Certainly agreed, Mark, and powerfully so, with your "The impossibility of 
the task is what I think keeps us at it.  It's like scratching an itch that 
won't go away."

Conventions in poetry - the ways others' responses to experiences have been 
displayed/exploited - land on us.  The impossible itch-scratchings you refer 
to are our best efforts - oh the joy and the hell! - to dowse our own 
startling elegance in the conventions.

Judy

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Weiss" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 1:16 AM
Subject: Re: Kitsch poem: The Four Seasons


> Judy: A generalization to the order that all language is a matter of 
> conventions may not have much to do with how most of us operate as poets. 
> It's not, I think, a matter of choosing between conventions so much as 
> being aware of the conventions that replace thought and feeling. The 
> delete button is a wonderful thing.
>
> While one never gets beyond the conventions of language (or for that 
> matter the organization of neurons), if one understands poetry as a 
> vehicle for exploration the task is to keep challenging them in one's own 
> practice. Each layer of convention may bring one closer to the object 
> beyond language, though language, no matter how precise it becomes, will 
> remain an approximation and never become the thing in itself.
>
> Remember Dorn's Literate Projector? Put in phenomena and it spits out a 
> poem. Would that it were so easy.
>
> The impossibility of the task is I think what keeps us at it. It's like 
> scratching an itch that won't go away.
>
> Mark
>
> At 08:27 PM 10/29/2007, you wrote:
>>Sorry, Doug; I'd thought you were wrestling with 
>>not-yet-exposed-to-other-conventions students at the beginning of the 
>>term. I don't envy you for what you have to do!  But I know, as one of 
>>your students, I'd have been hugely and positively changed by your efforts 
>>and your attention to any of my tryings.
>>
>>Best,
>>
>>Judy
>>
>>----- Original Message ----- From: "Douglas Barbour" 
>><[log in to unmask]>
>>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>Sent: Monday, October 29, 2007 3:14 PM
>>Subject: Re: Kitsch poem: The Four Seasons
>>
>>
>>>Well, yes, certainly, Judy. It's the actual dismissal of the wider 
>>>conventions (ie, an aversion to reading almost anything, let alone what 
>>>has become accepted as 'poetry' through a process which we could argue 
>>>about forever), while, unconsciously following the narrow few they know 
>>>(but dont know they know: Rumsfeld where art thou?) that leads to this 
>>>'sincere' but lousy verse.
>>>
>>>Except that, for their close ones, it probably does work. Mark's (I 
>>>think) point about specific audience(s), perhaps....
>>>
>>>Doug
>>>On 28-Oct-07, at 10:31 AM, Judy Prince wrote:
>>>
>>>>Good points, Doug, that I want to skew a bit.  Those writers +do+ write 
>>>>from heart and experience - using phrases and forms they know (as you 
>>>>point out). Other writers who know more phrases and forms will choose 
>>>>amongst them. +All+ the phrases and forms are "conventions" (a neutral 
>>>>term).  Choosing from a breadth of conventions seems optimum; 
>>>>nevertheless, some folks' choosings from their wide knowing create 
>>>>pancake-flat poems.  Getting the chance to +know+ many conventions from 
>>>>which to adopt, combine and reject is the treasure.
>>>>
>>>>Best,
>>>>
>>>>Judy
>>>Douglas Barbour
>>>11655 - 72 Avenue NW
>>>Edmonton  Ab  T6G 0B9
>>>(780) 436 3320
>>>http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
>>>
>>>Latest book: Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
>>>http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
>>>
>>>It's the first lesson, loss.
>>>Who hasn't tried to learn it
>>>at the hands of wind or thieves?
>>>
>>>Jan Zwicky