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POETRYETC  2000

POETRYETC 2000

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Subject:

Writers Blocked / communication

From:

[log in to unmask]

Reply-To:

Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and poetics, r" <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Sun, 17 Dec 2000 18:10:07 EST

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<< >Anyway, to turrn his remarks
 >back on him: It's an unvaluing of your reader to think you know
 >(being an artist and all that) more than he/she does, and can
 >create with certainty a poem that communicates something
 >the reader doesn't already know.

 I'm not at all certain that was the point of what Ashbery was saying.
 Even Frost warns against the o-so-planned work, puzzling why anyone would
 want to write a story of which they already know every detail.  The end
 result, almost always, is dull, because it's colouring in rather than
 making up; and perhaps it's more unvaluing of the reader to bore him or
 her.

 Communication is a fraught subject in poetry; a poem's certainly not
 there to educated anyone. It might as well begin with a lump in the
 throat.
  >>
A,
I think I've about worn this thread to a frazzle, and patience
of various listees, as well. Briefly, of course it's good advice to let
the poem play itself out as it may. But it's just one of many
possible writing paths/methods.

As far as a story (or poem) being boring if you know where it's going
from the start, perhaps, but I guess that depends on how good the
story/poem is in its original conception. Is it was worth telling, retelling?
And often the coloring makes all the difference: How many poems
are there based on love undone? Many; and it's the "coloring" that
makes one stand out among the dull background of the others.

All I wanted to say from the beginning was that it's dangerous to
valorize certain methods of getting out the poem over other methods.
The method or creative impulse is often idiosyncratic, it varies greatly
from poet to poet...and in the work one poet, probably it varies poem
to poem, if not inside (the process of making) every single poem,
to some degree. It can be interesting as writers to hear a method
explained (often thru this-or-that compelling metaphor);
it may even be helpful to one's practice or give us new insight as
readers into a poet's work. But in the end does it mean that much
compared to what the poem is, as it exists in its final state?

Curiously, if a poem explores the unknown, won't it inadvertently,
or by default, make certain aspects known? Anyway, Ashbery's
remarks do beg the question unknown to whom?...the set of all
possible readers...to some benighted readers?...the ignorant few?
When one starts talking about "the known" one is surely starting
down a philosophical corridor. Likewise with "communication."
And it's actually a little surprising that Ashbery is concerned at all
with "communicating," whether it be the known or the unknown.
Of course, communication occurs even without intent. And intent
doesn't always translate into communication, as I've probably
amply proved by my posts. Someone brought up the Triggering
Town by Richard Hugo. He had a snappy quip (which I paraphrase):
If you want to communicate, write letters not poems.
Finnegan

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