I wonder if anyone else in Poetics List Land noticed that in the premiere issue of Talk magazine, just out, there is a piece on Laura Riding, detailing her close encounter with Schuyler Jackson and family in 1939? It's remarkable that Riding gets such a big spread, with a full page picture, in this magazine, but regrettable that only a few lines of her writing are included. More surprising, and unfortunate, is the impression given by the article that (Riding) Jackson stopped writing and settled down to become a housewife for the last fifty years of her life.

The piece says she never wrote poetry again after meeting Jackson, but fails to note the voluminous “prose” that constitutes her later work, thus wiping out all reference to The Telling, Rational Meaning and her other essays of the 50s - 80s. The article also says that Riding stopped writing poetry as a direct result of the break-up of Jackson's family, not only ignoring (Riding) Jackson's extensive commentary on this issue in her later work, but also ignoring the many premonitions of this renunciation of poetry in her earlier work.

Thus, one of Riding's most significant aesthetic and philosophical positions is reduced to bathos. Of course, this article is not about Riding's work but about one of the most notorious events in her life, here given full tabloid treatment (but it's worth noting that there is nothing new in this piece; it is pretty much a recycling of previously reported facts, even the “spin” is old).

The author at one point says something to the effect that many poets are crazy -- the Blakes sitting naked in a tree, Pound's speeches on behalf of Mussolini, and Riding's “witch”-like break up of the Jacksons. There is also a description of Riding as being “hooked-nose” and unattractive, in contrast to the handsome Robert Graves.

The piece ends with the suggestion that feminists are likely to lead any revival of interest in Riding but that, unlike Dickinson and Plath, she may not be a good role model for “womankind,” since she is a two-time homewrecker. (Presumably suicide is more suitable for the woman writer than the sort of intellectual and social aggressivity of “hook-nosed” Riding.) I should note that I am recounting this from memory as I do not have a copy of the magazine at hand. But I believe I am conveying the drift. And the part I dislike most: here I am talking about Talk, right according to plan.

Charles Bernstein
(reprinted with permission)