Quick thoughts on Sanford Kwinter, Architectures of Time (thanks, Jordan), which I just started reading.

Kind of a neo-Bergsonian perspective. Consideration of modernist, postmodern aesthetics & design principles, by way of re-conception of Time (as a kind of living entity).

What if poets didn't immediately translate "the New" into "new writing styles"? What if they understood "the new" as an aspect - the nature of which we don't quite grasp - of time itself? Of course on the level of the obvious that is, obviously, the definition of "novelty". But for Kwinter that's merely obvious because we don't really understand time.

I would try to relate same to my notions of the connection between tradition & "nowness" (see blog entries for 1/28-1/31). The metaform of the poet is a unique correlation of Now. (Tradition = characteristic activity = poet making Now.)

Here's a quote from Kwinter:

"The so-called emergence and evolution of forms will no longer follow the classical eidetic pathway determined by the possible and the real. Rather, it will follow the dynamic and uncertain processes that characterize the schema that links a virtual component to an actual one. What is most important to understand here is that unlike the previous schema where the "possible" had no reality (before emerging), here the virtual, though it may yet have no actuality, is nonetheless already fully real. It exists, one might say, as a free difference or singularity, not yet combined with other differences into a complete ensemble or salient form. What this means is that the virtual does not have to be realized, but only actualized (activated and integrated); its adventure involves a developmental passage from one state to another. The virtual is gathered, selected - let us say incarnated - it passes from one moment-event (or complex) in order to emerge - differently, uniquely - within another. Indeed the actual does not resemble the virtual, as something preformed or preexisting itself. The relation of the virtual to the actual is not therefore one of resemblance but rather of difference, innovation, or creation (every complex, or moment-event, is new). Thus the following should be clear: realization (of a possible) and creation (through actualization-differentiation) are two intrinsically distinct and irreducible processes. The first programmatically reproduces what was already there, formed and given in advance; while the other invents through a continuous, positive and dynamic process of transmission, differentiation, and evolution.

"The crux lies here: Actualization occurs in time and with time, whereas realization, by limiting itself to the mere unfolding of what preexists, actually destroys and annihilates time." (pp.9-10)

[p.s. deepest apology for turgid head-trip on 1st day of SPRING]

This reminds me of a book by another Sanford, Sanford Budick:

Dividing Muse : images of sacred disjunction in Milton's Paradise Lost (which looks at Philo's concept of the Logos as a differentiating principle, & how Milton adapted that).

So in order to make "new" poetry - in relation to what has already been made - "tradition" - the poet might need to grasp a new notion of time & "nowness" itself. Rather than relying on simple contrast of old & worn-out versus shiny & brand-new.