Sorry if I missed your aim or tone. I was saying that your definitions,
both of verse and of truth, are reductive, not that definitions are
impossible or wouldn't be useful.
I'm personally more interested in a criticism that helps me understand what
a particular poem is than one that assigns stars.
As to "supposed imbalance between the marketable & the marginal," very
little poetry is marketable in the usual sense, and I don't think
exclusionary practice has been based on marketability. The marginal is kept
marginal for other reasons. In a different post I mentioned Ginsberg as an
example. Reznikoff, who was ignored by the various mainstreams for the last
forty years of his life, has been turning a profit for Black Sparrow for
the last thirty years, despite very little mainstream anthologizing or
classroom exposure. You can add your own list of the marketable-but-marginal.
At 08:04 AM 8/7/2000 EDT, Henry wrote:
>>
>>As to the rest--the reason there is passionate disagreement about poetry is
>>that poets tend to be passionate about what they do--that one meets your
>>truth test. And I'm not sure that's a bad thing. That the arguments are
>>repetitious is because neither side (poetic practices these days do in fact
>>fit into a couple of broad types, altho not too comfortably) thinks that
>>what the other side does is interesting enough to be worthy of attention.
>>But there's an imbalance--one side has the power to keep the other largely
>>unheard. Hence my a b and c, which have nothing to do with the reading or
>>writing of poetry but everything to do with the culture of poetry, which
>>you seem to regard as irrelevant and to be disposed of by what you take to
>>be a stroke of logic. Whitless and uneducated as I am that seems to be a
>>questionable judgement. Reduce the rest of the social world while you're at
>>it and maybe we'll have world peace.
>>
>
>Mark, I never said anything about world peace; I'm not even very interested
>in your supposed imbalance between the marketable & the marginal in poetry.
>
>I merely expressed my interest in a minimalist definition of poetry,
>and its possible effect on criticism, reception and talk about same.
>
>It's a new idea for me. I throw it out there for consideration.
>
>Here again are the parts of the idea:
>
>1. Definition: "Poetry is rhythmic and/or measured language."
>
>2. All other compositional or performative elements are
>stylistic additions to this simple basis.
>
>Criticism will interpret and evaluate a work on its own merits with
>reference to #1 and #2 above, not by spurious contrast with rival schools,
>or by circular arguments with reference to some ideal poetry-as-it-should-
>be, or by cultural/social/political arguments based on some concept of
>ideal reception. The proper role of criticism is to evaluate the work on
>its own merits.
>
>The minimalist theory of poetry is not an attempt to reduce the complexity
>either of poetry or criticism. Clearly, poetry as we know it is a layered
>fabric of originality, imitation, parody, contrast, and cross-fertilization,
>between poet and poet and school and school. However, an independent,
>disinterested criticism would initially assume the uniqueness and originality
>of the work under consideration, and evaluate it as an addition, in every
>sense of the word, to the simple, minimalist definition of poetry. If the
>work then proved to be a tissue of borrowings and 2nd-rate echoes of a
>previous work, then that too would be made clear - or at least the critic's
>opinion about it would be made clear.
>
>The advantage of the minimalist approach is not that it completely
>renovates criticism and theory. What it does is rule out tendentious
>debates based on prescriptive formulas: "what poetry SHOULD be". The
>minimalist definition SAYS what poetry is, and allows each poet,
>songster, rap artist, even Ganesh Tripoli, to make of it what they will.
>It unveils the tendentious basis of battles over style for cultural
>hegemony.
>
>Henry
>
>
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