Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Crisman's Game re: Tranströmer

[Bob Grumman]

> I've been on this list for 4.5 years and to me this is the most 
> interesting post you've made to this list, Bob.  You may believe I'm 
> congratulating myself-- but (I think :) I'm not.  My game, as you say  in 
> so many words, is nothing.  Just like Linda Gregg's prescription  of 
> seeing 6 things per day is nothing.  Of course, we're all going to  see 6 
> things.  But-- here's the difference-- will we write them  down?  Will we 
> make a practice of careful observation?  This is  particularly challenging 
> to me because I think I have a habit of  keeping the generalization and 
> throwing out the specific sensory  experience.

Well, C-man, you're trying to be nice, but I'll just say that if this is the 
best post I've made to the list, if it's even the best close reading I've 
posted to the list, I'll give up writing.

> Okay, I'll ask the rest of the group: did any of all y'all read Bob's 
> post?  Did it seem to you, as it does to me, that he was reporting  his 
> specific esthetic interactions rather than his (usually foregone) 
> conclusion/generalization?   Does the post interest you?
>
> Though you concluded that nothing had changed and you still didn't  see 
> anything special in Tranströmer -- in fact (well, I believe it's  a fact) 
> you notated exactly what was your reaction and it was not  precisely the 
> same as any other reaction you've had to any other  poem.  Similar, you 
> may say.  --I grant you.  But not exactly the  same and therefore special 
> in that sense.  The fact that you conclude  that overall the experience 
> was not unique enough to repeat with  other poems by him is immaterial. 
> That's just your 1 / 0 (yes / no)  overall generalization which, because 
> most general, is most useless.

You're confusing "special" with "different," Crisman.  Every poem is 
different from every other poem in some way, so being different is not being 
special.

> So, what I'm saying is that your specific esthetic reactions are  valuable 
> to me, because they give me insight into your reading which  your 
> generalizations do not.

The problem is with you.  I'm all for close readings.  I'm also very much in 
favor of generalizations.  Certainly, a comment that is a mere 
generalization, and intended as that, should not be faulted for not being a 
close reading.  My saying or implying that Transtromer did nothing special 
should have the value of forcing someone else interested in him to think 
about just what he does that IS special.  It will be more meaningful to 
those who have read other writings of mine, for they will know how I look at 
poems, and how much experience of poetry is behind my generality, etc., so 
may be find my comment useful if they value me as a commentation on poems, 
or write it off as just the kind of wrong thing I'd say about any 
Nobel-level poet's work.

>   Your specifics certainly inform my  reading-- the advantage of going 
> second.
>
> Now, as I said before, I accept the coequal challenge of playing the  game 
> myself with these three translations -- and I shall!  But,  please let me 
> beg off a few more days.  I've just finished editing a  poem I've been 
> working on for ten years.  And I'm sending it out for  outside review. 
> May I be granted a few days recess?
>
> Cris

Take as long as you want.  I may take longer to respond to what you post, 
but I will.  (Ironically, I'm finishing up an essay I've written for a 
catalogue of visual poetry in which I discussed 84 poems, most of them after 
close-readings!  Not all of what I said will be in the final version of the 
essay, though.  And it is almost always easier to close read a visual poem 
than a traditional one, because of the brevity of their texts.

--Bob