Zukofsky (via Josh) & "objectification" - aesthetic principle of rest, finish, completion, fulness, equilibrium, self-sufficiency (beauty/pleasure), being related to utopia, Paradise, Shabbat (sabbath).
A very old notion - much speculated upon by Byzantine theologians (Hexaemera - meditations & sermons on the 6 "days" of Creation).
Poetry's special relation to the word as good-in-itself.
Comes out in Forth of July via imagery of the ark, the covenant, Jonah ("dove"-prophet-spirit), Jerusalem, Jubilee, time-travel.
I sought "finish" & objectification in my own way. The patterns of numbers, seasons, festival days - the "occasional poem" elements. (5.28) The formal crystallization of the 3-vols. + Coda. The numerical extensions of the abba quatrain; numerology. The symmetry of the 3 vols (over 900 pp.) centered on a single 7-line poem (#28) at center of Grassblade Light, which itself in turn pivots on a single line. Then the thematic rhymes, the Russian puns, the "delta" element, the Orpheus-Bluejay-Ojibwa layers. . . the central puns (Julius, Juliet, July, Jewel-eye, Jubilee. . .)
Plus a lot of great Minnesota stuff!!!!!!!!!! whoopie!!! loon calls!!!!!!! Put up yer dukes, Zuks!!!
Showing posts with label repose. Show all posts
Showing posts with label repose. Show all posts
9.23.2004
8.25.2004
The word in poetry, as an end-in-itself (we read it for its own sake), is in that sense like a person, or like the cosmos considered as a creation or work of art.
It has been popular for quite a while to emphasize the transitive nature of art, how its value lies in the fact that it leads to something else, that it represents possibility rather than telos (end, purpose).
But a major quality of aesthetic experience is stillness, intransitive repose. The thing at rest in equilibrium - or better, active in equilibrium.
The poetic word inhabits a borderland, a dawn/dusk liminal area, between the visible & the invisible, known/unknown, things/values, being/intellect, time/eternity. Out of this well emerges mysterious water.
It has been popular for quite a while to emphasize the transitive nature of art, how its value lies in the fact that it leads to something else, that it represents possibility rather than telos (end, purpose).
But a major quality of aesthetic experience is stillness, intransitive repose. The thing at rest in equilibrium - or better, active in equilibrium.
The poetic word inhabits a borderland, a dawn/dusk liminal area, between the visible & the invisible, known/unknown, things/values, being/intellect, time/eternity. Out of this well emerges mysterious water.
9.03.2003
8.28.2003
Sort of an illustration (old poem from Way Stations):
Summer was ocean, a deep gift,
incubation of Joshua, solstitial parakeet.
And earth was borne into heaven,
vaulted into heaven on boats of reeds.
And this May light in the neighborhoods,
where a flowering clematis mantles the porch
in curls of shade, is preparation -
enjoins old bones to climb the coruscating tree.
On the Nature of Quietude
Pondering on my walk to work this "quietude" & what it is. In context of currently reading Edgar Wind's great book (Pagan Mysteries of the Renaissance) about the Neoplatonic fellows of the Florentine Academy (15th cent.) - Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, et al. (Interested to see that Nicolas Cusanus emerges at the end.)
Anyway, Ron Silliman has laid out his various expositions based on a taunt by Edgar Poe at the reigning fireside magazine verse of his time. Ron's is a heroic narrative, in which the stodgy furniture & debased aesthetics of traditionalist establishment popular/elitist "verse" are gradually dismantled & swept away by the enlarged & vivifying renewals of the ever-resistant oppositiional avant-garde.
Was remarking yesterday, in comments on BK Stefans' review of Robert Lowell's oeuvre, on the lack of repose characteristic of the so-called mainstream eminences of the last mid-century (Lowell, Berryman etc). One way of looking at this would I guess be historicist : these poets were teetering on the brink of the revolutionary changes of the 60s, and their unease reflected that moment before the storm.
But you can't reduce poetry to history, nor these particular poets' work to a simple expression of angst or unease.
