Robert Archambeau's recent remarks on the "Battle of Chicago" (Brit Poetry Wars) echo the various histories of stylistic division on these shores (SoQ/Post-Avant, New Americans/New Critics, Experimentals/New Formalists, Raw/Cooked, Moderns/Victorians, etc. etc.).
Have been wondering (in a vague way) this week whether these dichotomies are not symptoms of something deeper, more elusive - something involved with the nature of poets & poetry generally...
If to make a poem is to take a particular step into the social, public arena, perhaps there's a basic binary there - the step is either joining or defying (or escaping, or avoiding). Either yes or no.
The trouble is, every poet is a jumble of yes and no - mixed together in a unique, unrepeatable way. Often the efforts to align or group poets (mainstream or oppositional, for example) involve eliding the uncomfortable fact that group defiance is just the obverse of group joining.
It seems best to focus on the aims and motives of a particular work, rather than aligning poets with groups or styles. Because the most accomplished writing often involves a process of distinguishing or differentiating - which is the method by which the work says something clear, determined and new.
As for me, I'm a chaos of mixed motives & feelings. Discouragement over (non)recognition - combined with fear of entrapment in what seems like self-enclosed, ingrown aestheticism (part of me doesn't like being a poet). & on another level, the difficulty involved in balancing poetry with other kinds of thought (religion, philosophy...). Poetry & thought don't always work together. They're like two headstrong horses on a chariot...
Showing posts with label po-biz4. Show all posts
Showing posts with label po-biz4. Show all posts
5.04.2007
4.25.2007
Robert Archambeau writes a chipper report on Brit Poetry Wars in the Chicago Review. But the debate between Wilkinson & Riley over poetry/politics - Riley's critique of what seems to be a bent toward Language-purism and hands-off politics, stemming from a failure to distinguish between the two (poetry & politics) - well, this sounds like an echo of old debates on the Buffalo Poetics List of 10 years ago. Can't we get beyond these parameters somehow? Of course, British authors have a knack for saying whatever they say very authoritatively ("ne'er so well express'd")...
It seems like a continual re-statement of basics (though I pretty much agree with Riley's position). No, aesthetics is not politics, nor vice versa. No, poetry is not only a purification rite for a particular stream of left-religion (though it may be for some people). No, poetry in general, or particular "schools" of same, will not save us from capitalism, global warming, war, etc. (though particular poems might help).
Most poetry expresses shared values & trends of the moment; thus the "poetry wars" on various continents reflect ideological fractures in the cultural/intellectual spheres of the time. I think the aim of the poet (or dramatist or novelist), however, is to dig deeper : without surrendering fundamental principles, to find shared (if unacknowledged) ground, and to provide models of reconciliation.
It seems like a continual re-statement of basics (though I pretty much agree with Riley's position). No, aesthetics is not politics, nor vice versa. No, poetry is not only a purification rite for a particular stream of left-religion (though it may be for some people). No, poetry in general, or particular "schools" of same, will not save us from capitalism, global warming, war, etc. (though particular poems might help).
Most poetry expresses shared values & trends of the moment; thus the "poetry wars" on various continents reflect ideological fractures in the cultural/intellectual spheres of the time. I think the aim of the poet (or dramatist or novelist), however, is to dig deeper : without surrendering fundamental principles, to find shared (if unacknowledged) ground, and to provide models of reconciliation.
10.26.2005
This I like.
*
The new issue of Poetry arrived yesterday, always some kind of education.
The poetry in it, some of it quite sharp & talented. Makes me feel like a slowpoke yokel. The feeling, reading it, of an oscillation - between bright devotion to brilliant language & inventive, clever thought, on one hand, and then, on the other hand, an impression of spoiled green suburban rich kids & preppies, showing off their pseudo-experience, pseudo-profundity, pseudo-sophistication.
Poems on meditative themes : bats. wildflowers. so serious, so careful, so polished. "Life, friends, is boring."
Mr. Bones, you juss jealous maybe.
Kind of skimmed the essay by Mary Karr, on being a poet/neo-Catholic, may read it later. But I really liked the Milosz poem she quotes at the end.
