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I think you misunderstand me. To use a critical term that's in current use
to mean something entirely different reduces the already limited
descriptive value of the term. Why not call English French or adjectives
nouns? In this case the term would be understood by most educated people
from Tijuana to Tierra del Fuego, although few would attempt to define it.
This in no way denigrates Erminia's poetry, or even comments on it.
Here are two very brief examples of Lezama Lima. Each is the first stanza
of a much longer poem--Lezama wrote mostly very dense poems of better than
50 lines. I don't pretend that these are any good as translations--Lezama
is the despair of translators, and these are quick work. In Spanish his
verse has a hypnotic beauty. The first was published in 1949, the second
after his death, in 1977. They each exemplify neo-baroque as it's usually
understood.
Mark
Thoughts in Havana
Because I inhabit a sigh like a sail,
a land where ice is a memory,
the fire can't hoist a bird
and burn it in a conversation of complacent style.
Although this style doesn't dictate a sob
and a tenuous leap allows me a grumpy life,
I don't have to acknowledge the useless progress
of a mask floating I could not know where,
where I could not know to transport the stonecutter or the latch
to museums where assassins are wrapped
while visitors point at the squirrel
which with its tail is arranging the stockings.
If an anterior style shakes the tree,
it decides the sob of two strands of hair and exclaims:
_my soul is not in an ashtray!_
The Seven Allegories
The first allegory
is the pig with teeth of stars,
the teeth fly to their sky of low clouds,
the pig exults laughing at its splitting.
Into ham, into laconic questions.
At 03:45 PM 9/9/2001 -0400, you wrote:
>Apropos this assertion:
>
>At 12:12 PM -0700 9/9/01, Mark Weiss wrote:
>> Your use of the term, and your own
>>poetry, seem not at all related.
>
>
>Please provide a few illustrations of why her poetry is not baroque?
>If "baroque" implies all sorts of florid excesses and fantastic
>affects, well, Erminia's giantess would seem to qualify. Doesn't the
>dance of the Latin world pride itself for its posturing and its elan
>and its stamping around and its dash and frenzies? When Erminia
>shares and instructs that
>
>At 11:35 AM -0700 9/9/01, erminia wrote:
>>neo-baroque is when in a society poetry, arts,
>>music become more poweful than the effects produced
>>by the industry and by the values connected to working
>>class struggle.
>
>
>She is coming through with some real smart observations here. Poetry
>is not born by the recultivation of some past literary movement, as
>you seem to imply she claims she is doing in order to validate her
>work. No. Erminia sees the majic unrealities as they manifest,
>i.e., Elton John at Versace's funeral. She left out Princess Di's
>synchronistical contribution to the whole baroque sequence of fated
>accretions but she is astute in her wakefulness nonetheless.
>
>I for one read ALL of the Poet Erminia's contributions.
>
>RD
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>Erminia: Terms are of limited use, but even within those limitations this
>>is a bit confusing. The term neo-baroque was invented, I think, by the
>>great Cuban poet José Lezama Lima in the late 30s and is very much current
>>in Latin America. So much so that when José Kozer, one of the best-known
>>(in the Spanish-speaking world) of contemporary Cuban poets, identifies
>>himself as neo-baroque he expects folks to have a vague idea where that
>>places him in the spectrum of possible practices. When his name came up in
>>conversation in Tijuana, which is a different planet from Cuba, there was a
>>general murmer of "ah, neobaroco." Your use of the term, and your own
>>poetry, seem not at all related. Is this a new coinage of an old term?
