Beauty - now there's a useless concept. I doubt seriously that life
would be worth living without it.
You're dead right about the freedoms of poetry's powerlessness,
Geraldine and Jon. Poetry's great vindication is the freedom not to
read it, to leave it to those who come by accident, design, fate,
misled intention, to that shore Celan speaks of, where you pick up
the bottle and read the meaning inside. Its potencies then are
untraceable.
It most certainly is _not_ there to teach a lesson, which is a
decline like the declensions from the Way in the Tao - (where there
is no Way, there is Integrity). It's always been there for its own
reasons.
Best
Alison
At 2:35 PM +0000 11/12/2001, Geraldine Monk wrote:
>Jon,
>I totally agree. Its very wimpishness as a consumer commodity and refusal
>to sell anything gives it a subversion power. It also knocks the spots of
>any poetry that tries to be didactic. Didactic poetry misses the point,
>misses the boat, misses the subversion and therefore misses the whole eerie
>beauty of 'uselessness'.
>G.
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Jon Clay <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
>Date: Tuesday, December 11, 2001 01:47
>Subject: Re: Alisons Poem
>
>
>>I think I may have something to this effct before, but I'm of the opinion
>>that sometimes at least one of the purposes of poetry, and art in general,
>>is to be "useless" as one kind of resistance to the instrumental
>rationality
>>that characterises all forms of captialism, including state and fascist
>>capitalism. And uselessness would include not "making sense". It's quite an
>>important thing to say in the not-saying about How The World Is.
>>
>>Cheers,
>>
> >Jon
--
Alison Croggon
Home page
http://users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
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http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/
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