Stephen: [ ] is a standard schoarly tool. with nothing in between it
means missing, with something in between it means supplied by the
editor, with sic in between it means it's the author's mistake not
mine.The use you're talking about is as musical notation, and also
because it looks nice. As one way of notating silence, something like
a rest in music, it's like all notations of silence (or for thaat
matter duration) subject to interpretation (rather more than a
musical rest) unless one is Duncan.
How's your metrical feet today?
Mark
At 05:00 PM 11/10/2006, you wrote:
>1. I think the use of parenthesis is not related to [ ]'s, at least as I
>have used them.. I have always loved this Roethke poem by the way - the
>robust sensuality of its moves and counter-moves.
>But I think the function of the parens here, is a contrapuntal or
>anti-phonal device (what is the right word?) - where the parens is kind of
>an 'off stage' comment/reflection - ironic and/or humorous on the action
>that has filled the stanza.
>
>2. On way of looking at the use of [ ]'s, is to envision the poem as a
>material space, a kind of canvas, one in which [ ]'s create a negative
>space. A kind of shadow under which x,y or z image may be taking place - as
>implied by the facts represented in the visible text. The [ ]'s my also
>imply or insist on a a silence (a stillness) between the poem's different
>phases or movements.
>Ann Carson's translations of Sappho use [ ]s to indicate that the papyrus
>is broken or empty between or before words. In reality the use of the
>brackets creates a suspense, and/or permits the imagination to fulfill what
>may or may not be missing in the poem (or to confront the void of what is
>missing).
>
>I played with brackets a bunch in my 'transversions' of Carson's
>translations and her use of brackets. I find them very playful, and a great
>way to liberate a poem from a predictable prosody, at least the expectations
>of a familiar prosody. Again, it is also a way of converting a poem in a
>material space - the poem as a 'literal' canvas that you can work like a
>painter.
>
>Here is just a brief example from my transversion of one the Carson pieces:
>
>
>4.
> ]heartless
> ]tentative
> ]I will not
> ]not for you
> ]darkness
>
> ]
> ]the footfall
> ]
> ]pure crimson
> ]
>
>
>If you want to find some more examples of these, go to:
>
>Sleeping With Sappho (a faux ebook) now at:
>http://www.fauxpress.com/e/vincent/
>
>Or Masthead (the 2005) issue has a good selection.
>
>Stephen V
>http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
>Now with a couple pieces from "Letters to Jack" (Spicer),
>A work in progress.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > I knew a woman
> >
> > by Theodore Roethke
> >
> > I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
> > When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
> > Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
> > The shapes a bright container can contain!
> > Of her choice virtues only gods could speak,
> > Or English poets who grew up on Greek
> > (I'd have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek).
> >
> > How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,
> > She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand,
> > She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin;
> > I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;
> > She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
> > Coming behind her for her pretty sake
> > (But what prodigious mowing we did make).
> >
> > Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
> > Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;
> > She played it quick, she played it light and loose;
> > My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;
> > Her several parts could keep a pure repose,
> > Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
> > (She moved in circles, and those circles moved).
> >
> > Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay;
> > I'm martyr to a motion not my own;
> > What's freedom for? To know eternity.
> > I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
> > But who would count eternity in days?
> > These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
> > (I measure time by how a body sways).
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