[New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman

[Bob Grumman]

Michael Snider wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net 
> <mailto:bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>> wrote:
>
>     Michael Snider wrote:
>
>         Finnegan, I was too narrow as well. Just reminding us of some
>         deep part of our nature and our relation to the rest of the
>         world, not necessarily in a new way, but just returning it
>         vividly to our minds, may be a lesser thing than presenting
>         "an old thing in a new way, from a different/overloked
>         angle/perspective," but it's no small beer, much  less failure.
>
>     I don't believe you can make something in poetry vivid without
>     presenting it in some new way, however small.  As I hope to argue
>     if you guys don't stop distracting me(!), the Housman does this,
>     in my view, and not in a small new way but in more than one new
>     way, and possibly in at least one unsmall new way.
>
>     --Bob
>
>     What do you mean by new? Seems to me saying something in a
>     memorable and beautiful  way is new enough — unless you've
>     plagiarized!
>
I think I'm saying that in order to say something in a memorable and 
beautiful way, you have to say it in some new way--that can be as small 
as using some ordinary word in a just slightly different way.  One 
possible newness of Housman's poem is its use of arithmetic, I think.  
Not that arithmetic hadn't been used before, but his use of it seems 
different from all others I'm familiar with.  I'll elaborate in due 
course, I hope.

I'm arguing a Very Minor Semantics point.

--Bob
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