[New-Poetry] What is Poetry?

Mon Jul 2 10:59:17 EDT 2007

It's from a didactic poem of hers called <hmm hmm> "Poetry". 

-----Original Message-----
From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
[mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of Jeff Newberry
Sent: Monday, July 02, 2007 10:55
To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp,Views
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry?

Good point, Steve.  Do you have a source on that Marianne Moore quote?
I'd love to read the essay(?) itself.

Best,
Jeff Newberry

On 7/2/07, Mccall, Steven NAVAIR <steven.mccall at navy.mil> wrote:

	Yes, "real poems" would feature an ATM machine.  Marianne Moore
said,
	"Poetry is imaginary gardens with real toads in them."  ATM
machines
	qualify as toads in my mind.

	"In good art there is almost always a mystery which remains
beyond 
	explanation."
	~ Dana Gioia

	-----Original Message-----
	From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
	[mailto: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
<mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu> ] On Behalf Of Jeff Newberry
	Sent: Monday, July 02, 2007 10:33
	To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp,Views
	Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry?

	Jim,

	I hadn't considered Jeffers' relationship to mystery.  Thanks
for
	pointing that out.

	Jeffers is an interesting case.  Here are a couple of quotes
from
	Jeffers' scant prose (from The Selected Poetry of Robinson
Jeffers, Tim 
	Hunt, ed.):

	" . . . poetry is bound to concern itself chiefly with permanent
things
	and the permanent aspects of life [ . . . ] poetry must deal
with things
	that a reader two thousand years away could understand and be
moved by." 

	This quote skirts close to Faulkner's "old verities."   Jeffers
goes to
	to clarify his meaning:

	"This [emphasis on the permanent] excludes much of the
circumstances of
	modern life, especially in cities.  Fashions, forms of
machinery, the 
	more complex social, financial, political adjustments, and so
forth, are
	all ephemeral, exceptional; they exist but will never exist
again.
	Poetry must concern itself with (relatively) permanent things.
These
	have poetic value; the ephemeral have only news-value."

	I'm reminded, of course, of Pound's pithy dictum:  "Poetry is
news that
	stays news."  However, I don't know that Jeffers really means
what he 
	says:  hasn't human society always had "complex social,
financial, [and]
	political adjustments?" (not sure what adjustments means in this
	context, btw).  Is Jeffers arguing that a "real poem" (my loaded
term) 
	would never feature an airplane, say?  Or an ATM machine?

	Just a few thoughts.

	Jeff Newberry

	On 7/2/07, jforjames at aol.com < jforjames at aol.com
<mailto:jforjames at aol.com> 
	<mailto:jforjames at aol.com> > wrote:

	        Jackson's quote is a good one...though it's like so many
quotes
	that have some "certainty" in their saying. 
	        He's framing the battle for poetry's soul as 'either/or'
or
	'zero sum' matter. That poetry can live with unceartainty
	        and indeterminancy should be pretty well established by
now. It 
	seems to me that's much the fashion
	        of poetry these days, particular post-avant poetry.
Personally,
	I wouldn't want to avoid a poetry strove,
	        at times, for fixity and exactness. I think a poet is
capable of 
	finding the stil-point amid the welter.

	        It's curious that Jackson uses the verb
'illumine'...which means
	to shed light, and more generally, to show cleary.
	        So we 'illumine' what is obscure (mysterious,
inscrutable, 
	etc.). The 'walls of mystery' made me think of Plato's wall
	        within the cave. And living with 'doubt and uncertainty'
is a
	notion close to Socrates' notion of 'aphoria'. Then 
	        Jackson seems to veer off at end this quote with almost
a nod to
	someone like Robinson Jeffers (or eco-poetics),
	        'with a return to elemental awe and wonder'. (Jeffers'
sonnet
	"Return, e.g.).

	        No answers here...only observations.
	        Finnegan

	                It's the Negative Capability letter. To his
brothers.

	                *several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at
once it 
	struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement,
especially in
	Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I
mean
	Negative Capability, that is, /when a man is capable of being in
	uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching
after 
	fact and reason/-Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine
	isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery,
from
	being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. *

	                The thing is, poetry is kinda different from
life. In 
	life, we probably have to reach after fact and reason pretty
early on.
	In poetry, we allow ourselves a little more time. We can be of
three
	minds, like a tree in which there are three blackbirds.

	                I've asked this before, but since we're back to
it 
	again...what is Keats saying about Coleridge? The conventional
wisdom
	seems to be that he's criticizing for a limitation -- I think
he's
	praising him for a superior quality. I suppose that to try and
answer 
	this question might constitute an */irritable reaching after
fact and
	reason/, *but what the hey.

	                Jeff Newberry wrote:
	                > It's funny that you mention Keats, Mole. I've
been 
	reading through > his letters. I'll try to track down the
passage you
	reference. I'm > pretty sure that I know what you're talking
about.
	                >
	                > Jeff Newberry 
	                >
	                > On 7/1/07, *TheOldMole* <Opus40-01 at opus40.org
> <
	mailto:Opus40-01 at opus40.org <mailto:Opus40-01 at opus40.org?> >>
wrote:
	                >
	                > Keats kinda said the same thing.
	                >
	                > Jeff Newberry wrote: 
	                > > " . . . one of poetry's chief aims is to
illumine
	the walls of
	                > > mystery, the inscrutable, the unsayable. I
think
	poetry ought to be
	                > > taught not as an engine of meaning but as an

	opportunity to learn to
	                > > live in doubt and uncertainty, as a means of
	claiming indeterminacy.
	                > > Our species is deeply defined by its great
surges of
	reason, but I 
	                > > think it high time we return to elemental
awe and
	wonder."
	                > >
	                > > --Major Jackson, "Does Poetry Have a Social
	Function," Poetry, 
	                > January
	                > > 2007

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	recollects, longer than knowing even wonders."
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"Memory believes before knowing remembers.  Believes longer than
recollects, longer than knowing even wonders." 
-William Faulkner, Light in August

http://museoffireblog.blogspot.com 