*
The new issue of Poetry arrived yesterday, always some kind of education.
The poetry in it, some of it quite sharp & talented. Makes me feel like a slowpoke yokel. The feeling, reading it, of an oscillation - between bright devotion to brilliant language & inventive, clever thought, on one hand, and then, on the other hand, an impression of spoiled green suburban rich kids & preppies, showing off their pseudo-experience, pseudo-profundity, pseudo-sophistication.
Poems on meditative themes : bats. wildflowers. so serious, so careful, so polished. "Life, friends, is boring."
Mr. Bones, you juss jealous maybe.
Kind of skimmed the essay by Mary Karr, on being a poet/neo-Catholic, may read it later. But I really liked the Milosz poem she quotes at the end.
10.21.2005
I have a lot of trouble telling the difference between Professionals & Careerists in this picture. Most of the hype is generated by professional careerists, whether they have MFA-type academic jobs or not.
Both need very much to get published, because they've been writing very hard for many years. Best of luck to them, I say. A lovely tree awaits your sees n' saws.
What this tells you about the quality of their poetry is not much, one way or the other.
Kind of similar situation with the SoQ/Post-Avant descriptor. Basically, it gives acquisitive collectors a handy cubbyhole for their collections, and loud trumpeteers a special key to punch on their polemic-horns.
Both need very much to get published, because they've been writing very hard for many years. Best of luck to them, I say. A lovely tree awaits your sees n' saws.
What this tells you about the quality of their poetry is not much, one way or the other.
Kind of similar situation with the SoQ/Post-Avant descriptor. Basically, it gives acquisitive collectors a handy cubbyhole for their collections, and loud trumpeteers a special key to punch on their polemic-horns.
10.04.2005
just got back from Kent Johnson & K. Silem Mohammad reading, downtown. should have hung around to say hello to Kent, at least, but was feeling shy & unsociable. spoke to poet Karen Donovan there, & CD Wright, briefly (we talked about Angola prison, near New Orleans). shook hands with friendly Michael Gizzi.
enjoyed hearing them - maybe write more about it tomorrow.
Kent's poetry projects a lot of heart & emotion - but at a slant, in a game. His clear unaffected writing style is a good vehicle for the larger set of weird rhetorical fun & games. but people miss the heart part, perhaps.
sometimes he does understatement very effectively : other times he could use it more - like when he (unfortunately) hammed up the Jaime Saenz translation he read. that should have been done in understatement.
the broad strokes, the hammer-blows - say in the Abu Graibh poem - might be looked at as coming out of Hispanic rhetorical tradition he's familiar with, but we're not so used to. but it was appropriate to the situation (ie. the prisoner abuse)
Kent has a real inventiveness, a particular scene-setting talent, that blends so well with the directness, the simplicity of his sentences, his style. it makes for dramatic poetry. unusual in the arch atmosphere of post-avantism. he can write political poems.
(nevertheless the recurrent obsessional object - insider po-biz culture - is not really worth the excessive obsessiveness - tho it makes a nice target for satire sometimes, I guess)
I liked Kasey's "Forest Ranger" poem best, tho even in that the comic persona was a bit derivative. It was very funny though, I was laughing away.
Otherwise the poetry didn't interest me too much, the flarf in-your-face too baroque for my taste.
enjoyed hearing them - maybe write more about it tomorrow.
Kent's poetry projects a lot of heart & emotion - but at a slant, in a game. His clear unaffected writing style is a good vehicle for the larger set of weird rhetorical fun & games. but people miss the heart part, perhaps.
sometimes he does understatement very effectively : other times he could use it more - like when he (unfortunately) hammed up the Jaime Saenz translation he read. that should have been done in understatement.
the broad strokes, the hammer-blows - say in the Abu Graibh poem - might be looked at as coming out of Hispanic rhetorical tradition he's familiar with, but we're not so used to. but it was appropriate to the situation (ie. the prisoner abuse)
Kent has a real inventiveness, a particular scene-setting talent, that blends so well with the directness, the simplicity of his sentences, his style. it makes for dramatic poetry. unusual in the arch atmosphere of post-avantism. he can write political poems.
