The excited edge to the apprehension of beauty probably comes from lack,
which will hone the desire for whatever is beloved.

It's always dangerously close the edge but the plunge into sentimentality
can on occasion reinvigorate the moment, along you as you can free yourself
from its intoxication and don't become, completely enmeshed in nostalgia. I
perhaps enjoy the layering of experience. But, 'the excited edge' - it's
quite wonderful! Beauty is a term that has suffered, at the hands of the
cooperate market and 'Out to Lunch' in a recent essay entitled Performance
VERSUS Art, speaks in terms of and 'anti-platonism' saying that Asger Jorn's
radical anti-platonism is directly comparable to the delinquent scepticism
of Zappa and Beefheart, who proclaim that beauty is repression and a lie.'
But for me Zappa and Beefheart took beautiful ideas and broke them. They
were angry and viscously satirical. But there are moments of beautiful
composition, and quite a wonderful lyric intensity. This is perhaps off the
point. Alison's is right there is a heavy responsibility in beauty. And
thank you Alison, all of this helps toward a better understanding.

I liked to reply in more detail but I most go to work, I am planting in the
forest today. sorry if it's a bit hap hazard

Love to you all

mark

I hope to reply better later
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lawrence Upton" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2002 12:56 AM
Subject: Re: Poetry


> Hi Mark
>
> If I sounded as if I know about birds, I have misled you. I just know that
> pigeons in houses dont live long and that birds need to wash their wings
to
> avoid infestation and to exercise and tend them if they are to function
>
> I suspect that if its wing's damaged it is in deep trouble. Without expert
> advice / knowledge, my inclination is to trust the pigeon but not harbour
> any hopes for an Androcles-style avian friendship in future
>
> Glad you like my dream project poem - genuinely glad, especially if you
find
> it beautiful; but I'll change the subject
>
> I wondered if you were coming from the neo-Platonic... Hopkins is, of
> course, if indirectly
>
> Shelley is a poet of major importance to me and I got much more out of him
> as I began to get a hold on the philosophical ideas he was using, but I
> don't
> like them. You mention Yeats. Yeats produced astounding writing out of
some
> utter claptrap
>
> I used to train myself to bark at beauty till I realised it wasn't the
> experience of beauty which antagonised me but the sloppy use of the term;
> and then I began antagonistic chasing of beauty as a sugarcandy mountain
> promise
>
> I wonder and worry about this. As I do of ideas of Paradise. There being
no
> paradise (I assert), how is that we are, collectively, at least dogged by
> them?
>
> Maybe as a rationalisation or just expression of a sense of loss... and
loss
> is going to cut in given our mortality and given all being mutability,
even
> without the efforts of airheads with armaments flattening places  and
people
> that were better off unflattened. Taken head on, we can do something with
> beauty, but the danger of sentimentality is there always like a drop
without
> a railing
>
> The excited edge to the apprehension of beauty probably comes from lack,
> which will hone the desire for whatever is beloved. In late March / early
> April, I spent a couple of weeks with spectacular sunsets every day; and,
> while they never palled, I was less and less inclined to stand shivering
on
> the beach watching the whole show *every night; and I was soon trading
some
> of it for the opportunity to wash myself while there was still some warmth
> left in the air - I was roughing it
>
> On the other hand, I then found myself daily in a familiar position,
looking
> down a hill of oddly shaped rooves, each familiar to me, for about three
> weeks, a view I know  well. It isn't a ravishing view, but there's
something
> to it, there's a sort of Ben Nicolson elegance to  it,and I never tire of
> it. In fact, I am missing it with some discomfort now
>
> & when I am in west cornwall, wch is where I am talking about, I nearly
> always clamber up Zennor Tor, which is, despite the collapsed quoit, more
an
> abandoned industrial site than anything. Wordsworth's "visionary
dreariness"
> might be made for it - and I think a lot of the "magical Cornwall" stuff
is
> people seeing what they want to see, not what is in front of them - yet
> beauty is probably  a good word for it
>
> It's just that "beauty" doesn't mean "very pretty"
>
> *
> I wonder if cris cheek is  here and if he  remembers driving back from
> cumbria about 20 years and a good joke he made
>
> we went up and over a hill to be faced with a sky near as damn it the
cover
> of the  then paperback of The Prelude
>
> I remarked on that and, I imagine there was a conversation now long
> forgotten; but I do remember cris doing the poets in different voices
>
> He: Mary, go up that mountain and see what it's like
>
