Discourse on the topic of tact and maturity, especially the other person's,
has an uncanny tendency to veer towards the tactless and immature, and
especially online where no discussion of etiquette can be certified innocent
of polemico-didactic intent. Alas.
Whatever one supposes one thinks of the norms of bourgeois society, they
aren't necessarily the only norms one might want to apply to poetry,
assuming one wants to apply norms to poetry (some people want not to do
this, although whether the desire can escape certain convolutions in
practice is another matter). Perhaps more to the point: bourgeois society
has an imperative to reach outside itself, to codify and commodify, which
takes the form of an appetite for transgression, for evil. Wilfully tactless
and immature behaviour, of whatever kind, can be made highly congenial to
the bourgeois if it is suitably packaged; and the formal artifice of poetry
can provide just such a package, as can the formal artifice of snuff-metal
(or whatever the latest variety is called), or, pardon me, the formal
artifice of ritualised sexual perversion.
Perhaps it might be useful to distinguish projection from teleology, from
normative standardisation before the fact. To have a project in mind is to
have something one can expose to the contingencies of practice, to
"empirical guilt" to borrow a phrase. That is, vis a vis spontaneity, it's
all very well to talk about being exposed to the contingent, but what after
all is it that one is exposing?
- Dominic
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Weiss" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, September 10, 2001 10:59 PM
Subject: Re: Postmodern?/more baroque
> You don't really mean that. Just throw anything at the page? Learn nothing
> from the practice of one's craft?
>
> Of course I could say that any prestructured project reifies hierarchy,
but
> that would be pretty dumb. Also tactless and (intellectually) immature.
>
> If you don't want to engage an argument just say so. This sort of sidestep
> just pisses me off. I have a hard time abiding political accusations or
> fools in silence. Reminds me, I guess, of the endless arguments of my
> adolescence about who was a better Trotskyist.
>
> While we're at it, you do, like most of us, suck at the trough of
bourgeois
> society. By the way.
>
> Mark
>
> At 08:49 PM 9/10/2001 +0100, you wrote:
> >On Mon, 10 Sep 2001 10:29:39 -0700, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]>
> >wrote:
> >
> >>The links between the
> >>>poet and the literary/cultural theorist is somehow unavoidable. I
myself
> >>>do not believe in spontaneity and I hope that behind each poet there is
a
> >>>project not merely a vent of words, an outburst of tears or joy, the
> >desire
> >>>to give find expression for one's wrath.
> >>
> >>Theorists, some of them poets, will continue to theorize and
occasionally
> >>invent isms, but the impact of the link is certainly avoidable if theory
> >>follows from, is derived from, practice.
> >>
> >>Writing spontaneously doesn't mean writing egotistically. Writing with a
> >>project in mind often does. One is finally only protected from oneself
by
> >>tact and maturity.
> >>
> >>Mark
> >
> >By the way: tact and maturity are no reelvant measures for poetry.
> >these are good measures for bourgeois society.
> >
> >erminia
> >
>
|