(nevertheless the recurrent obsessional object - insider po-biz culture - is not really worth the excessive obsessiveness - tho it makes a nice target for satire sometimes, I guess)
I liked Kasey's "Forest Ranger" poem best, tho even in that the comic persona was a bit derivative. It was very funny though, I was laughing away.
Otherwise the poetry didn't interest me too much, the flarf in-your-face too baroque for my taste.
9.22.2005
Jonathan likes to cogitate upon the conundrum of literary schools & conventions. & I'll grant that in every time period forms of writing reproduce a kind of basic introductory Acceptable Style, and an established Constellation of Authoritative Authors who are the acknowledged Prestigious Ones.
But what does it mean to say this, or criticize the situation? Not much. If you don't specify the particular Snipe - if you don't investigate & evaluate specific works of art - you're not doing a critical job of work.
Here's a popular Double-Yr-Money Shell Game which you can watch on the streets of New York:
The Gamester displays 3 shells :
1. Official Verse Culture
2. Rebel Verse Culture
3. Border Verse Culture (oscillating between #1 & 2)
The penny or nugget is Poetic Value, which the gamester/rhetorician shifts rapidly from one shell to the other.
The Gamester can play this game for hours, without ever applying Poetic Value judgements to a single work of art. We're playing it right now!!!
But what does it mean to say this, or criticize the situation? Not much. If you don't specify the particular Snipe - if you don't investigate & evaluate specific works of art - you're not doing a critical job of work.
Here's a popular Double-Yr-Money Shell Game which you can watch on the streets of New York:
The Gamester displays 3 shells :
1. Official Verse Culture
2. Rebel Verse Culture
3. Border Verse Culture (oscillating between #1 & 2)
The penny or nugget is Poetic Value, which the gamester/rhetorician shifts rapidly from one shell to the other.
The Gamester can play this game for hours, without ever applying Poetic Value judgements to a single work of art. We're playing it right now!!!
8.11.2005
literary democracy. little poems speaking up for themselves, making their way on their own merits. the secret ballot.
the fascicles in Emily's cupboard.
Melville, Whitman, doing their thing, & to hell with the hucksters, the flash, professional gossip-mongers, moneygrubbers, slackers & hangers-on, dilettantes, hacks.
now there's community for you!
the fascicles in Emily's cupboard.
Melville, Whitman, doing their thing, & to hell with the hucksters, the flash, professional gossip-mongers, moneygrubbers, slackers & hangers-on, dilettantes, hacks.
now there's community for you!
somebody could make some money designing a Poet Group-Therapy Self-Help Support Networking Mutual-Admiration-Society Automatic Massage & Pigeonholer Multiple-Market-Resource-Branding Containment Facility. There are a lot of groups out there already ready already to sign up for the fun-filled silly-slide into the theme-park-cum-gated-community of choice.
I won a few little contests at the very start of my jaunt with poerrtry, & they were very important to me. Encouragement.
all the high school literary contests
"The Rose Low Rome Prize For Poetry", 1971 (Brown U.)
"The Charles Philbrick Memorial Prize" (same)
"Academy of American Poets something something Hon. Mention" (that's me : Hiz Hon. Men. Henry Gould)
(all judged via anonymous submissions.)
all the high school literary contests
"The Rose Low Rome Prize For Poetry", 1971 (Brown U.)
"The Charles Philbrick Memorial Prize" (same)
"Academy of American Poets something something Hon. Mention" (that's me : Hiz Hon. Men. Henry Gould)
(all judged via anonymous submissions.)
A lot of discussion about poetry contests in blogworld (these are indeed the dog days).
Ron & Jonathan (unless J. was being tongue-in-cheek) appear not to comprehend the interrelations, the basic "mosaic" (as Paul Anka(!) put it on the radio interview ye'day) between the notions of the contest, anonymity/fairness, and literature as a discrete, distinct, somewhat free-standing entity.
There's a certain amount of trust involved, obviously. With that, there's some excitement in connecting seasoned poets with a first impression of new, "unspoken-for" poetry. Letting the work speak for itself.
