This is a very problematic issue, Kent, and one that is fraught with the
fine points of definition, but I'm minded of exemplars which seem to hold
the dynamics of prose and poetry, such as the last volume of David Jones,
The Sleeping Lord, or Japanese haibun literature, where what can be
segregated as 'poetry' seems to be in an emergent relationship to what a
certain Frenchman had been talking all his life. But, and very much but,
there seems to much in 'purely prose' literature, such as the last chapters
of Moby Dick, a great deal of Ulysees, some of the novels of Patrick White,
where effects seem very like if not a whale but another endangered species:
poetry. Albeit possibly at a more generalised level.
david bircumshaw
----- Original Message -----
From: "kent johnson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2001 5:43 PM
Subject: Re: prose as poem
> Alison Croggon said, regarding why so much investment in distinctions
> between genres,
>
> >How much does it matter?
>
> In the bigger picture not a whit, which is my point. But for Poets, whose
> careers and artistic identities are most materially circumscribed by the
> language game of cutting up writing, metered or not, into lines, probably
a
> great deal.
>
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