Hi Chris
your responses seem right on to me. Thanks.
<<I'm completely with Bunting on this one. The music, the rhythm and the
syntax -is- the poetry -- so the content isn't the "what's being said" bit
-- though that can be interesting too -- but it's the how it's being said
that's hold the poem together -- but the delivery system is something else
again -- perhaps all these things are inseparable, at least in some cases.
And then there's the performance of all this -- which can be vital too. But
I always come back to the "Great. What did she say exactly?" type of
questions. Art, after all, is a question of precision. [Ho ho.]>>
And I always tell my students that if poets are asked, What did you mean by
that poem? they will answer, It means what it says, read it again. That is,
after all, why it is, finally that sequence of words in that precise order
(or so we devoutly wish, each time)...
Doug
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
I do not limit myself: I imitate
many fancy things such as the dull red
cloth of literature, its mumbled griefs
Lisa Robertson
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