Letting the work speak for itself : this is a very basic element of critical disinterestedness & objectivity. I think it's essential to the whole game.
I mean, what are we making art for, fellas & gals? To impress our friends & win flattery points? Begad.
We make art out of our own disinterested apprehension of disinterested Beauty, in all its mysterio-magnanimous variety.
Poetry has its inherent rigorous scales of aesthetic value. These themselves are what guide poets (& good contest judges), not communities of interest & all that political baloney.
The group-glutenized ego-trips can all go fry. They are irrelevant to what it's about. They are dead air from birth. They are the substance of a puffball o'nada.
But in the new doggy-dog world of tribal mini-compounds, this notion of art which transcends "administration" and "community" seems to be hard to grasp for some "folks". What say, "folks"? (God, I'm sick of that word. It's so... faux-folksy. Unless used by real folks.)
Ron & Jonathan (unless J. was being tongue-in-cheek) appear not to comprehend the interrelations, the basic "mosaic" (as Paul Anka(!) put it on the radio interview ye'day) between the notions of the contest, anonymity/fairness, and literature as a discrete, distinct, somewhat free-standing entity.
There's a certain amount of trust involved, obviously. With that, there's some excitement in connecting seasoned poets with a first impression of new, "unspoken-for" poetry. Letting the work speak for itself.
Letting the work speak for itself : this is a very basic element of critical disinterestedness & objectivity. I think it's essential to the whole game.
I mean, what are we making art for, fellas & gals? To impress our friends & win flattery points? Begad.
We make art out of our own disinterested apprehension of disinterested Beauty, in all its mysterio-magnanimous variety.
Poetry has its inherent rigorous scales of aesthetic value. These themselves are what guide poets (& good contest judges), not communities of interest & all that political baloney.
The group-glutenized ego-trips can all go fry. They are irrelevant to what it's about. They are dead air from birth. They are the substance of a puffball o'nada.
But in the new doggy-dog world of tribal mini-compounds, this notion of art which transcends "administration" and "community" seems to be hard to grasp for some "folks". What say, "folks"? (God, I'm sick of that word. It's so... faux-folksy. Unless used by real folks.)
7.13.2005
Verking on some new versts. Will it amount to anything? I do not know. Experienced so many bloopers & false starts lately. It feels better to be trying, anyway.
Probably shouldn't post them, seems like bad luck. Which means I probably will.
What do I think of POETRY today? Enjoying Latta's uncommonplace speed-book, as usual. & the William Loganisms over here. AND a good summing-up of sumping by Gospodin Samizdat.
There is so much of everything nowadays, so much wordage, that poetry will have to be built like a fortress. Surrounded by yap-yap, workage-in-ploddage, schoolroom industry (all the conferences, all the workshops, all the pronouncements...), it will have to become formidable, impregnable... Not hermetic, though - rather, the reader will have the sensation of being surrounded by a fortress. It will not bend to any discursive formulae, yet it will answer for itself & everything.
Think of it the way composers or old blues guys or painters think about where they come from : overshadowed by thick sounds and sharp tones and bass notes from the past. Something separate, separate, separate from the exchange. Something people make by turning deep down, a personal dream - something from working in solitude with the materials of vision.
Probably shouldn't post them, seems like bad luck. Which means I probably will.
What do I think of POETRY today? Enjoying Latta's uncommonplace speed-book, as usual. & the William Loganisms over here. AND a good summing-up of sumping by Gospodin Samizdat.
There is so much of everything nowadays, so much wordage, that poetry will have to be built like a fortress. Surrounded by yap-yap, workage-in-ploddage, schoolroom industry (all the conferences, all the workshops, all the pronouncements...), it will have to become formidable, impregnable... Not hermetic, though - rather, the reader will have the sensation of being surrounded by a fortress. It will not bend to any discursive formulae, yet it will answer for itself & everything.
Think of it the way composers or old blues guys or painters think about where they come from : overshadowed by thick sounds and sharp tones and bass notes from the past. Something separate, separate, separate from the exchange. Something people make by turning deep down, a personal dream - something from working in solitude with the materials of vision.
