Thanks for this. My sense exactly.
Mark
At 10:40 AM 8/30/2005, you wrote:
>Oh wow, I get back to a huge bunch of stuff, & there's the 'formalist'
>discussion still hard at it. So, reading your note Stephen, I instantly
>recalled a quotation I'm sure I've shared here before, but:
>
>With regard to "Neo-Formalism": ever since I studied linguistics when I
>was a kid, it's bothered me that the word "Formalist" has been used to
>talk about exactly the opposite people from those whom I think of as
>Formalists, to talk about people who would never question ideas of form,
>but are only interested in what they call content, and are really happy to
>use whatever Edward Arlington Robinson used in their versification. What
>is called Formalism displays no interest in Formalism at all. That's what
>is meant by Formalism in talking about European painters of the early
>twentieth century. If they had not been Formalists they would have been
>doing Poussin.
>
> George Bowering.
>
>Always liked this, really. And I admit I tend just to use my ear, always
>forgetting those names when I need them....
>
>Doug
>On 25-Aug-05, at 6:08 PM, Stephen Vincent wrote:
>
>>Is it fair to consider everybody writing poetry on some level "a formalist."
>>??
>>I begin to feel that's the ultimate embrace of Annie's argument.
>>When is poetry not a "form"??
>>Or a simple and/or elaborate "counter-form" ?
>>Why is the proposition offered as "form" versus some - perhaps - demonic
>>formless other. Or, is that implied other meant as "experimental" or "avant"
>>writing?
>Douglas Barbour
>11655 - 72 Avenue NW
>Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
>(780) 436 3320
>
>Certain gardens are described as retreats when they are really attacks.
> Ian Hamilton Finlay
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