Sunday, December 31. 2006
Give Our Bells Back Their Tongues
Comments
Display comments as
(Linear | Threaded)
robert,
i think this hits on the only major qualm i’d always had with avant garde forms — that a critical education/understanding is required for appreciation. this always seemed like the reading experience once removed to me.
however, i do enjoy the pushing of limits and comfort zones in this sense. i do like the idea of readers at any skill level taking nothing for granted.
i’ve started to see this as a bipartisan political situation, where i appreciate the moderation provided by the diametrical relationship. i’d hate to see either pole run away with things.
i think this hits on the only major qualm i’d always had with avant garde forms — that a critical education/understanding is required for appreciation. this always seemed like the reading experience once removed to me.
however, i do enjoy the pushing of limits and comfort zones in this sense. i do like the idea of readers at any skill level taking nothing for granted.
i’ve started to see this as a bipartisan political situation, where i appreciate the moderation provided by the diametrical relationship. i’d hate to see either pole run away with things.
Thanks, A.D. I think the most timeless writing always accommodates readers on many levels, the most fundamental being some delight in language and its intangibles - musicality, shades of meaning, and of course Booth’s "Precious Nonsense."
That we’ve somehow devolved into what I agree are rightly called partisan camps of accessible versus complex seems to betray a false dichotomy borne out of hazards free verse. Still, poets like Frost (albeit a poet of mostly blank, not free verse) remains an iconic example that dispels the myth of dichotomy.
P.S. You aren’t related to e.e. cummings, by chance? I thought the tendency to play loose with capitalization might run in the family…
That we’ve somehow devolved into what I agree are rightly called partisan camps of accessible versus complex seems to betray a false dichotomy borne out of hazards free verse. Still, poets like Frost (albeit a poet of mostly blank, not free verse) remains an iconic example that dispels the myth of dichotomy.
P.S. You aren’t related to e.e. cummings, by chance? I thought the tendency to play loose with capitalization might run in the family…
well, i once worked with a woman who told me she was cummings’ niece. (she didn’t have nice things to say about the man.)
i do share his birthday, however.
i do share his birthday, however.
It’s always a balance, isn’t it? Every poem has to have its own existence, but all poems aspire to commentary. And because poetry by definition bends the practices of ordinary speech, the practice of poetry in general tends toward distortion & paly with convention.
But should we really aspire to commentary, Joe? Did Whitman? Did Frost? Yet the ushered us into the contemporary voice.
I think it’s deeply hazardous to work backward from criticism to craft. Inspired writing not so much demonstrates as dispels most taxonomies as false. Since the academy is retrospective by definition, and since the contemporary voice lends itself to so many difficulties of subjective interpretation, I wonder if the partisanship between complex and accessible hasn’t been generated by murdering our poems in dissection, then incorrectly assuming we can sew our discoveries back into something equally profound.
I think I may have just coined a counter-phrase to McPoem: the stitched-together academic Frankenpoem.
I think it’s deeply hazardous to work backward from criticism to craft. Inspired writing not so much demonstrates as dispels most taxonomies as false. Since the academy is retrospective by definition, and since the contemporary voice lends itself to so many difficulties of subjective interpretation, I wonder if the partisanship between complex and accessible hasn’t been generated by murdering our poems in dissection, then incorrectly assuming we can sew our discoveries back into something equally profound.
I think I may have just coined a counter-phrase to McPoem: the stitched-together academic Frankenpoem.
Robert, Whitman so aspired to commentary that he reviewed his own books. And he hung like glue to the few sentences Emerson wrote about his work. Poetry is not pure. Nor should it be. Most of the American poetry written these days, especially that coming out of MFA programs, is boring because it believes it should aspire to purity & (gasp!) should never aspire to commentary. Poetry wouldn’t even exist as a social practice without (formal & informal) commentary. Purity, bah!
And of course you know I write the above in the most generous & cheerful spirit possible.
And of course you know I write the above in the most generous & cheerful spirit possible.
Joe, I have yet to experience anything but cheerfulness & generosity from you. It is refreshing.
I can imagine Whitman appreciating Emerson’s insights into his work. But I think there is a difference between aspiring to the attentions of an appreciative audience and aspiring to be heavily glossed by the academy. The latter lends itself to what I believe to be a very dangerous form of self-consciousness, where the merits of the work rest solely in A.D. rightly called "the reading experience once removed."
I can imagine Whitman appreciating Emerson’s insights into his work. But I think there is a difference between aspiring to the attentions of an appreciative audience and aspiring to be heavily glossed by the academy. The latter lends itself to what I believe to be a very dangerous form of self-consciousness, where the merits of the work rest solely in A.D. rightly called "the reading experience once removed."
William Shakespeare might have a thing or two to add to the "a critical education/understanding" of poetry to be understood. The assumptions in that way of thinking are obvious and dangerous.
David Mamet said, "The difference between entertainment and art is accessibilty and necessity. Which I think sums up my thinking on the poem and its set aside month of recognition. I too am a fan of Frost and he influenced me greatly. Shakespeare, however, had the most profound effect on me personally.
He broke down barriers and opened the gates for the common people. I feel art evolves and with it it carries the "DNA" of future peoples and artists.
David Mamet said, "The difference between entertainment and art is accessibilty and necessity. Which I think sums up my thinking on the poem and its set aside month of recognition. I too am a fan of Frost and he influenced me greatly. Shakespeare, however, had the most profound effect on me personally.
He broke down barriers and opened the gates for the common people. I feel art evolves and with it it carries the "DNA" of future peoples and artists.