6.14.2005
Still reading the terrific book by Stephen Prickett, Words and The Word.
Following the various blog themes - lambasts of Poetry, calls for a new review locus (good idea). (Didn't Gary S. have that idea too?)
Often feel disconnected... realize how difficult it must be, sometimes, to get into my various hobbyhorses, hereabouts. Well, WCW said dissonance is where it becomes interesting (bad paraphrase of something in Paterson).
Following the various blog themes - lambasts of Poetry, calls for a new review locus (good idea). (Didn't Gary S. have that idea too?)
Often feel disconnected... realize how difficult it must be, sometimes, to get into my various hobbyhorses, hereabouts. Well, WCW said dissonance is where it becomes interesting (bad paraphrase of something in Paterson).
5.20.2005
5.19.2005
The "rubrics" posted yesterday probably stem from one underlying principle : Beauty is the substance/structure of poetry. A corollary of this is the notion Jonathan Mayhew was talking about recently : Taste is an impersonal response to an objective reality (beauty).
The strict measures of beauty - not political polemics & allegiances - are what drive the merchants of the "poetry market" from the temple.
One could just as well say that Taste is a personal response to a subjective reality, if one were Kant, I guess (I'm not very well-grounded in philosophy). (Maybe this is what Jordan was getting at in his comment to Jonathan the other day.) But I'm not Kant, and I'm going to assume, with Charles Peirce (I guess), that we apprehend, imperfectly, the real objective existence of certain things, which we name with universal terms (ie. universally applicable).
& now I'm way over my head.
The strict measures of beauty - not political polemics & allegiances - are what drive the merchants of the "poetry market" from the temple.
One could just as well say that Taste is a personal response to a subjective reality, if one were Kant, I guess (I'm not very well-grounded in philosophy). (Maybe this is what Jordan was getting at in his comment to Jonathan the other day.) But I'm not Kant, and I'm going to assume, with Charles Peirce (I guess), that we apprehend, imperfectly, the real objective existence of certain things, which we name with universal terms (ie. universally applicable).
& now I'm way over my head.
4.01.2005
I agree with Jonathan about blind spots, anyway. But all I can say is, "give the guy a break." Do you really think literature & poetry fit into neat academic summations & the pat judgements suitable for MFA PROGRAMS? Brodsky's accomplishments & horizons are large, messy, complicated. His relationship with English & the battles over what is contemporary style were complicated. I wouldn't be surprised if he had a love-hate relation with English which he couldn't even acknowledge, which involved his dependence on that language from the day he stepped off the plane in London & under Auden's paternal umbrella. & that mixed feeling may have come out in these kinds of doggerel-songs. They may also be regarded as some kind of slap at what was considered contemporary American "high style" (Merwin, let's say). I don't know. Brodsky was a subtle and oblique poet - many of his poems in Russian depend on allegory & allusion & comic irony. His writing is steeped in estrangement, & feelings of frustration, spleen, loneliness, guilt.
The whole approach starting from "Brodsky doesn't deserve his fame - I'm going to show you why based on these poems..." - this ungenerous attitude guarantees there will be no encounter with Brodsky's strengths as a poet, essayist, human being. But this argument could go on forever, because there's no shared grounds for evaluation.
Here's an early poem, translated by George Kline, from the Penguin selected volume:
The poem exhibits an almost perfect balance between the thought of what poetry can and cannot be; between thought and (elegiac) feeling; between private emotion & a sense of a particular time (late Soviet Russia). The last image is perfectly subdued, an undertone. (Pushkin : "my sadness is luminous".) I can see why Auden was impressed with young Brodsky.
The whole approach starting from "Brodsky doesn't deserve his fame - I'm going to show you why based on these poems..." - this ungenerous attitude guarantees there will be no encounter with Brodsky's strengths as a poet, essayist, human being. But this argument could go on forever, because there's no shared grounds for evaluation.
Here's an early poem, translated by George Kline, from the Penguin selected volume:
ON WASHERWOMAN BRIDGE
On Washerwoman Bridge, where you and I
stood like two hands of a midnight clock
embracing, soon to part, not for a day
but for all days - this morning on our bridge
a narcissistic fisherman,
forgetting his cork float, stares goggle-eyed
at his unsteady river image.
