[New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text

[Anny Ballardini]

I agree on several points. I like the end, not because it is the end... :-)

On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 4:26 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> I've used my check-list on Bruce Andrews's text.  My analysis is
> stream-of-consciousness first-draft confusion.  I'm not up to anything more
> at the moment.  The gist of where I'm going should come through, though.
>
>
> Bananas are an example.
>
> This text gives me all kinds of trouble as a taxonomist.  It's too short
> for one to be able to
> tell whether it's lineated or not.  Lineation is a form of what I call the
> flow-break; that, in
> turn, is in my taxonomy the defining feature of poetry.  But it could be a
> saying, which is
> another form of literature--or of what I call informrature, words used to
> convey
> information.
>
> It has made me expand the first requirement of An Excellent Poem according
> to my
> check-list to:
>
> (1) expresses something importantly true or represents something centrally
> beautiful--
>
> or gets us to something importantly true or centrally beautiful
>
> assuming it doesn't do two or more of these things.
>
> On the surface, this text neither expresses anything importantly true nor
> represents any
> sort of beauty.  However, one can infer from it something importantly true:
> that
> meaningfulness is valuable.  It may even be said to celebrate rationality
> in reverse by
> representing its opposite.  I guess I would call it a conceptual poem.  Of
> course, it is a
> joke, but a good joke needs to say something of value.  This one says an
> insufficiency of
> data is troublesome.  We can't get any information from the text because of
> such an
> insufficiency.  I now think I would not call it a poem but a specimen of
> informrature, or
> words used to provide information.  Satire does this by revealing error.
>  This reveals,
> exemplifies, error.  It is funny because in a prestigious magazine by
> itself on a page, so to
> be taken as a poem or aphorism of sorts.  It is as the latter that I would
> now take it.
>
> If we take it to be a poem, then it is a conceptual poem commenting on
> poetry.  But
> perhaps also conveying an interesting sense of emptiness--loss, even.  It
> cuts one loose
> from one's moorings.  Adrift.  Out of context.  We're cut off from some
> accumulation of
> information that the text contributes to.  We've gotten to the party too
> late.  So it's an
> expression . . . no, a cause of perplexity, bewilderment.  One can give it
> a happy spin: it
> frees its reader into intellectual irresponsiblilty, pure reasonlessness.
>  In that manner it may
> be a poem.  As a synecdoche for the ultimate irrationality of life, it may
> give us pleasurable
> relief from the anxiety of not knowing what's going on--why should we since
> nothing can
> ultimately make sense.  Something importantly true for everyone in certain
> moods.
> Something else importantly true when we're feeling better is that existence
> does make
> sense.  As this text reminds us, allows us to re-realize.
>
> (2) is at least somewhat complicated by Thematic Misdirection, or something
> that makes
> its ultimate meaning or effect difficult quickly to ascertain, but
> eventually achieves Clarity;
>
> This text is certainly complicated by Thematic Misdirection--it is a non
> sequitur, or a one-
> element jump-cut poem, if we accept it as a poem.  We don't easily know
> what to make of
> it, though we do quickly overcome our inital puzzlement to understand it as
> a joke.
>
> (3) has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like which
> pulls its elements
> reasonably close together;
> It's too short not to be reasonably unified.
>
> (4) contains few or no superfluous words;
>
> I suppose a four-word sentence could have superfluous words, but this one
> doesn't.
>
> (5) boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other poems have
> such as
> uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics, visual
> art), and imagery;
>
> Its mocking disconnection from the implicit law of discourse that require a
> text's
> references to have referents is over the top.  Other texts exist that are
> like this but none, I
> suspect do it exactly the same way or as well..
>
> (6) avoids excessive use of inappropriate Cliches of diction, imagery or
> thought; too overt
> Sentimentality and hackneyed use of some technique or form;
>
> It is all commonplace, but that is the point.  We take it as a
> matter-of-fact disclosure, then
> find it subversive.
>
> Conclusion: "Bananas are an example" is an excellent text which may be a
> poem.
>
> Bob Grumman
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>



-- 
Anny Ballardini
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
star!
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20090215/420bf68e/attachment.html