>>
>>Mark
>>
>>
>>At 11:35 AM 9/9/2001 -0700, you wrote:
>>>Dear Douglas,
>>>
>>>neo-baroque is the rediscovery, exaltation and
>>>re-evaluation of the kitsch, it is the attribution to
>>>its codes of a scheme of values and the re-activation
>>>of them in the contemporaneity, it is believing in the
>>>poewer of the false, the artefact as being more
>>>meaningful of the true. This raghly: Helton John
>>>crying at the funeral of Versace is neo-baroque,
>>>(this superficially already gives an example), to have
>>>a museum of the false (as in my town, Salerno) is
>>>baroquesque...Tate Modern in London is neo-baroque in
>>>its delayed effects of the media...German neo-idealism
>>>is a form itself of the neo-baroque...performative
>>>arts when too self-conscious are neo-baroque...what
>>>neo-baroque is not is the strenuous claim for
>>>autenticity, for the self, for psychoanalysis...and so
>>>on...neo-baroque is when in a society poetry, arts,
>>>music become more poweful than the effects produced
>>>by the industry and by the values connected to working
>>>class struggle...the neo-baroque is in itself a parody
>>>of the baroque so it has as well critical potentials
>>>since it reveals its on tools and aims having
>>>antecedents,,, and so on,... but I am making myself
>>>ready to go to a party, and I will have to be there in
>>>half an hour: I would gladly retake the conversation
>>>when I come back home later. Neo-baroque is also
>>>politically incorrect since it stresses contrssts and
>>>exploits them (neo-baroque is when art makes the
>>>world, as it is almost the case now, not viceversa).
>>>The mannerism of our daily communications with their
>>>fake language and false aims is neo-baroque, so we are
>>>on the right path.
>>>
>>>Erminia
>>>
>>>--- Douglas Clark <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>> Come on ERminia explain neo-baroque! At four this
>>>> morning I
>>>> explained postmodernism to myself and it didnt hurt.
>> >> Although
>> >> cos I didnt sleep last night I dont know if I can
>> >> stay awake
>> >> to have G-d explained on Channel 4 at 8 o'clock.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Douglas Clark, Bath, England mailto:
>>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>> Lynx: Poetry from Bath ..........
>>>> http://www.bath.ac.uk/~exxdgdc/lynx.html
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, 9 Sep 2001, erminia wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > Having as an literary and aesthetic aim to be
>>>> > post-modern nowadays is a meaningless effort and
>>>> it
>>>> > would make own work terribly outdated.
>>>> >
>>>> > Postmodernity is no longer on, since it has
>>>> already
>>>> > become an abused and stale subject of studies.
>>>> > It has in fact by now been already replaced by
>>>> > activist neo-baroque poetry.
>>>> >
>>>> > this is the new European trend guys. how to become
>>>> > neo-baroque?: just follow me...
>>>> >
>>>> > Thank you for ignoring systematically my mails: it
>>>> is
>>>> > a sign that my work is authentically a neo-baroque
>>>> > fenomenon to which people do not know how to
>>>> respond
>>>> > (joking!).
>>>> >
>>>> > ermi
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > --- Roger Collett <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>> > > What rates can you negotiate for me Joseph?
>>>> > >
>>>> > > Roger
>>>> > >
>>>> > > ----- Original Message -----
>>>> > > From: "Joseph Duemer" <[log in to unmask]>
>>>> > > To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>>> > > Sent: Sunday, September 09, 2001 5:05 PM
>>>> > > Subject: Re: Postmodern?
>>>> > >
>>>> > >
>>>> > > > Being post-modern is more of a condition to be
>>>> > > negotiated than a choice to
>>>> > > > be made.
>>>> > > > ======================
>>>> > > > Joseph Duemer
>>>> > > > School of Liberal Arts, 5750
>>>> > > > Clarkson University
>>>> > > > Potsdam NY 13699
>>>> > > > 315.268.3967
>>>> > > > ======================
>>>> > > >
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > __________________________________________________
>>>> > Do You Yahoo!?
>>>> > Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant
>>>> messaging with Yahoo! Messenger
>>>> > http://im.yahoo.com
>>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>>__________________________________________________
>>>Do You Yahoo!?
>>>Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger
>>>http://im.yahoo.com
>>>
>
>
>--
>
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