Handling Hazardous Biographical Materials: Dealing with Questionable Character Traits through Poetic Biography

Abstract

ABSTRACT As a (poetic) biographer who has dedicated considerable time to wading through archives and other research materials, I have often found myself wanting my biographical subjects to reveal themselves not only to be interesting, intelligent, accomplished, but to be ‘good people’ also, perhaps sharing my own artistic and political views of the world. Occasionally, however, I have been confronted with information that has stopped me short. And I have asked myself ‘How do I deal with that?’ Percy Grainger, for example, thought that blue-eyed composers were superior. And George Balanchine’s name is frequently associated with poor treatment of female dancers (though many have jumped to his defence). Of course, life stories are much more complex than a singular focus on such details will allow, and a biographer must consider all angles. As this article will discuss – through reference to my own work and that of other poets – I am interested in how poetry’s many affordances have enabled me to approach difficult material in ways that adequately distance my own moral judgement from the text and instead encourage a more active readerly engagement with facts and/or ambiguous information.