A poets' body of work: how much is too much, how much is too little?

One of complaints made by critics about A.J.M. Smith is that his body of published work is too small for him to be considered an important poet; if a poet hasn't done the writing, they reasoned, then how can that poet be considered significant? At first this view seemed valid to me; however, I also felt that Smith had written some individual poems that are the work of genius, he was too good a poet to be dismissed on this one point. Indeed, except for A.M. Klein none of the members of the Montreal Group of poets have large bodies of published work; Smith was not a prolific poet but he published more poems than Leo Kennedy and about as many as John Glassco, both members of the Group. Consider the following citation:

      After a life of persistent devotion to literature, he has left enough poems to make a single small volume (less, certainly, than a hundred poems in all), a single volume of prose, a few pamphlets, and a prose translation of the poems of Poe.

This could be a description of A.J.M. Smith's literary writing (omitting the reference to Poe) and yet the citation is taken from Arthur Symons' ground breaking book on the French symbolists, The Symbolist Movement in Literature (1919), and it is Stéphane Mallarmé who is being referred to. Symons affirms Mallarmé's work; E.K. Brown is critical of Smith's work.

Some poets have small bodies of work, these include Elizabeth Bishop who published 101 poems, Stéphane Mallarmé who published less than 100 poems, Jay MacPherson, John Thompson (who published two books), Patrick Kavanaugh, and of course A.J.M. Smith who published 100 poems. Is the poet who publishes a small highly crafted body of work, each poem the result of many drafts, the product of considered editing, better or worse than the poet who publishes a lot including a few brilliant poems? I suspect that some poets need to write a lot in order to arrive at a few good poems; others need to write very little but do endless edits and revisions to arrive at a few good poems of their own. Ezra Pound said, regarding Walt Whitman, that when he was young he found a small number of Whitman's poems worth reading but now that he is older he can't find those few poems. Many would say the same thing about Pound's poetry but few would say it about Elizabeth Bishop's work.

Some poets are proud of not writing much and I suspect that this is sometimes a pretention on their part, a kind of snobbery found among both individuals and little in-groups of poets. I have known people like this. Perhaps these poets have higher standards than the poet who cranks it out, they would have us believe this. What are some of the reasons these poets don't write more than they do? Perhaps they are not very good poets; perhaps writing poetry was just a lot of talk and socializing; talent without hard work isn't worth much. Poetry is an art of inspiration and work, not what could or might have been.  

Poets who write "too much" are also open to criticism; it is difficult to say how much is "too much" but the number of books published by established Canadian poets may be more than most of us think. Here is a list of several important Canadian poets and the number of poetry books they published, but with a proviso, I am not saying that they all published too much, only that  the number of books poets publish varies widely. Irving Layton published 51 books; Al Purdy published 33 books; Dorothy Livesay published 25 books; Louis Dudek published 23 books; Phyllis Webb published 23 books; Earle Birney published 21 books; Margaret Avison published 11 books; P.K. Page published 14 books; and George Johnston published eight books. All of these poets have made a substantial contribution to Canadian literature.

When I was a university student in the early 1970s, I would visit the poetry section at Classic's Little Book Store on Ste. Catherine Street West here in Montreal. The store had expanded from one floor to two, and then to a third floor where the poetry books were displayed at the top of the stairs. I remember seeing Clayton Eshleman's books, one title in particular stood out, Indiana (Los Angeles: Black Sparrow Press, 1969), a hefty book of almost 200 pages. And I remember my first reaction to this book: wasn't it a bit presumptuous to publish such a lengthy tome? Who had that much to say? My ideal for poets at that time, but not my personal reality, was a small body of meticulously crafted work. Over time I changed my opinion about Eshleman, in fact I became a fan of Eshleman's work and, in May 1978, I invited him to Montreal to read at the college where I worked as well as at Vehicule Art Gallery where I organized readings with John McAuley. Unfortunately, this gesture on my part, of friendship and respect for Eshleman, backfired on me. I found him to be a difficult person, not very friendly, and I don't remember hearing from him again after he left Montreal. I think there was a misunderstanding as to whether he would be paid in Canadian or American money, a difference of a few dollars that I regret not having made up at my own expense. Let me just say that Eshleman is a highly talented and gifted poet and translator, his work is original and visionary.

Many poets are critical of self-publishing but it has a long history and is a valid option for many poets; Louis Dudek recommended a number of approaches to publishing that included self-publishing (Whitman's first book was self-published), setting up a literary press, and being published by a small literary press. I have been published by established presses, I have been published by presses just getting off the ground, and I have self-published one of my books. My work has always been guided by the central myth of my life, discovered when I was young, and that is the Garden Myth, the fall from innocence into experience. My nine published books follow the progression of my life as it fits the template of the Garden Myth. I am working on two manuscripts, by the end of my literary career I will have written a medium sized body of work of eleven or so books of poetry, maybe these two final books will be self-published online but at least I will have done the work and completed my life mission.

In itself publishing too much or too little is not a valid basis on which to critique someone's life work; at best, it may be a way to qualify one's statements about the work, perhaps as an addendum to other more serious criticism; at worst it is lazy criticism and does little to evaluate a poet's work. I agree with Louis Dudek and T.S. Eliot (whose body of published poems is fairly small), both said that the final critic or judge of a poet's work is time. It isn't how much or how little you publish, it's how good the work is that you publish; it's not possible to know what poetry will last and what poetry will be forgotten, that's determined by unknown variables in a future that is also unknown.

                                                            Stephen Morrissey

                                                            September 2019