The ripples age him and then make him young;
a web of wrinkles flows across his brow
and melts into the features of his youth.
He holds our place. Why not? - It is his right.
In recent years whatever stands alone
stands as a symbol of another time.
His is a claim for space.
So let him gaze
into our waters, calmly, at himself,
and even come to know himself. The river
is his by right today. It's like a house
in which new tenants have set up a mirror
but have not yet moved in.
1968
The poem exhibits an almost perfect balance between the thought of what poetry can and cannot be; between thought and (elegiac) feeling; between private emotion & a sense of a particular time (late Soviet Russia). The last image is perfectly subdued, an undertone. (Pushkin : "my sadness is luminous".) I can see why Auden was impressed with young Brodsky.
3.04.2005
Jonathan, I'm sorry if I give the impression of feeling neglected by other bloggers!
No, bloggers treat me just fine. Here's my True Chart of Henry Neglect:
Sphere of Activity : Neglect Level
Blogworld : None
Po-Biz : Neglected, scorned, shunned, ignored
Literary World in General : Unknown
p.s. I used to pay so much more attention to the Po-Biz sphere. Blogworld helped wean me away from all that moronic nonsense. I have moved on, thankfully, to other forms of idiocy.
No, bloggers treat me just fine. Here's my True Chart of Henry Neglect:
Sphere of Activity : Neglect Level
Blogworld : None
Po-Biz : Neglected, scorned, shunned, ignored
Literary World in General : Unknown
p.s. I used to pay so much more attention to the Po-Biz sphere. Blogworld helped wean me away from all that moronic nonsense. I have moved on, thankfully, to other forms of idiocy.
2.22.2005
A young aspiring author named Cliff Hanger emailed me, Chinover Minny III, to ask:
I always like these kinds of letters because they trigger my future-modeling software automatically. I simply click onto "FTR-X MODULE" & see what's going to happen. Here's the current report:
2.22.05 Future of Poetry Next 20-70 Yrs. The current model of top-down hierarchy in poetry will be replaced by Trobar Clus Redondo model. TCR is based on a system component through Linux which is freeware available to all poets. It allows the individual poet to design AI-superintel poetry, equal to him-herself brainpower at top capacity, readable by any equal or better brain (language optional). "Talking-down" type intelligibility [sp?], formerly prevalent in Soviet Realism style American SOQ PAP poetics, which was designed in those days to reach the average "Joe Dumbest of the Dumb" type poetry reader, is automatically deleted by default talk-down delete filter. This is handy for those of us still prone to DNA-snob hierarchical reaction phases in our writing praxis (ie., practice). TCR capability is also enhanced by a special green PO-Elimato Button, which, when pressed with vigor, instantly phases out 85% or 300,000 (whichever is larger) poets of marginal political instinct-DNA functionability; thus we have an optimal area-wide functionality of 3-4 TCR Special Poets, in total cohort compatibility. These will be the new generation of stakeholders in the poetry aggregant. They talk, we listen - but no Talk-Down! A significant unforeseen adaptation, which, once in place, makes one ("one" = 35) wonder ("wonder" = 35-der) why nobody never thunk it before. It will be called the Poetics of Unintelligibility (just for fun). Poems will be meaningless, in a throat-catchingly pow'ful manner, because they will use TCR advanced enhancements to create difficulty where there wan't none before. Talk-Up Difficulty will be the new meaning of meaninglessness, which we expect to flavor current environments in Poetics within the next 4-5 centuries. Bleep.
Say what's with the future of poetry?
Say what do you see happening
in the next 3-4 generations with it?
