[New-Poetry] subject matters

[Halvard Johnson]

I don't claim to have a poetics, Jim. And I have no problem with any  
of those
things you list. My problem is only with those who insist that any of  
them
are . . . well what? De rigeur?

Hal

"The trouble with words is that you never know
  whose mouths they've been in."
			--Dennis Potter

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 8:01 PM, jforjames at aol.com wrote:

> Hal, I know you're fond of playing the angles in certain debates,  
> and that's
> a good thing. I bristle at a contemporary poetics which has trouble
> with content, actual ideas and thinking or narrative elements.
> (The other bete noir of contemporary theorists is 'truth/sincerity'  
> in poetry.)
>
> I normally agree with Langer, but the quote below seems wrong to me.
> Sure language and painting make use of representation. But some,  
> not all, art
> depends on the writer-reader or artist-viewer entering into a tacit  
> contract,
> to agree without overt negotiation that what is being said or shown  
> has some
> actual content, is meant to convey a particular notion or view of  
> the world...
> that what it represents has a reality that both parties can and do  
> recognize and
> understand.
>
> Berkeley has his famous quip: "What is mind? Never matter. What is  
> matter? Never mind."
> It's a circle. The only way to break it is for the artist and  
> viewer to agree
> (instantly) that a real peach exists like the one in the dish. And  
> it would taste good,
> if it could be lifted out of the matrix of chroma and brushstrokes  
> that it is really
> and really be put to one's mouth.
> Finnegan
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Halvard Johnson <halvard at earthlink.net>
> Bcc: jforjames at aol.com
> Sent: Thu, 6 Sep 2007 4:44 pm
> 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!
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
> =
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20070906/573623b3/attachment-0001.html