Very interesting article, indeed, Alison, not least for the way it
shows up the trad lyric approach:
On 9-Aug-05, at 6:50 PM, Alison Croggon wrote:
> DiPiero's poem suggests the difficulty in the lyric poet's spiritual
> positioning: while the speaker presents himself with humility, his
> assertion
> that he can represent others suggests a more complicated
> self-aggrandizement. The gap between an artist's "presentation self"
> and his
> or her own complicated and uninterrogated worldly drives (here,
> self-justification of narrative for social action authorized by
> religiosity
> authority) complicates the spiritual declaration in art.
>
But then, all the poems quoted were pretty awful, at least to my taste.
Maybe I just mean they didn't interest me at all.
There's an article in the latest Harper's, by an intellectual who
identifies as Christian, arguing that USAmerican 'Christianity' is
deeply unChristian (he notes that many so-called Christians identify
the statement 'God helps those who help themselves' as from the Bible!
Certainly Christ's particular messages as I remember them do not appear
to be what these people believe or try to follow....
As to poetry, well if there is a spirituality there maybe it should
appear accidentally, not sought but come upon?
Doug
Douglas Barbour
11655 - 72 Avenue NW
Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
(780) 436 3320
lake
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Eli Mandel
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