Okay, Joe, as Andrew said, intriguing thinking, but I think youre
rejecting some of what was the point: to say that something is
sentimental is to impose an outside reading.
On the other hand, I suspect it also has to do with the point Mark
brought up, that of craft (& as he implied, it doesnt really matter
whether or not the poet was sincere, only if the poem comes across as
being so). As a general non-reader of Wright, I can only say that I
read that particular poem & found it wanting, in terms of what I want
from a poem. Obviously far more readers disagree with my opinion of the
piece than those who do, & many of them probably do know Wright's work
so as to make the judgment based on context that you make.
I might change my mind if I went & read a lot of his work; I might not.
But world enough and time....
Doug
On 26-Oct-07, at 12:59 PM, joe green wrote:
> For me the problem with using the word “sentimental” to disapprobate
> a poem is that the concept seems imposed from an outside that has
> nothing to do with what a real poem is or does. It’s easy – it seems
> to me – and doesn’t begin to get at what’s there. Bergson already
> said all of this. The definitions – such as the one cited – seem to
> me to assume that a false sentimentality is what is being defined.
> Poetry is whatever manages to get said in spite of all the various
> systems and ideologies that exist to prevent that saying.
> If many, or this group or that group, want to impose a system that
> insists that poetry avoid the sentimental, than this is just what
> exists to be overcome, ignored, disregarded.
Douglas Barbour
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