What I love about reading poems online is the bright screen (which
can be dimmed or brightened
as I wish), the type (which can be made smaller or larger as I wish--
yes, oldish eyes here too),
the ability to move backwards or forwards through a text at whatever
speed I choose (try doing
that at a poetry reading, especially if you don't have the text in
front of you). I like the way
online reading favors (or seems to) individual poems over
collections. I especially like the way,
reading online, the poet isn't placed between the text and the
reader. I like what I hear in my
ear when I'm reading well (and that's not always, to be sure, but
it's much more often that what
occurs, for me, at even the best of readings (the standing-up poet
kind). Nothing against paper,
but I love the feel the keys, the sleek, smooth feel of a touch-pad.
Hal
"We are in the age of nerves. The muscle hangs,
Like a memory, in museums . . ."
--Vicente Huidobro
Halvard Johnson
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On Sep 13, 2006, at 11:23 PM, Mark Weiss wrote:
> Your initial reaction did seem out of character. Apology accepted.
>
> Poetry online. Partly it's the simple mechanics of old eyes
> confronting a bright screen. But I think there's something more to
> it, if not a whole lot. I should start by saying that I have
> nothing in theory against publishing on line, god knows I've done a
> lot of it. But for me the act of reading is an intimate, very
> private experience, even when I read to an audience. The computer
> feels distancing to me. The need to scroll down is probably part of
> it--a lot of reading is the ability of the eye to reread at will
> and at random, and I experience it as part of the process of
> learning how to read the poem: I tend not to be very interested in
> any poem that I don't need to learn how to read (only the difficult
> stimulates growth, according to Lezama Lima, and I'm with him).
> Which is a big piece of why I go to readings and why I give them--
> curiosity about how the poet (myself included) on a given occasion
> understands the movement of the poem, phoneme by phoneme and breath
> by breath (I never read a poem exactly the same way twice--it's
> something like performing a piece of music). A poem, it seems to
> me, has a very complex timeline for the reader, a process unfolding
> peculiarly in time. The computer seems to enforce linearity. I
> suppose that I also miss the feel of the paper--keyboard or mouse
> are very different tactile experiences.
>
> On political poetry: it's probably a good idea to remember how
> different the discussion would be outside the anglophone world,
> even in a country as close as France, where Mallarme's art for
> art's sake position was revolutionary, and exceptional, post Hugo
> and Baudelaire and pre-surrealism. In Latin America it's been
> expected that the poet will be a political actor since at least the
> early 19th century, in verse and in public presence. In even the
> self-avowedly least political Cuban poets, for instance, like
> Baquero or Kozer, one doesn't have to read very far before bumping
> into something that bears a political scent. Kozer, who's adamant
> about being apolitical in his poetry, although he's acknowledged to
> me that there are moments, has said that the decision not to be
> political is a political statement, which in his context it
> certainly is.
>
> I've been moving boxes all day, and I'm beyond exhausted. Time for
> someone else to pick this up.
>
> Mark
>
>
>
> At 11:47 AM 9/13/2006, you wrote:
>> Mark,
>>
>> Back from work now and have a little more time to answer.
>>
>> You've raised a lot of interesting issues: the role of the
>> concrete, the abstract and so on. The idea of the cost to a poet
>> seems to get more and more complex the more I think about it, and
>> I realise you're not just talking about calories or kilowatts.
>>
>> I'm sorry that I was unfair to you. I did have some notion that
>> your last number of posts in reply to Alison were all negative,
>> and was a little concerned that there might be something behind
>> this. I meant well, however deluded I my attempts. As you point
>> out, I didn't go back and analyse or do anything that would have
>> clarified things even to myself. I'm glad I was barking up the
>> wrong tree. I'm not glad I sounded off incorrectly and at your
>> expense. I apologise.
>>
>> I'm interested in your saying that you are uncomfortable reading
>> poems online. If you got a chance I'd be interested in hearing
>> more about this.
>>
>> best
>>
>> Randolph
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