I used to be the Relatives, but now I'm the dead man.
jd
On Jan 11, 2008 2:20 PM, Frederick Pollack <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Douglas Barbour" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 1:13 PM
> Subject: Re: three poems
>
>
> > Ha, I agree, & add that your irony (if not sarcasm) is in full flight
> > here, Fred.
> >
> > But I wasn't sure if Nerdrum was just a terrific invention, as name, as
> > this painter, or, as Max indicates, 'real.' Works both ways I think.
> >
> > Can none of us talk to such as 'The Relatives'? I'm not sure, but do
> know
> > bpNichol would have managed to; he could talk to anyone....
> >
> > Doug
>
>
> No, he's quite real - check out his website. A critic once described his
> work as "the sets for 'Mad Max' as done by Rembrandt.'" The incident of
> the
> student's painting, and his angry repudiation of "art" in favor of
> "Kitsch"
> (see his "On Kitsch"), are also real. He's one of three painters with
> whom
> I feel a special affinity; the others are Beckmann and Phil Guston. I'm
> very glad you feel "Girl in White" works even if one doesn't know N's
> work;
> I worried about that.
>
> As for talking to The Relatives - sure, you can talk to them. Every
> Western
> capitalist nation has that "pidgin" that allows speakers to ignore
> differences of class, education, interest, and ideology. One can even be
> charming in this pidgin; I'm sure nichols could be. The problem is it
> doesn't communicate much. As soon as one says something the other doesn't
> already know or believe, it breaks down; because one is then in the
> position
> of having to *teach something and Relatives don't want to be taught. They
> regard it as demeaning. The poem isn't about a particular wake but about
> class warfare, or warfare involving differences in cultural capital (which
> is complexly related to the other kind). My whole aim as a poet is to
> press
> on raw nerves, and in the US these differences are the rawest nerve of
> all.
>
--
Joseph Duemer
Professor of Humanities
Clarkson University
[sharpsand.net]
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