No: I don't think human experience is about "rules", any more than I think
poetry is primarily about "rules". Yes, artistic works are selective; but
they can be broadening as much as narrowing.

I am hard put to see how metre does not embrace rhythm. What do you mean by
metre? Is free verse metred? Are prose poems metred? Or is this getting
into the territory of improper poems?


On 4/8/05 12:16 AM, "Marcus Bales" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> To me it appears that saying such things as "Whether any given reader
> accepts or enjoys those rules is entirely up for grabs" is a denial that
> there are any distinctions or discriminations to be made. I find it frankly
> unbelievable that you can say such a thing and still hold that there are
> any distinctions worth making. What distinction would you suggest is
> worth making if it is true that "whether any given reader accepts or
> enjoys those rules is entirely up for grabs"? That's the necessary
> abandonment of the audience to its own devices for the sake of the
> solipsism of the blurtist.

My dear Marcus, you are claiming here that the responses of any reader are
completely and objectively determinable and that if they are not (if
"standards" do not apply) then all is meaningless. I think things are
rather more interesting than that. A short conversation with a dozen
readers of any poem will disabuse you of the predictability of reader
response - some will enjoy a poem, some won't, some will remain indifferent,
and perhaps one person will find their life changed... Which of these
responses is legitimate? It's impossible to say any of them is wrong.

That's just how it is. It's the problem your putatively objective hierarchy
attempts to avoid by claiming universal "laws" that apply to everybody.
Comforting to think that the world is made in one's own image of course, but
a mistake made by all colonisers.

I would say that given this dilemma, discriminating taste becomes more
important, not less; one is not relying on sweeping universal "laws" or
"rules" to make judgement, but on the thousands of subtle pleasures of
response. Questions of poetry are not to me about "claims" or instrumental
attitudes to language; but then I do associate writing, and always have,
with complex and hard won freedoms.

Best

A


Alison Croggon

Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com