Joseph F Gabriel

Odyssey and Other Poems, 2nd Edition Joseph F Gabriel

Contemporary poetry is dominated by an adherence to the poetics of

Indeterminacy, in which tuneless chaos prevails over music and meaning.

In their determination to subvert the traditional conventions of poetry,

contemporary poets dismiss, in their practice, all the time-honored devices

that make poetry, such as, for example, rhythm and rhyme, symbol

and song. That is to say, they dismiss Auden's famous formulation that

poetry is "memorable speech"--a unique and compelling combination of

sound and sense.



Rather than joining my peers in their nihilistic revels, my intention, on the

contrary, is to employ the traditional practices of poetry to achieve Auden's

ideal. Taking that ideal as my own; that is, taking the practice of such

great modernists as Dickinson, Robinson, Yeats, Rilke, Pound, Eliot, Cavafy,

Stevens, Hart Crane, and Auden, I seek--against the indeterminacy that defines

contemporary poetic practice--to make poems memorable for their music and

meaning, their sound and sense.



Thus, whether attempting a lyrical love poem or a poignant memoir of my

growing up in Philly's Little Italy, my intention is to create a dramatic poetry

that is to be spoken as well as read, heard as well as seen. Therefore, my poetry

stands as a direct challenge to the nihilistic conception of poetry that rules the

contemporary literary landscape.