Among the poems I've seen posted to this list in the last week or so, I
especially enjoyed Anny Ballardini's "to my friend mr. book," which in
intent though not in style reminds me of Wallace Stevens' "Large Red Man
Reading" (which incidentally I strongly recommend to those who have been
agonizing over how a poet dare say anything.) I thought though the lines
"they’d make people care ... of a gelatinous adipose self" came across as a
little preachy, and maybe the piece would be stronger without them.
I found the idea that Emily Dickinson's work is characterized by "a refusal
of closure" striking at first, but after some thought was more doubtful of
its validity. Consider for example "A narrow fellow in the grass" or "The
bustle in a house", where the sense of punchline could hardly be stronger.
Nor is the forgoing of closure uncommon in other poets: WC Williams, for
instance, was a master of the open-ended poem. But on still further
consideration I think there might be something to it after all. The most
expected way to mark closure in literature as in music is by an increase in
formality, and ED's lyrics are formally so intensely mannered continually,
so everything-tidily-in-its-place throughout, that she often leaves herself
no lee-way for a final increase in formality.
Maybe this is why (and I'm just realizing this now) I've always perceived
the formal texture of ED's verse as something woven. The weaver's art at
the micro level is very narrowly restricted: once you choose the thread and
the weave, you basically have to just keep doing the same thing over and
over: warp, woof, repeat. Your only choices are the color and maybe the
texture of different threads. Yet in spite of this formal narrowness, a
skilled weaver can attain a virtually unlimited range of effects by the
cumulative impact of those individually small choices. So, perhaps, with
ED: within the fairly rigid tick-tock tolling hymnal stanzaic meter she
employs, her range of choice is narrow, but the cumulative effect of those
choices is widely expressive.
By the way ED's rhetoric never seemed particularly halting to me. I wonder
if it just might seem so to a reader who took the dashes too seriously. We
don't know what she meant by them, do we? Maybe it was just something she
did with the pen while she was waiting for the next bit to come along.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote of the week:
We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us -- and if we
do not agree, seems to put its hand in its breeches pocket.
Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters
into one's soul, and does not startle or amaze with itself,
but with its subject.
Keats
------------------------------------------------------------------
My best wishes to all for the religious, ethnic, or secular seasonal
celebration of your personal preference.
==================================================
Jon Corelis [log in to unmask]
www.geocities.com/joncpoetics
==================================================
_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus
|