Well, this is an interesting quote. That first question with
its implication that reality remains outside language,
"separate, obdurate, alien" would seem to fit with Alison's
egocentric poetics with their emphasis upon beginning in
an inarticulate, separate, (as you put it Erminia, hard
with definition) and alien reality, that perhaps the poem
cannot express, hence the writing of many poems to always
write the real poem, the reality.
I agree that we are often encouraged to be cowards. Though not
entirely that the dead have died in our name. The dead just die.
Everyone dies. That's a fact. In some cases, this is undoubtedly
true, that the dead do die in our names, for instance, Iraq of
late. And it is also true that there is, for many, this kind of
conflict of being unable to look into the faces of the dead
and yet of having to. But for purposes of this discussion, it
seems to me interesting that all Pinter offers for this dilemma
is "attention," which is to say love, which is the very quality
on this list which is not only in short supply but considered
to be self-indulgent, a nostalgia, a self-help, a self-enjoyment,
completely irrelevant to poetry which should be about something
like making shoes and everyone knowing what a good shoe is or
isn't.
Best,
Rebecca
Rebecca Seiferle
www.thedrunkenboat.com
l Message-------
From: Erminia Passannanti <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 05/24/03 02:29 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Alison's egocentric poetics
> Given that the fashion here is to quote, let me quote once also my authors:Harold Pinter in reply to Rebecca's mention of the deads.
"Does reality essentially remain outside language, separate, obdurate,
alien, not susceptible to description? Is an accurate and vital
correspondence between what is and our perception of it impossible? Or is
is that we are obliged to use language only in order to obscure and
distort
reality - to distort what happens-because we fear it? We are encouraged to
be cowards. We can't face the dead. But we must face the dead because they
die in our name. We must pay attention to what is being done in our name."
Harold Pinter, Oh Superman, 1990
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