I always like these kinds of letters because they trigger my future-modeling software automatically. I simply click onto "FTR-X MODULE" & see what's going to happen. Here's the current report:
2.22.05 Future of Poetry Next 20-70 Yrs. The current model of top-down hierarchy in poetry will be replaced by Trobar Clus Redondo model. TCR is based on a system component through Linux which is freeware available to all poets. It allows the individual poet to design AI-superintel poetry, equal to him-herself brainpower at top capacity, readable by any equal or better brain (language optional). "Talking-down" type intelligibility [sp?], formerly prevalent in Soviet Realism style American SOQ PAP poetics, which was designed in those days to reach the average "Joe Dumbest of the Dumb" type poetry reader, is automatically deleted by default talk-down delete filter. This is handy for those of us still prone to DNA-snob hierarchical reaction phases in our writing praxis (ie., practice). TCR capability is also enhanced by a special green PO-Elimato Button, which, when pressed with vigor, instantly phases out 85% or 300,000 (whichever is larger) poets of marginal political instinct-DNA functionability; thus we have an optimal area-wide functionality of 3-4 TCR Special Poets, in total cohort compatibility. These will be the new generation of stakeholders in the poetry aggregant. They talk, we listen - but no Talk-Down! A significant unforeseen adaptation, which, once in place, makes one ("one" = 35) wonder ("wonder" = 35-der) why nobody never thunk it before. It will be called the Poetics of Unintelligibility (just for fun). Poems will be meaningless, in a throat-catchingly pow'ful manner, because they will use TCR advanced enhancements to create difficulty where there wan't none before. Talk-Up Difficulty will be the new meaning of meaninglessness, which we expect to flavor current environments in Poetics within the next 4-5 centuries. Bleep.
12.21.2004
Jordan plays the acoustic Double Hyperbole:
"Poetic production (Supply) is in pretty good shape. I would say we're likely to start seeing more and more heart-stoppingly good work, especially as the country slides further into venality and barbarism."
The equanimous golden mean is somewheres in between?
"Poetic production (Supply) is in pretty good shape. I would say we're likely to start seeing more and more heart-stoppingly good work, especially as the country slides further into venality and barbarism."
The equanimous golden mean is somewheres in between?
12.17.2004
...thus, note carefully what Crane is saying here : the ultimate criterion of poetic value is its lastingness, the perennial quality of its beauty and interest.
If true, this should make us revise our notions of literary tradition and development. Not to say that there are not productive advances in literary forms, or that the canon is a fixed collection of past classics. (As Crane points out, Aristotle might have found King Lear a more complex & interesting example of tragic poetry than Oedipus.)
It is to say, however, that beauty is the criterion, which subsumes both pleasure & instruction. The criterion is not merely formal or aesthetic in an exclusionary sense - it's probable that ethical, moral & political values will inform our notion of the beautiful. But poetry also has its own scale of inherent expressive values - originality, elegance, rightness, clarity, eloquence, etc. - which make up the beauty of the work as a whole.
If beauty is the criterion, the critic will have to shun polemics and special pleading of every kind. Claims of novelty, "experiment", marginality, "progressiveness", political relevance, etc., are all partial claims, which - if not related to the final cause and the ultimate criterion (lasting beauty) - actually fall outside the realm of critical judgement.
With these things in mind, maybe readers can begin to distinguish for themselves between general "poetry business" (promotional activities of the entrepreneurial or socio-political kinds), and genuine criticism.
If true, this should make us revise our notions of literary tradition and development. Not to say that there are not productive advances in literary forms, or that the canon is a fixed collection of past classics. (As Crane points out, Aristotle might have found King Lear a more complex & interesting example of tragic poetry than Oedipus.)
It is to say, however, that beauty is the criterion, which subsumes both pleasure & instruction. The criterion is not merely formal or aesthetic in an exclusionary sense - it's probable that ethical, moral & political values will inform our notion of the beautiful. But poetry also has its own scale of inherent expressive values - originality, elegance, rightness, clarity, eloquence, etc. - which make up the beauty of the work as a whole.
If beauty is the criterion, the critic will have to shun polemics and special pleading of every kind. Claims of novelty, "experiment", marginality, "progressiveness", political relevance, etc., are all partial claims, which - if not related to the final cause and the ultimate criterion (lasting beauty) - actually fall outside the realm of critical judgement.
With these things in mind, maybe readers can begin to distinguish for themselves between general "poetry business" (promotional activities of the entrepreneurial or socio-political kinds), and genuine criticism.
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