In fact you can't reduce poetry to sociology or ideology either.
As I mentioned, I'm pondering in the context of Wind's exposition of the neoplatonic humanists' philosophizing on the nature of humankind and God. So I'm thinking in terms of their ubiquitous triads, from Apollo's tripod up to the Holy Trinity. One of them had to do with the equilibrium of the good life stemming from a balance of three aspects of the soul: contemplation, activity, pleasure (intellectual, irascible, sensual; Saturn, Jove/Mars, Venus; etc. etc.).
It intrigues me to think of the wings of blogpoetics as tending to emphasize one or another of these aspects. Thus the NY School tends toward an epicurean pleasure principle & a light mockery of seriousness in any of its obvious forms.
The langpo-avant-gardists tend toward the vita activa, the irascible principle : art is a "movement" loosely aligned with social liberation & political correctness, struggling against the oppressive decadence of a debased commercialized mainstream. The irascible principle naturally seeks & finds its antagonist(s), the current ectomorph of which is the "School of Quietude".
The problem with this dialectic is that the irascible ones conflate the contemplative faculty with the complacent attitude. Intent, in their irascible fashion, upon reading literature politically & ideologically, they are deaf and blind to what is probably the most basic function of poetic harmonics : to lead the reader/listener to a recognition of inherent & beautiful equilibrium, to a visionary repose where contemplation, activity & pleasure reflect some kind of perennial life-principle, Dante's ben del intelletto.
Pondering on my walk to work this "quietude" & what it is. In context of currently reading Edgar Wind's great book (Pagan Mysteries of the Renaissance) about the Neoplatonic fellows of the Florentine Academy (15th cent.) - Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, et al. (Interested to see that Nicolas Cusanus emerges at the end.)
Anyway, Ron Silliman has laid out his various expositions based on a taunt by Edgar Poe at the reigning fireside magazine verse of his time. Ron's is a heroic narrative, in which the stodgy furniture & debased aesthetics of traditionalist establishment popular/elitist "verse" are gradually dismantled & swept away by the enlarged & vivifying renewals of the ever-resistant oppositiional avant-garde.
Was remarking yesterday, in comments on BK Stefans' review of Robert Lowell's oeuvre, on the lack of repose characteristic of the so-called mainstream eminences of the last mid-century (Lowell, Berryman etc). One way of looking at this would I guess be historicist : these poets were teetering on the brink of the revolutionary changes of the 60s, and their unease reflected that moment before the storm.
But you can't reduce poetry to history, nor these particular poets' work to a simple expression of angst or unease.
In fact you can't reduce poetry to sociology or ideology either.
As I mentioned, I'm pondering in the context of Wind's exposition of the neoplatonic humanists' philosophizing on the nature of humankind and God. So I'm thinking in terms of their ubiquitous triads, from Apollo's tripod up to the Holy Trinity. One of them had to do with the equilibrium of the good life stemming from a balance of three aspects of the soul: contemplation, activity, pleasure (intellectual, irascible, sensual; Saturn, Jove/Mars, Venus; etc. etc.).
It intrigues me to think of the wings of blogpoetics as tending to emphasize one or another of these aspects. Thus the NY School tends toward an epicurean pleasure principle & a light mockery of seriousness in any of its obvious forms.
The langpo-avant-gardists tend toward the vita activa, the irascible principle : art is a "movement" loosely aligned with social liberation & political correctness, struggling against the oppressive decadence of a debased commercialized mainstream. The irascible principle naturally seeks & finds its antagonist(s), the current ectomorph of which is the "School of Quietude".
The problem with this dialectic is that the irascible ones conflate the contemplative faculty with the complacent attitude. Intent, in their irascible fashion, upon reading literature politically & ideologically, they are deaf and blind to what is probably the most basic function of poetic harmonics : to lead the reader/listener to a recognition of inherent & beautiful equilibrium, to a visionary repose where contemplation, activity & pleasure reflect some kind of perennial life-principle, Dante's ben del intelletto.
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