Maybe there hasn't been poetry after Auschwitz, at least, not in the
19th Century meaning of poetry. At least that I think is one way to
interprete the phrase.
Unlike Kipling or Service (who made a lot of money out of his poetry
and not many people can say that these days), whose poetry embodied a
committment to the state and empire, I see no poets doing that these
days. In fact, just after 9/11, Tom Wolfe was lamenting the fact that
writers wanted to be more like Chomsky or Said than Kipling.
I don't know enough about the various forms of post-modernisms to
really comment, but I do like to keep an open mind on the subject.
One of the things about 9/11 that sticks in my memory is the mobile
phone-calls the just-about-to-die were making up until the moment they
died.
I think a lot of things "died" that day, I just don't know what yet they were.
Roger
On 26/05/06, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I see. Like "no poetry after Auschwitz." That didn't seem to work.
>
> I take "post-modernism," in its multiplicity of often contradictory
> definitions (based solidly, it seems to me, on a very limited
> understanding of modernism) as primarily a brand name. Very helpful
> in building careers.
>
> Mark
>
> At 10:29 AM 5/26/2006, Robert Heffernan wrote:
> >On 5/26/06, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > It would be
> >nice to know, however, what it means. Well, one of the definitions
> >of postmodernism I particularly like is a "rejection of
> >meta-narrative". When I sat there watching CNN (a jarring
> >experience in itself) I felt that the reaction to those events would
> >involve a large-scale attempt for meta-narratives to cling to. It
> >seems to me that this is taking place too, various meta-narratives
> >(religion (particularly fundamentalist interpretations of various
> >religions), "democracy", "the American way of life", "liberty", "the
> >west", etc.,) are taking hold. That's part of what I meant. Some of
> >it was just "gut", really. I'm not saying my thoughts were
> >particularly clever ones, I was just interested to see two other
> >people have the same thoughts. Bob </x-flowed>
>
--
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