[New-Poetry] Re: Re: Bok, Goldsmith, et al

[Anny Ballardini]

I think his retyping The New York times has to be drawn back to concept art rather than poetry. The same fact that he is retyping it instead of using other mediums (colors, collage, handwriting, or other) shows an austere concept in the way he is facing / producing this work. The idea of having to upackage the message is what we are allowed to do and what fundamentally the author wishes. Directions in this case are given by the Artist's statement, if any, or by his other works. 
I am saying this because - I wish this does not come through as boasting or as a way to advertise my work - I "recopied" Montale's work, the first book of Faust by Goethe and the Pisan Cantos over ten years ago. By hand and on different mediums. The time required to do that brought me to add several different thoughts on why I was doing it, and some people might have added some of theirs, too, which was the aim of this work. 


  From: jforjames at aol.com 
  Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 4:38 AM


  Going back to Goldsmith's original comment that 'I don't exist as a poet a outside of the academy', I want to posit that that is not surprising either. Writing that is so focused on 'the language as instrument' (& that has no emotional content, per se, or that isn't 'about' something) is perfect fodder for academic discourse. Because one can easily erect the scaffolding of any kind of theory around it. As an academic critic, one doesn't have to delve into the work beyond its surface and the employed techniques; thus, one is free to avoid the messiness of the human pysche or to argue with a notion put forth by the poet.

  Let's say, instead of retyping The New York Times, the poet says "reading The New York Times is like retyping the words inside my head, I feel I know what I've read before I read it." Now, I'm not saying that is great poetry...but unpacking the idea, addressing the assertion in the context of the poem, is not going to be as easy or as straightforward as addressing a 'text' that just retypes The New York Times.

  Finnegan

   
  -----Original Message-----
  From: chris.lott at gmail.com
  Sent: Mon, 21 May 2007 9:47 PM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Re: Bok, Goldsmith, et al


  On 5/21/07, jforjames at aol.com <jforjames at aol.com> wrote: 
  > 
  > 
  > Skip and Cris 
  > I'm enjoying the thoughts/thinking about Goldsmith's work. The thing I'd ask 
  > about what 
  > Goldsmith says below is: What did he expect? Wouldn't any automaton retyping 
  > The NY Times be tempted to step outside the text, to be creative. In the 
  > end, it's a notion that many of us learned early in life when asked to do 
  > repetitive tasks. 
   
  It does seem obvious in one sense, but is there a lesson to be learned 
  there that would be helpful anyway? 
   
  And why isn't more creativity inspired by lives of repetition and 
  tedium than seems to be the case? 
   
  c 
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