is a gun that SAYS ýBang!ý rather than GOES ýBang!ýThe poem ýHairý kind of sums it up for me. I have a personalized interpretation for it (not a universal one). Gabe busts out the convicts by hiding them in his hair. His hair is big because his head is full of large, wild, and powerful thoughts. These thoughts are large enough to ýcontain multitudesý, and that means some darkness. Well, good for him! And good for Poetry. But what does our big gunned Gabe go and do? He runs right to his buddy Pete, the Dante professor. That is, he takes his dark and wild thoughts and he stuffs them back into his classical, academic, insipidly trivialized intellect. And whatýs the result? The wild darkness gets trapped into a wig, and then a handbag, and then a backpack, and then a suitcase, and then a trunk, and THEN back into his hair/intelligence. The wildness has been much muffled. In the end, he can only walk and weep in confusion.Now, ýHairý is a good poem. And itýs very honest in the right kind of way (not that self-absorbed, icky confessional way). But it is tragic. I feel for both Gabe and for poetry. I hope Gabe can figure out what to do with the convicts, and I also hope he doesnýt mistake them for peacock rectums or impulses to harm animals. I wish Gabeýs angry stream of consciousness ran headlong into academic poets and the ivory towers of academic thinking rather than dogs and other simple non-intellectual creatures.It is a disservice to all of us that Gabe has chosen to reside in his butt (ýStatementý), because the guy is a brilliant freak with talent WAY out the wazoo. Ultimately the scatological humor strikes me as less a dung pie in the face of high-mindedness and academic elitism (as many claim) than the subconscious excrement flung loose from a very high-minded academic intelligence stuck in an abstract feedback loop. It is not so much flung as shed . . . and if we track him by his droppings weýll find him snuggly nestled into the den of the classical literature library of University-X.Now all someone needs to do is bust into said library and stuff Gabe in your hair, take him out to the barbarous woods, and release him into the wild. Then, we might end up with one of the rare great poets of our greatness-starved era.And Gabe . . . good luck with that butt thing.(4 stars this time to equal 3.5 overall)Polarizing, Brilliant, and Ultimately Academic
by Bobmacabre (Adrift at Sea) - 2004-03-05
Gabe Gudding may very well be a genius.Gabe Gudding may very well be a psychopath.It's interesting that none of the other reviews (as of this writing) for this book are very fair or even very helpful . . . when taken alone, but as a collection, they are more or less adequate. All are either 1 star or 5 stars, ranting or raving.Gabe Gudding is the kind of poet that inspires a great deal of ranting and raving, and possibly some humming, as well. If he had no other skill as a writer, (to my mind) this alone would make him a good poet. The main failing of our poets today is the inability to affect. Gabe affects. Not only does he affect, he infects. In fact, I had to buy this book because I was infected by Gabe.First the polarized reviews intrigued me, then the online samples of Gabe's work baffled me, and finally Gabe's blog left me frightened and bothered. A little voice in my head made it quite clear that I was to purchase A Defense of Poetry without any further hesitation. One of my major motivations was to write a 3 star review on Amazon. I had been entertaining the fantasy that Gabe himself had written all of the other reviews here under pseudonyms. His blog, after all, is so riddled with impersonations.Gabe Gudding is an infectious disease. Any poet writing today that can be an infectious disease is an important poet, a poet to be watched. In Gabe's case, he may also be a poet to be surveilled . He should not, for instance, be left alone with your family pet.Here's some quick Q&A from my middle of the road, 3 start mentality. Is Gabe a genius? Maybe.Is A Defense of Poetry a great book? No. It's an important book.Why is ADoP not a great book, but an important book?Because it engages in wonderfully radical cage rattling, yet the rattling is not being done by barbarians at the gate, but by that high Roman inside the cage.Ultimately, this makes ADoP more of a freakish curiosity than a true siege of the kingdom. And I find this a bit frustrating, because I am convinced Gabe has the firepower to lay wonderful siege. At the bottom line, ADoP is like an "authoritative" report on the existence of WMDs given by a government who feels the need to falsify a report on WMDs to justify its morally questionable actions.Gabe, you would make such a splendid barbarian, but you are working for the Man! Gudding's feeling for sound is pretty much unparalleled. His knowledge does seem encyclopedic (to excess). His cleverness is monstrous and lovely. And he's darn funny much of the time (I love his heroic little effigy on the book's cover, complete with P-emblazoned chest and purple cape). I don't get the academic in jokes for the most part, and Gabe's ultimate objective (if there is one) is lost (to me) in the abstracted and rampant wowing his erudite circus act inflicts on the audience. Quite possibly, I'm just not smart enough or educated enough to "get it". Maybe the whole thing is one of those post-modernist ha-has that SEEMS to have an objective, but doesn't, for, alas, all is meaningless. I hope not, because if that was true, then I would have to classify Gabe as a dope (and a dupe), and I don't want to do that. I don't want Gabe to be classified or in any way contained. (to be continued . . .)For, though he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.
by - 2004-01-21
This book has a tough time getting put down, but not a tough time getting... yada, yada. It's an interesting, intelligent, original, & entertaining (like movie entertainment=fun) collection of poetry, regardless of Christopher Smart's socks or whatever.
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