[New-Poetry] looking for poems (and other writing) on "the idea"

[Halvard Johnson]

This one might be of use to you, Chris:

Proverbs

If it is a larger book you will not notice the themes
art and nature are identical
time as we know it lies on the cusp of human destiny
war is an indeterminate sexual agitation
people read murder mysteries and watch world news because
     they are tired and love death
Cain rationalized and lied to God; we marked and pardoned
     him, gave him the first Zion in the land of Nod.

The Preacher says: better that two fall into the ditch,
     sleeping together
weather is a circumstance of time
knowledge depends on the eyes
if you are blind, no one can hear the wind in your throat
the wife of patience is a man
occupied time is an iron chasuble.

Metaphor is fourteen eyes regarding a single stone
no eye occupies the same space as any other eye
every voice a man has perceives according to its own eye
convexity is opulence; concavity despair
Thus the seven eyes of God: man watching God's shadow
     on the cavern wall

Therefore is is sometimes is and often is is not or not
     altogether but partially so
this is language, a cup or a vessel:
God's weather
rain or a storm
wind cradled along the land
a band of sun
gold from horizon to sky

--Julia Keeler

in *Open Letter*
[2nd series, no. 4 (Spring 1973)]

"Anything is art if an artist says it is."
          --Marcel Duchamp

Halvard Johnson
================
halvard at gmail.com
http://sites.google.com/site/halvardjohnson/Home
http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
http://www.hamiltonstone.org





On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 3:22 PM, Chris Lott <chris at chrislott.org> wrote:

> I'm in search of poems (and other writing) that has as its topic-- or
> as a significant theme-- the "idea" -- not so much ideas in general,
> but "the idea of the idea" ... what an idea is, how it works, how an
> idea came to one or was discovered. This probably seems pretty vague,
> but as some context: I am preparing for a keynote in which I am
> discussing the history of the concept of the idea from Plato through
> the transition to the idea as generating something new not revealing a
> pre-existing form and how that history is an important consideration
> when contemplating technology, education and creativity...
>
> I have a lot of philosophical, linguistic and etymological source
> material-- and some Dryden, Chaucer, Keats (negative capability) and
> Eliot (tradition and the individual talent)-- but am looking for a bit
> more.
>
> c
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>
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