[New-Poetry] Poetic Justice

[Bob Grumman]

Robin Hamilton wrote:
>> A breath-taking poem, Judy?  Too easy for me.  All I have to do is 
>> repeat my many posts here and elsewhere about "lighght."  
>> Breath-taking--when I have to emphasize, I first read it.  No poem, 
>> or any work of art, remains eternally breath-taking for me.
>
> When did "lighght" first see the light, Bob?  Wasn't Ian Hamilton 
> Finlay doing the same thing (and more) with work coming out of the 
> Hand&Flower Press as early as the sixties?
Middle sixties, I think.  I don't think Finlay was doing one-word 
poems.  Or what I call infra-verbal poems.  Nut I'm no expert on his work.
>
> I really can't see how "lighght" doesn't simply recap some of the 
> general tropes of the original Concrete Poetry movement.
Only the visual metaphor of the stretched word comes from concrete 
poetry, and it's secondary.  That the "gh" is silent is 90% of the poem, 
and original.  A text capturing the sound of silence in motion.
>
> And if it comes to creative use of mis-spellings, what about Edwin 
> Morgan's "Interferences"?
>
Joyce would be the true progenitor.  But Saroyan minimalized the 
misspellings.  Dunno what Morgan did in this line.

Of course, whom to credit for originalities is always difficult.  I 
would say that if Saroyan wasn't the originator of this kind of thing, 
he was an originator, and brought it to its highest point.  Originality 
is important but full exploitation of the new is also important.

--Bob