> She: [panting as from exertion] It's beautiful, William
>
> He: OK, make a note of that, will you
>
> *
>
> Thanks for that Alison. I have begun to notice that there are certain
pieces
> of music I am somewhat apprehensive about hearing because the pleasure of
> them is almost racking sometimes
>
> L
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "mark dickinson" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: 27 May 2002 23:40
> Subject: Re: Poetry
>
>
> | Lawrence, I shall reply as best as I can with what first comes to mind.
> I'm
> | sat here thinking, still. I 'll tell you what I am thinking. Peter
Larkin
>
> | talks in terms of 'scarcity', I am thinking of a beauty which is
'here' -
> | 'in reality' but a beauty which is 'scarce' due to the depreciation of
> | relations, possibly - to and of, if this makes sense. Shelly, taking
from
> | Plato speaks of 'the one spirit plastic stress', and Hopkins has
> 'inscape',
> | and in this thread I trace an idea of beauty, that I can feel and
possibly
> | work toward. I walk, like yourself in beautiful areas, I live in a
> beautiful
> | area, and I forget it. It is beautiful because the sound of the forest
> even
> | in its ironic mutation is all around me, and I remember, hearing 'voices
> in
> | the orchard playing', and suddenly I remember and it's all quite
'still'.
> | Sorry about all of this, it's the only way I can respond. Your Poem in
the
> | 'The Dream Project' is beautiful... I've just thought of Yeat's and his
> | 'terrible beauty', and onto Bacon who knew how to paint it, I think. It
is
> | an impression in my mind. Like an explosion in space. The image appears
> like
> | a snapshot, a moment petrified.
> |
> | Thank you for the info on the pigeon, the pigeon's wing may be damaged
> quite
> | badly from the fall, should I allow h/er to exercise it still?
> |
> | Thanks for yours, and I hope this lack of precision offers at least a
> vague
> | impression.
> |
> | mark
> | ----- Original Message -----
> | From: "Lawrence Upton" <[log in to unmask]>
> | To: <[log in to unmask]>
> | Sent: Monday, May 27, 2002 9:50 PM
> | Subject: Re: Poetry
> |
> |
> | > Mark, where do you think this idea of beauty comes from?
> | >
> | > Often, finding beauty, is a matter of looking, perhaps looking
> | > differently...
> | >
> | > I spend quite a bit of time in an area already classified as
> "outstanding
> | > natural beauty" and up for other similar categorisation; and I note 2
> | things
> | > in particular
> | >
> | > one - the people who live there don't seem to notice the beauty of it,
> not
> | > in quite the same way as I... I had a character in a poem chat about
> this
> | > once and "he" thought one becomes acclimatised  to it, comparing it to
> the
> | > love of another which replaces the initial falling in love with them
> | >
> | > two - that talking to others who are not living permanently in it,
some
> | seem
> | > to be constructing their beauty of it in quite a different way to me -
> | that
> | > the aspects / things I find most exciting are not those which  others
> find
> | > most exciting (I realise that switching from apprehension of beauty to
> | > excitement is a little suspect)
> | >
> | > *and I meet those who find it all dull, and who go looking for
> | "attractions"
> | >
> | > but if I read you correctly you are sensing a beauty which is not
quite
> | > located "here" - "in reality" as you say
> | >
> | > Where does such an idea come from?
> | >
> | > That's a plato to nato question, I know... So where do *you get it
> from?
> | >
> | > (Having saved and lost pigeons,I think the trick is to get them out of
> bed
> | > and back to work asap) (and make sure it has enough water to wash or
its
> | > flight may be impaired)
> | >
> | >
> | > L
> | >
> | > ----- Original Message -----
> | > From: "mark dickinson" <[log in to unmask]>
> | > To: <[log in to unmask]>
> | > Sent: 27 May 2002 21:20
> | > Subject: Poetry
> | >
> | >
> | > 'this stunning beauty that allows mere contemplation'
> | >
> | > I like the ideal of contemplating this kind of beauty set against my
> | > realisation of a lack of this in reality. I enjoyed the sounds that
> | presided
> | > in the 'HIGH LOVELY SMELL', a poem's sounds, which I lovingly rolled
off
> | my
> | > tongue, aloud, in my living room, before my inner child was awoken and
> | > joyously played with the 'nose' that 'picks up on a thing or too';
this
> | had
> | > me feeling for play. And then the frighteningly beautiful silence that
I
> | > found haunting me in 'curious omens'. I want to talk about 'Power and
> | > Weakness' too. But perhaps my language is to weak and ineffectual to
> fully
> | > respond.
> | >
> | > A pigeon was shot outside my flat by a guy with an air-pistol in the
> room
> | > opposite. Left it to die. I've got the pigeon, I think it'll live! It
> must
> | > be confused. One of me shot the bird and the another wants to help it
> | live.
> | > Confused.
> | >
> | > Love,
> | > mark
> | >
> | > I am learning from you all. Thank you!
> | >
> |
>