The onus of precisely defining the "language" project seems to be on those
who continue to use it as a publicity tool. The fact that Rae Armantrout
& C. Bernstein are very different poets does not, "logically", rule out
my ability to criticize the techniques that are consistently linked with
that label. & why must the Acmeists & the Langpos be contemporaries in
order to compare them? In fact, much of langpo theory depends on the
Russian Formalists and futurists who WERE the Acmeists' contemporaries.
The idea of setting limits to "expressive possibilities" of the current
moment is just as polemical on your part as my suggestion of alternative
expressive possibilities: in fact we're doing exactly the same thing.
Your "limit", I think, is grounded in those matters of style and taste
which depend on the aesthetic & philosophical positions of the
tastemakers of the day: my target, precisely.
As for writing like Keats, no one is suggesting that, though my
most recent book is full of "traditional" forms, including odes, part of
one of which appears in the HG/KJ interview in Jacket #10. They might
make C. Bernstein laugh, but I think they're ok. - Henry
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Mark wrote:
Float like a butterfly sting like a bee, that's me.
Just insisting on precision, Henry, where I see precious little.
Very fond of Akhmatova as I imagine her, which lacking Russian is what I
must do, with the aid of translations. But the sheer joy in the music of
language is necessarily lost reading her through others. Even recordings of
readngs in Russian aren't very helpful in that sense--appreciation,
emotional reaction to, the way sound and syntax work expressively is
dependent on a working knowledge of the language.
By "the rest of us" I meant everyone writing now.
You do make a couple of leaps into the logical unknown. For one, even
language poets have a hard time defining "the language project" in a way
that includes both Bernstein and, for example, Rae Armantrout, and while in
some cases language theorizing appears to be prescriptive in others it's
rather more a descriptive framework: after the fact.
For another, you contrast Akhmatova and Mandelstam to the "language
project" as if they were contemporary. One could just as easily use any
poetry of the past as a polemical tool, but one would have to ask oneself
in that case a bunch of other questions, like why some expressive
possibilities appear to be less available than they once were. Anyone
seriously attempting to write like Keats would probably inspire titters.
But of course the range of possibility is so much wider than what you
construct as these polar opposites that one wonders (I wonder) why you find
it necessary to be polemical at all. Your bête noire is a very small part
of the available fauna.
Never polemmical myself.
Mark
At 10:25 AM 6/23/2001 EDT, Henry wrote:
>Oh Mark, always at the ready with your little needle. Tim asked if Charles
>Bernstein's poetry makes Henry Gould laugh. The question made me think.
>I thought about WHY I read so much Akhmatova & Mandelstam rather than the
>"rest of you". I think they show how poetry can still integrate the
>voice of a single person with the concerns of the world at large, which
>runs somewhat counter to the "constructivist" emphases of the poetry we
>were talking about. You could say I'm idealizing them again, but actually
>I'm just being polemical. Go & read Akhmatova again, the different scales
>of public & private address she is able to muster. In that sense she's a
>perfect foil to the "language" project. - Henry
>
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>Mark wrote:
>
>It is a shame that the last and only refuge for poetry is Russia. The rest
>of us must all be language poets.
>
>At 01:59 PM 6/22/2001 EDT, Henry wrote:
>>Much ink hath been spilt over the question of the "I" in poetry.
>>Maybe not since Dante wrote his epic of personal spiritual journey has
>>there been so much interest in the DE-subjective, anonymous, social,
>>autonomous, objectivist, epic (in Brecht's sense) end of the spectrum.
>>
>>This tendency has been allied with the modernist faith in technique.
>>Technique leads not so much to truth as to the effective autonomy &
>>beautiful self-sufficiency of the art work.
>>
>>Autonomy is all well & good, but the ancient substance of poetry - the
>>fusion of music and storytelling - was the basis of craft before the
>>modern era, & that hasn't changed. To "teach with delight" was the
>>original role, and if it doesn't delight, it won't teach, and if it
>>doesn't mean something to an audience it won't do either.
>>
>>The question of what poetry is presently DOING in any particular
>>language or society - how it fits into the larger cultural economy -
>>always underlies its rhetoric. What does english-language poetry
>>mean to whom?
>>
>>If you follow Socrates or Cusanus, then the most important thing
>>anyone can teach is the ability to recognize their own ignorance,
>>the limitations of bookish authority, the nature of wisdom as
>>something you can only discover in your own experience and in
>>your own way. This was very important to the Italian humanists,
>>because it meant that truth was "worked out" in dialogue rather
>>than set down by philosopher-gods. (Nor, it should be pointed
>>out, does this necessarily lead to relativism, Macchiavelli, etc:
>>one way of looking at religion is as a dialogue between & about
>>divine & human, light & otherness.) Mandelstam thought the
>>task of poets was to endure & wait for the "gold coins of
>>humanism" to ring out across the globe.
>>
>>The notion of the dignity of the individual, that the Person is
>>the beginning and end of the quest for wisdom, that wisdom actually
>>"cries out in the streets", in the multiplicity of human inventiveness -
>>I don't think these things are going to go away; and this notion
>>has implications for the "objectivity" of poetic rhetoric. The
>>Language poets, in their critique of lyric "subjectivity", may
>>have trivialized this notion, emphasizing technique (technique
>>grounded in a social vision of inter-subjectivity). The poem
>>as play-object is one outcome: infinite defamiliarization
>>equals infinite interest - the poem is an endless riddle only you
>>can solve (because it has no solution). Only YOU: this is the
>>bait of reader-created meaning. When there is no self there are
>>infinite possibilities! Except for communication, which is an
>>old-fashioned contract between persons: testimony to experience
>>and its music. So the bind of "subjectivity" is not so easily
>>evaded.
>>
>>Does the work of Charles Bernstein make me laugh?
>>I don't know, ask Anna Akhmatova. That might be a good test for
>>any poet. I think I went to the Russians because the exigencies &
>>solitude taught them something. But what it taught them was not
>>to abandon the high old singing, but to hang on to it with a grip
>>of iron.
>>
>>Henry
>>
>>btw her way of turning landscape-into-music is masterful. but it's
>>also always the site of a drama, a turning-point.
>>
>
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