[New-Poetry] subject matters

[Skip Fox]

Yes, well, my real point was that there is a spectrum in terms 

of poetry that we can be said to know has or lacks a subject, 

even in the non-critical sense of _knowing_. Some seem meaningless 

and without subjects, some seem to clearly have them. And, as 

Finnegan noted, some poems both lack and have. And their are 

many points in between. Compare Eliot's Sweeney poems with 

"Journey of the Magi."

 

And then there is the question: Is it the poet's conscious intention 

which apprehends the subject? What if he thinks "Journey of the Magi" 

is about faithful patience in a fallen world and its eventual rewards? And 

what if it's really about a consciousness trapped in a spiritual/temporal
limbo? 

Or whatever.

 

I think the issue of subject that it's highly problematic, yet lovely to
contemplate. 

Like most things human, various, multivalent, bungling, clear, revealing as
it 

conceals and vice versa, etc.

 

(I'm trying to break lines to make them shorter but it doesn't

seem to always work.)

 

skip

 

 

The Ride Bestrides Its Time

(sticka du manana)

 

-----Original Message-----
From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
[mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of Halvard Johnson
Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2007 3:45 PM
To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] subject matters

 

Well, as I said before, I don't think poems need to have subject,

though sometimes they may indeed have subjects, and often they

may seem to have subjects. The point of my quip was that poems

do not need to be "about" anything. Which is to say, they don't

need to be discursive, in the way prose usually is. 

 

I might have to agree with Skip, though, that poems are "about"

subjects such as words, phrases, sentences, sounds, images, even

ideas. Which is something like saying playgrounds are "about" 

knees and shins and muscles and lungs, not to mention kids and 

au pairs.

 

Hal

 

"Poetic statements are no more actual statements

 than the peaches visible in a still life are actual dessert."

                                                --Susanne K. Langer

 

Halvard Johnson

================

halvard at earthlink.net

http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html

http://entropyandme.blogspot.com 

http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com

http://www.hamiltonstone.org

http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/vidalocabooks.html





 

On Sep 6, 2007, at 3:34 PM, jforjames at aol.com wrote:





Nice quip, but wouldn't that make the reader's mind into something like a 
scanner with OCR technology? A machine that recognizes the text but 
doesn't read it per se. If reading is an active engagement with the text, 
it seems to me that no aspect of the poem is offlimits to the reader's
delving. 
If you can analyze the sounds, why not the subject matter? If you can 
discuss the vocabulary/lexicon employed, why not the subject matter? And 
so on...

A reader should avoid irritable reaching after (pace Keats), but few good 
poems can get away without even a hint of being about something, except
maybe that...


There are dadaist and language poetries that have scrupulously evaded
content (although not always as successfully as they think they have)
or used odd bits & pieces of words/language that don't fit together
in a way that makes communication or a communion of minds possible.
But that's more of a subset of the artform we call poetry, and like
visual poetry (sorry, Bob) and sound poetry,it's not the core of 
what gets practised/made.


Then in certain poems there are those flights and fits of pure poetry 
here & there. Often inside poems that one would otherwise say are about 
something. Yet it's generally not something sustained over more than 
a passage or a half page. 


Wouldn't it be better to take up whistling and to avoid words altogether
if you so much wanted to avoid being understood?
Finnnegan

nal Message-----
From: Halvard Johnson <halvard at earthlink.net>
Bcc: jforjames at aol.com
Sent: Thu, 6 Sep 2007 12:56 pm
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] subject matters

Seems to me that the best answer when someone asks 
"What's this poem about?" would be, say, "Oh, about 
fourteen lines long." 
 
Q: How long do one's legs have to be? 
A: Long enough to reach the ground when 
  you're standing or walking. 
 
Hal 
 
"

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