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POETRYETC  2000

POETRYETC 2000

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Subject:

Chewing the clarity

From:

"William Herbert" <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

[log in to unmask]

Date:

Thu, 13 Jul 2000 10:53:58 +0100

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (61 lines)

> GS. Given that obscurity, by definition, interferes with communication,
it's
> hard to defend.

Dear Gillian,

Just want to expand on this point in your comments on obscurity.

We all seem to agree that the purpose of a poem is to communicate, but is
there some difference as to what we believe it to be communicating? When
people (what a wierd-sounding thing to say! I mean readers, non-readers,
journalists, workshop attendees, my constituents, members of the
congregation, petrol pump attendants, Onion Johnnies, infants two or three
months old) talk to me about poetry (happens all the time!) they sometimes
mention a message which they believe to be 'in' the poem, but obscured by
the devices of the poem -- rhyme, alliteration, even the line, are all seen
as interfering with this message. That suggests that some readers of poetry
are trying to extract a prose content, some core of information or opinion
that's different to the 'casing' as they see it. I tend to think that what
is communicated in a poem is a combination of all these elements -- that any
message in the poem is shaped by the content rather than hidden within it;
and that the textures of metre, vocabulary, reference are not on the surface
of the poem, but intensely involved with its whole meaning.

If that's at all true then one of the dangers poetry constantly runs is that
it's addressing our attention to the opacity of language, before or at least
en route to a clarity. (Though that clarity may not be a clarity of
statement, it could be a clarity of mood or sensation.) A few emails back
cris cited this fabulous term 'proteophobia' (sp?) for how people (airline
pilots, cartoon characters, missionaries, drinkers of glucose beverages)
might feel about not knowing how to proceed with difficult ideas, here the
implicit suggestion that language may not be totally transparent. A natural
response in many cases is to assume the poet is doing it on purpose 'because
he (or she) knows it teases'. Of course they're doing it on purpose, but
some readers are not reassured there is a purpose beyond the tease. And in
some cases that's because the writer isn't allowing them into the poem,
either through incompetence or actual arrogance.

So I suppose this quality of opacity in a poem, if done well, indicates to
us that our meanings might be affected by our modes of expression. It could
also draw attention to the way that more 'transparent' methods of
communication can have their own agendas as to how the authors think things
are or ought to be. But these seem slightly programmatic or secondary to my
experience of reading, my desire to read a poem. For me the main thing
focussing on the texture and structure and referentiality of a poem does is
enormously increase the pleasure I take in it as a non-disposable artefact,
as something I keep reading, and keep finding new connections, new angles,
new neurons (ron ron). When I've done a crossword puzzle, on the other hand,
I don't usually look at it again.

Best,

Bill H






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