[New-Poetry] subject matters

Thu Sep 6 18:14:54 EDT 2007

As for me, Skip, I've never encountered a poem without
meaning. Meaningfulness to me means meaning is there
whether put there by the poet or the reader or someone
else. If there seems to be a subject to the reader, then to
the reader there's a subject there whether or not the poet
intended one to be there. If a reader finds a different
subject there than the one the poet thought he or she
put there then it's quite possible that both or neither
are "correct." I mean, if there are Mexican truck drivers
on North American highways and nobody honks, are
they really there?

Hal

"Context is everything that content is not."
                         --Anon.

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 5:50 PM, Skip Fox wrote:

> 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 &amp;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
>
> "
>
> Email and AIM finally together. You've gotta check out free AOL Mail!
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