Geez it's annoying not having time to contribute to
this debate. My view, in a snippet,is that any
discussion of the politics of a piece of poetry must
be founded n a consideration of the Q: whose interests
(ie which social formation's interests) does this
serve?
Hmmm, doesn't help much, does it?
--- Debbie Comerford <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi Alison,
>
> yes i agree, the dichotomy of 'the left versus the
> right' doesn't work well
> when considering the politics of poetry. perhaps, a
> more appropriate way of
> thinking about the 'politics of complex thought' in
> relation to poetry is
> through the Deleuzian concepts of the molecular and
> molar. Recently a
> number of reviews of Australia's 'emergent poetries'
> have condemned the
> poetry for being too "microcosmic" and thus finds
> 'new' oz poetry
> apolitical. The problem with such a perspectives is
> that these readings do
> not seek the 'politics of complex thought' but the
> orthodox politics, the
> 'molar politics'. This produces a coming to poetry
> with what Luce Irigaray
> describes as a ready-made grid, and in turn does not
> create the space for
> Adorno's 'immanent criticism'. However, most
> problematic is that in
> ignoring the politics of complex thought the
> circulation of a perception is
> produced and without being questioned such a
> position becomes concretised.
>
> And so... I think that the thinking through and the
> articulation of a
> 'politics of complex thought' is particularly
> crucial at this particular
> moment in time/space. I don't claim to have the
> answers, but in creating
> these spaces for discussion 'poetryetc' can perhaps
> enact/jam the
> ready-made-grids.
>
> regards
> deb
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, July 21, 2000 10:09 AM
> Subject: Re: politics of complex thought
>
>
> > Hi Deb
> >
> > >doesn't poetry - written by those who align
> themselves with the left -
> arise
> > >from the politics of complex thought?
> >
> > Well, those from the right can be complex also.
> Said describes Swift as
> > a Tory anarchist... and I've seen some very
> simple-minded agitprop from
> > the Left.
> >
> > Obviously the binaries of right and left don't
> work very well when
> > applied to poetry. it shrugs them off. I often
> think in connection with
> > this of Musil's insistence that he was an
> apolitical writer. From our
> > perspective, he often looks political...but he
> thought of his apoliticism
> > as a political stance which was inherently
> _literary_.
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Alison
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
=====
"Why is it not possible for me to doubt that I have never been on the moon? And how
could I try to doubt it? First and foremost, the supposition that perhaps I have
been there would strike me as idle. Nothing would follow from it, nothing be
explained by it. It would not tie in with anything in my life... Philosophical
problems occur when language goes on holiday. We must not separate ideas from life,
we must not be misled by the appearances of sentences: we must investigate the
application of words in individual language-games" - Ludwig Wittgenstein
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