Joseph Duemer wrote:
> I'm not going to get into the definition of reason except maybe in
> an operational way, but you seem to be talking about aesthetic
> distance. And I think even the proponents of "romantic effusion"
> must recognize the "rationality" of later reflection--"emotion
> recollected in tranquility" & all that. I don't consciously write
> narrative poems, though I suspect someone looking at them as a group
> might find that patches of narrative predominate; but speaking only
> for myself, I am often conscious of imagining the effects a poem
> will have on a reader. (The reader, of course, is my own creation.)
> As for getting "inside" or "outside" experience, I just don't know
> what that means--at least in poetry. At most, language can point to,
> or indicate, certain emotional states: "What we cannot speak about
> we must pass over in silence." In fact, my problem with a lot of
> contemporary American poetry is its lack of respect for that kind of
> silence.
>
> jd
I also don't know what being "inside" experience means; I was responding
to a question of Gillian's and to her phraseology. In my own work I try
to suggest, not only emotional states, but the sociohistorical complexes
that (working through my own or a character's psychology) give rise to
those states. Especially in narrative poetry, one must suggest in such
a precise and directed way that the reader, filling in the details,
feels that he or she has been given the details.
I think I agree with you about "silence" and the lack of respect for it;
hence my remarks about Graham. As I've indicated, I feel that narrative
poetry as a genre should be brought to the cultural foreground and more
fully articulated in criticism. One reason I feel this way is that my
talent is for this genre. Another is my dislike for the narcissism of
much contemporary lyric.
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