<snip>
'Poetry is an occult science but I think the language of our science, verse
composition, has been lost - or at least disfigured to the point of
uselessness' [Don Paterson]
(Shouldn't that be the 'occult science of our poetic language'? Dunno.
Whatever 'verse composition' - a term which has me running for cover - is
not some divine right or set of truths but a human-made set of formulas. As
fellow humans we can and do reject those formulas to reflect or evoke our
personal or cultural epoch. All science is empirical. It moves on the back
of experience and experiment. Composition moves also.) [GM]
<snip>
Paterson draws a distinction between *content* ('occult science': the poet
as alchemist) and form (the representation or expression of the business of
that science in 'language', which for him is coextensive with 'verse
composition', not defined). But it's odd in a couple of ways.
Although his purpose, clearly, is to deplore a lack of technique, there's no
sense of Creeley's observation (whether or not he agrees with it) that
content extends into form (my rephrasing). As a result, the potential for
what *content* can ever be is reduced, contained, postponed, and *form* too
is cleaned of what Ron Silliman (in *Wild Form*) terms 'possibility', losing
its edge. Or, to make that less opaque, Paterson's *experience* becomes a
matter of reference within the frame of the poem, not something intuited
through or as _a result of_ the poem. My slant upon what Geraldine says
above.
The other odd effect is that although Paterson tries to re-energise the
nominal into process (metaphor > metaphorising; rhyme > rhyming) his
distinction works against this, as though alchemy were a picture of an
alembic and not a transformation after all.
'Disfigured' in some ways says it all, when what he means is 'damaged': the
'usefulness' and elegance of, say, a Philippe Starck washbasin are not at
all the same thing.
But perhaps I should find and read the whole piece before I comment
further...
CW
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'Art does not solve problems but makes us aware of their existence'
(Magdalena Abakanowicz )
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