It seems worth pointing out that the review of Sheila Murphy is in fact
appreciative to the point of adulation. As I suggest at the end, that
could be the main problem.
To me it seems pretty obvious that what Ian Seed calls a '"good poem"' is
what e.g. Silliman sneeringly refers to (via Cleanth Brooks) as a "well-
wrought urn" - or, as I have long misread it (and I do prefer my
misreading), a "well-wrought um". That's imprecise too, but is imprecision
a problem here?
Similarly I really don't think it matters about the
words '"meaning"', '"understanding"', and 'experience'. We all know that
that manner in which we imbibe poetry is a vastly complicated and
contentious matter - no words would satisfy a critical reader here.
Nevertheless I understand perfectly that Ian has a problem getting
anything out of the passage he quotes:
A stored regression therapy affords our liquefied untold
Mere obviosos when and if restorative resplendence
Glows a pact we can absolve ourselves
From yearning for and when and why if supplemental
(from “Octaves”)
The questions that arise for me are whether this writing does instantiate
a more widely used style (something that characterizes a school of poets),
whether it instantiates "pretentious, falsely intellectual poetry" and
whether the assumption that this is bad is justified (do I really
enjoy "unpretentious, truly intellectual poetry"?) ....
All of which questions I can only answer by acquiring Sheila Murphy's
book. I.S. and Lawrence have certainly, between them, stirred up my
interest in it.
I long to spring to the defence of quotation marks, which seem to me to
have all sorts of valid possibilities for expression (just like bold,
italic, small caps and other diacritical marks). One of those valid
possibilities is to infuriate. After all there ARE radical differences out
there. To imagine that they could be resolved through a common medium of
clarity seems to me an incorrect picture of the position. A truer picture
is this: the differences are so radical that the clarity in which one of
them expresses itself IS the sly cloudy taunting evasiveness recognized by
the other; and vice versa.
Is part of the problem that I.S. appears to assume a strategic position in
which he can, with all the authority of the self-identifying common reader
(alternatively: the humility of someone who has no claim to be anything
else ) cherrypick (alternatively: unbiasedly recommend) - certain bits
and pieces of certain modern poets while not disguising his contempt for
(alternatively: frank antipathy towards certain characteristics of) them
in the mass? - what's the political move here, and why does it require a
counter-move? It's in those terms that I'm reading this exchange.
On Mon, 1 Nov 2004 14:11:00 -0000, Lawrence Upton
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I like Sheila Murphy's poetry. So I went to this review
>
> We are told _Murphy is more concerned with listening to where language
will
> take her than with writing a "good poem", and in much of her work, she
uses
> (and mixes) her senses to take us with her. The effect can be
enchanting._
>
> I am not at all clear what is meant by much of this. What is meant by "a
> good poem" in quotes. Clearly it means something other than "a good poem"
>or
> it would not be in quotes. But what does it mean here? Someone else's
view
> of a good poem, perhaps; but whose?
>
> We are told _However, there a number of poems in this book where I, as a
> reader, felt shut out. I don't mean from "understanding" the poems in
terms
> of "meaning", but simply in terms of being able to experience them._
>
> What? Again 2 perfectly clear words are put in quotes, without
explanation;
> but the apparently key word _experience_ is not. So I fail to understand
>the
> reviewer's meaning. If you read it, you experience it. Does the reviewer
> have trouble "reading"?
>
> And it goes on: _At its worst, the writing has that pretentious, falsely
> intellectual quality typical of much so-called "innovative" poetry. This
> only makes me impatient. But don't believe me, judge for yourselves - you
> may feel differently._
>
> How can I know if I feel differently to this? It's too poorly expressed.
I
> have read the quote and I could say now what I think. But I think it is
>more
> to the point to ask *what falsely intellectual quality typical of much
> so-called "innovative" poetry the reviewer means. What exactly is meant
by
> "innovative" when it is in quotes? Which poetry is that then? I have
> imagined the sentence without the quotes and it doesn't seem to clarify
or
> cloud the issue. Like those gestural quotes, Stephen Fry likes to play
>with,
> they seem redundant. But this isn't just a vague _innovative_ in
apparently
> redundant quotations - don't believe me, see if you can get anything
> concrete out of it - because there is also a _so-called_ before it.
>
> I first became conscious of this phrase as a worry during a spell of
> unemployment in the late 1970s when I welcomed Jehovah's Witnesses into
my
> home and let them instruct me for some weeks.
>
> This ended when I checked their quotation from Origin of Species with my
> copy of the book and pointed out that they had left out the dependant
>clause
> of a key sentence.
>
> They condemned my reliance upon the evidence, explaining that I had been
> misled by so-called professors. As they warmed to their work, they used
> _so-called_ more and more. Seemingly nothing was to be trusted except
what
> they said which could not be tested because to test it would be to be
> misled.
>
> There is a lot of pretentious poetry around. Is it typical of
_"innovative"
> poetry_ or _so-called "innovative" poetry_?
>
> Without being offered any examples so that I can work out the typical
> writing we are speaking of, I am only left with belief. or disbelief.
>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Martin Stannard" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2004 4:50 PM
>> Subject: Exultations & Difficulties
|
