heh, 'honing critical skill, exchanging esoterical chat with like
minded colleagues of
the word, indulging in the odd spot of civilised abuse' all sound like
a collective blast.
in the spirt of esoterical chat, I'd like to comment on a phrase you used.
"this compressed form of instant enlightenment"
I assume this was put with the tongue somewhere in the vicinity of
your cheek, but it caught my attention because these are actually the
exact words, with very little variation, that I've used when
responding to people who have asked me what haiku are -- that is, I've
used a similar phrase to demonstrate precisely as what haiku ought
never to be considered. there's the temptation, potentially, to
consider any form of art produced in the 'East' to be of significant
depth & diffculty & compression.. but when it comes to haiku, in my
opinion this kind of thinking does very little credit to the haiku
spirit, which endures exactly because it _isn't_ 'deep': because it
doesn't claim to be anything that can't be sensed with a little peace
& quiet. there are atmospheres & backgrounds that one would do well to
consider when writing/reading haiku, but that doesn't make it a
complex artform; just a contextual one, which it very much is.
as to irish poetry, I will have to admit to complete ignorance in that
department. I like to think I have some ability in the principles that
guide ALL of literature, but specifics ("political fortitude in
Brecht's drama", "criminality in 20th century anglo-african poetry",
&c.) elude me to an extent. haiku may be my only specific area of a
little further study, within the sphere of literature; though even
there I couldn't supply you with a list even similar to your
collection of irishmen & women. individual poets are closer to home
for me; I've been pining for someone with whom to discuss WC Williams
or Ted Hughes or Bukowski or Dylan Thomas.. though preferably with as
little academic blather as possible, I've witnessed a share of that
before only to find it impersonal & rigid (more often than not
anyway).
I've been around here for a few weeks now, maybe I qualify to bid you welcome.
K S
On 26/08/06, Desmond Swords <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Alright Kasper me arl Basho inspired sparring partner of bruisable blather.
>
> Apology accepted. You are forgiven, as I too wish to dish up atonement and
> recant the ridiculously unfounded slur upon your intellect.
>
> There's nothing like an textual dust to set the introductory register in a
> remote literary relationship amongst linguistically gifted bores such as
> ourselves, so please accept a full and unreserved apology for the
> inaccurate assessment of the correct torsional rate twisting the mental
> drive shaft at the heart of your own poetic.
>
> I made a schoolboy blooper when I stuck the boot in on your moon and branch
> offering, because when I googled it after firing off the unfounded
> accusation of unoriginality, it turned out that your word-combos were
> unique, which made me 100% wrong about your work being a lightweight piece
> of uninspired fluff. When the mechanics at play in my own brain began
> operating logically I recognised it for the highly evocative and
> successfully executed piece it is. One whose true status the swilling
> passion of my temporarily skewered out of kilter mind blinded me to.
>
> ~
>
> The problems which caused this brief loss of sense are many and of little
> or no interest to anybody but myself. One of which was, that over the
> course of a long night of non-stop haiku at last spring's Haiku Ireland
> bash in Damar Hall, I witnessed a group of highly competent Irish based
> exponents of this compressed form of instant enlightenment, which caused me
> to believe I had become an expert after only a few hours exposure to some
> of the nation's most gifted and committed practitioners of this form.
>
> Roberta Beary, Ernest J Berry, Glenda Cimino, Neville Keery, Sean
> MacMathuna, Michael McClintock, John MacDonald, Joe McFadden, Jim Norton,
> Dermot O'Brien, Maeve O'Sullivan, Kim Richardson, Mary White, Sean Brophy
> and others whose names are filed in a portion of memory currently locked to
> me, littered the air with their insight and glimpses of existential purity
> that soft April night of near poetic overdose.
>
> Another tributary cause of my short-term sense loss earlier today, was due
> to the waffle I swapped with a primary force in that organisation, Gilles
> Fabre; who very kindly gave me a free copy of his latest book, "Because of
> a Seagull." This, coupled with the heady atmosphere of the haiku marathon,
> led me to think I had a full grasp of the basic guff on the whole haiku
> bit.
>
> The evening was a veritable orgy of short offerings, culled from those
> occasions in a poet's life when choice or chance lifts a veil between the
> world of rude comprehension and the cosmic eternity rarely grasped, in
> moments of clarity which yield from within when syzegial like occurrences
> of poetic alignment channel an inner truth to gush forth and imprint life's
> ageless watermark into a forcefully conscious experience of total
> understanding.
>
>
> This windy waffle of eternity and veils concealing otherworldly truths,
> whilst easy to laugh at, is the external manifestation of a genuine belief
> in the concept of a "mind's mirror reflecting" and all that.
>
> Being a full time unemployable spacer whose goal is to live the dream, I am
> currently in the process of turning my reality into a dream in order to
> achieve this, so please forgive my further fetched notions, proclamations
> and pontification, as the only talent I posses is one of imaginative escape.
>
> ~
>
> My previous hang out was at poem.co.uk, where I spent much of my foclo
> duelling and jousting with a cross-section cadre of mainly Anglo know not
> delusionals, misinformed moaners, human poetical voids and simple
> unaffected lovers of lingo. And instinctively sensing it was time to
> outpour elsewhere I deported to here once I got hooked up online indoors,
> as prior to this my office was in a candy store internet shop on Dublin
> quays, which disallowed Jiscmail cookies from cluttering up the hard drives
> of their computers.
>
>
> Like you, I am a newbie here and hope this gaffe will be a place for honing
> critical skill, exchanging esoterical chat with like minded colleagues of
> the word, indulging in the odd spot of civilised abuse and continually
> teasing to further coherency my own rationale. One which rests on the
> foundation of my area of expertise - the history of Irish poetry - the
> research of which leads me to unashamedly hoke into a triple goddess theory
> of poetic belief, due to the 7C Amergin attributed touchstone text of this
> tradition which is commonly referred to as the Cauldron of Poesy and which
> I wish to discuss.
>
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