This gives me an idea: I could get a list of subscribers who would pay me
nopt to bother them with my poetry. I could retire early!
jd
On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 11:28 AM, Dominic Fox <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Poetry has nuisance value.
>
> "Nuisance value" is the value of a frivolous insurance claim or lawsuit:
> the amount the entity on the receiving end will pay you, even though your
> claim is meritless, just to make you go away. It's a measure of the
> overheads of whatever system is used to resolve such claims - the cost, to
> the winner, of winning without having to fight over anything of substance.
>
> More generally, then, nuisance value is a measure of the *noise* in the
> system. In the case of language, poetry presents what may be frivolous
> demands on the hearer's time and cognitive powers. Its claims are not
> transparently resolvable. There may after all be something in it. You will
> have to pay a certain amount of attention in order to find out whether there
> is or not. (Even poetry that is limpidly accessible, forthright and direct
> may actually be disguising an underlying vacuity). A poem is a bid for the
> share of attention needed to look into the matter. Its value is precisely
> what would pay the poet to shut up, go away and stop bothering you instead.
>
> Dominic
>
--
Joseph Duemer
Professor of Humanities
Clarkson University
Weblog: sharpsand.net
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