"Over heard detritus." Surely this IS poetry! If poetry merely flows from
reading poetry - classical, historic or contemporary - where's the audience,
save a circle of poets, ending up in a pretty incestuous art form.
As one who has both stood on stages to act and to speechify as a left wing
politician, poetry in England kind of kills me: the camps of either high
poetry or performance poetry (back to rhyming couplets) aren't good enough.
Or bad enough. Few in England would get the drift of Ron's reference to
"halfway between Brecht & Buddy Hackett."
Brecht was the best epic dramatist since Shakespeare. Yes, Brecht took on
literary/dramatic history but how did he break through class barriers to
create Epic Drama? Over heard detritus!
Come off the fence. Detritus is "shit." So we're talking "over heard shit."
My neighbour has beaten the shit out of young men and a woman and is 24
years old, hot foot from a spell in prison. We talk. I can hear every word
he utters in his flat. Is this the "shit" poetry leaves behind or do we take
this on board in someway?
If we want to take poetry forward to an audience beyond a university setting
alone we really have to rejoin with Ron here. Or else we just accept poetry
is fallen leaves not the falling.
Rupert xx
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Latta" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 6:09 PM
Subject: Re: "I HATE SPEECH" (or maybe not)
> "Tactical use" here seems kin to "plausible deniability"--meaning "I'm
> sloganeering for effect more than anything else." A look at Grenier's
> "Sentences" shows a huge number of speech-based pieces, overheard
> detritus:
>
> I've got to go over and get it
>
> I don't mind cars at night
>
> who
> ate
> the
> sherbet
> Laura
>
> Grenier's a nonstop talker, too.
>
> John Latta
>
> On Mon, 21 Jul 2008, Ron Silliman wrote:
>
>> If you read Grenier's essay, it's quite evident that this is a tactical
>> use
>> of that term, as in "the metaphor of speech has been totally overdone to
>> the
>> point that it's meaningless." It's also clear that Bob is really more
>> interested in the way words pop up in one's imagination & he tends to
>> recreate this in his readings in various inventive manners. His
>> performances
>> are halfway between Brecht & Buddy Hackett.
>>
>> Ron
>>
>
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