"Here’s to National Give The Art Back To The People month." The "NGTABTTPM"
Now that’s a month (or a year) I could get behind!
Peace.
Now that’s a month (or a year) I could get behind!
Peace.
Yes, and the acronym just rolls off the tongue…
Thanks for stopping by.
Thanks for stopping by.
I was thinking the same thing. It’d be okay on a t-shirt but trying to explain it may prove difficult.
Robert,
Methinks I’ll add you to my Echoing Voices…Those on my sidebar, not those in my head.
Peace,
Robert,
Methinks I’ll add you to my Echoing Voices…Those on my sidebar, not those in my head.
Peace,
Thanks! Just remember - if the voices in your head say, "I am Robert Peake" - they’re lying. I’m out here!
If they say "I am Robert Peake", I’ll consider myself lucky to not have them say, "I am Caesar", or "I am Karl Rove", or "Genghis Khan".
It’s when they all start standing up saying, "I am Spartacus" that I know I’ve let them watch too many movies.
…wow are we off topic.
…wow are we off topic.
So much talk (much of it self-flattering), condescension, and competitive on-the-sleeve "erudition" about not being those;
So little communication.
Over 40 years and I’m still trying to overcome the academic.
So much round-about unadmitted effort to "figure out" the "game," the "gimmicks".
To paraphrase bobby d.:
"Twenty years of schoolin’!?/
"Put me on the [night] shift!"
So little communication.
Over 40 years and I’m still trying to overcome the academic.
So much round-about unadmitted effort to "figure out" the "game," the "gimmicks".
To paraphrase bobby d.:
"Twenty years of schoolin’!?/
"Put me on the [night] shift!"
Poetry is not anti-intellectual; but it is not an intellectual exercise.
One does not, during the writing, ask such questions as, "Is this ‘complex’ enough? Does it sufficiently baffle the reader?"
One writes, as truthfully and accurately as one can, and the "complexity" takes care of itself.
A poem "is"; it is "zeroing-in," not a theory "about".
A poem is a verb — the result of visceral action. All the "critical" "evaluation" and "analysis" come after the fact — if at all.
I recall a poem I wrote decades ago ("On a Beautiful Morning with the Sun Out"), in/with which I strove to be as open, "accessible," clear and obvious, as possible — to, in a word, give the experience, rather than an "artifact" "about" the experience.
I struggled to leave out all potentially misunderstood extranea — "complexity".
Decades later, not having read it in at least ten years, I reread it — and was stunned at the emotional complexities in it; complexities I had not been aware of at the time, let alone intended to include.
"Accessible"? Yes. Of "clarity"? Without question. "Complex"? Unavoidably.
It’s not that complicted:
Write honestly and truthfully, accurately, and let the head-gamers worry about the presumed differences between "complexity" and "difficulty" — about what degree of arrogant insularity/"complextiy"/"difficulty"/blah-blah-blah must be consciously, deliberately "built in" to "transform" a piece of writing from prosaic to "poetry".
About what is "necessary" to make one’s poems "superior" to those against whom one insecurely measures oneself, and with whom one competes in running perplexed circles around even oneself.
Stop trying to be a "poet," or to convince others — but especially oneself — that one is a "poet". Strive instead — in all things — to feel that one is not a fraud.
All else? 97-plus per cent of "literary criticism" is a self-involved cottage industry irrelevant to "literature," and to which "literature" is irrelevant. Shopsters "talking shop" with shopsters.
By contrast, being is not a career, and a verb cannot be taught.
One does not, during the writing, ask such questions as, "Is this ‘complex’ enough? Does it sufficiently baffle the reader?"
One writes, as truthfully and accurately as one can, and the "complexity" takes care of itself.
A poem "is"; it is "zeroing-in," not a theory "about".
A poem is a verb — the result of visceral action. All the "critical" "evaluation" and "analysis" come after the fact — if at all.
I recall a poem I wrote decades ago ("On a Beautiful Morning with the Sun Out"), in/with which I strove to be as open, "accessible," clear and obvious, as possible — to, in a word, give the experience, rather than an "artifact" "about" the experience.
I struggled to leave out all potentially misunderstood extranea — "complexity".
Decades later, not having read it in at least ten years, I reread it — and was stunned at the emotional complexities in it; complexities I had not been aware of at the time, let alone intended to include.
"Accessible"? Yes. Of "clarity"? Without question. "Complex"? Unavoidably.
It’s not that complicted:
Write honestly and truthfully, accurately, and let the head-gamers worry about the presumed differences between "complexity" and "difficulty" — about what degree of arrogant insularity/"complextiy"/"difficulty"/blah-blah-blah must be consciously, deliberately "built in" to "transform" a piece of writing from prosaic to "poetry".
About what is "necessary" to make one’s poems "superior" to those against whom one insecurely measures oneself, and with whom one competes in running perplexed circles around even oneself.
Stop trying to be a "poet," or to convince others — but especially oneself — that one is a "poet". Strive instead — in all things — to feel that one is not a fraud.
All else? 97-plus per cent of "literary criticism" is a self-involved cottage industry irrelevant to "literature," and to which "literature" is irrelevant. Shopsters "talking shop" with shopsters.
By contrast, being is not a career, and a verb cannot be taught.
Reader Comments
Thea Swanson on "Road Sign on Interstate 5" Now Available Online
Thank you for writing this poem. It’s necessary. Peace+ Thea
(Read more...)
Katherine on What Marriage Means to Me
Beautiful. Thank you.
(Read more...)
michelle on "Road Sign on Interstate 5" Now Available Online
such a stunner. hey, you are good! xoxo, mich
(Read more...)