Jeffrey: You write as if verbal description were 
an anatomy for artists class, where the object 
being drawn is so stable that every draftsman 
will see the same thing. It's a seeing with 
definite boundaries, and a lot of poetry imposes 
boundaries on itself. Remove the boundaries and 
what gets defined (what ought to get defined) in 
description is what's seen by a particular 
observer in a particular moment--a brief, 
knowable world. What may be recognized by the 
reader is not the object being observed ("wow--I 
know that tree or a tree just like it!") but a 
particular state of observation, a way or moment 
of being-in-the-world. That's not just language, 
any more than a figure drawing is just graphite, 
although it may at times be convenient to discuss it as such.

Mark

At 07:55 AM 8/28/2009, you wrote:
>I agree, Anny. This is why I think that it's impossible for any mode of
>writing to "express" or acurately describe reality. It can't be done. My
>gripe with Wordsworth is that he thinks it can be, and hence his poetry
>is clooged down with descriptions and his ruminations on such. A failed
>enterprise it is. All there is is language, and poetry is language
>manipulated to create "meanings".
>
>
>
>
>On Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:58:48 +0200, Anny Ballardini
><[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> >Practically, and in science fiction terms, Philip Dick's time loops. And
> >with glimpses of memory that make you ask yourself of the true
>nature of the
> >experience in a farcical Pirandellian/Leorpardian tragedy. In short,
>there
> >is not empiricism on these shores because experience is [usually] set
>by
> >others, sensory perception is predictable, and evidence is not only
>veiled
> >but impossible to reach since it is accurately and willfully hidden, or in
> >the better cases, impossible to grasp.
> >Ah the comfortable transcendental!
> >
> >On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 11:14 AM, John Hall
> ><[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> >
> >>  Dear List and Jeffrey
> >>
> >> Yes, I can see that my pairing of that indeed provocative quotation
>from
> >> Deleuze with a snippet from your (Jeffrey's) email could itself look
>like
> >> smart-ass provocation. And for that I apologise. It was as  much a
> >> self-provocation as anything. I go through an experience of a
>leaking away
> >> of any meaning from certain reassuring paired terms (in this case
> >> 'empirical' and 'transcendental'), the more they are used as though
>they
> >> were self-evident. I take it that in this context 'empirical' is being
>used
> >> to bring together two not necessarily identical ideas: knowledge
>through
> >> experience and verifiable knowledge through the sensorium. On this
> >> assumption I am plunged into eddies of contradiction - or do I mean
>paradox?
> >> For example, in these terms 'experience' is not itself easily
>amenable to
> >> empirical narration let alone verification. The isolation of 'an'
>experience
> >> for narration and meditation is perhaps what is particularly in mind
>here
> >> (and of course what is often found there could be described as
> >> 'transcendental' - certainly in Wordsworth). Is meditation an
>empirical
> >> process? Can 'empiricism' be arrived at empirically? Isn't it a very
> >> unempirical idea? (Deleuze?)
> >>
> >> Have there been two lines of 'empiricism', when the term is applied
>to
> >> modes of poetry: one that finds a world made up of 'objects', into
>which
> >> indeed the poem as a new object can enter; and one in which it is
>made up of
> >> atomised experiences, where the poet is not so much curator of
>things as an
> >> existential commentator on what Andrew Crozier called
>the 'discrete'?
> >> ('Thrills and Frills: poetry as figures of empirical lyricism') (And a
> >> third which treats 'language' as an empirical given, (transcendental
> >> over-thing among things)?)
> >>
> >> Here is slightly more of that excerpt from Deleuze's 'Preface to the
> >> English Edition' of *Difference &Repetition*. He is waving aside, I
>think,
> >> a supposed dichotomy between *concept *and *thing.*
> >> "This is the secret of empiricism. Empiricism is by no means a
>reaction against
> >> concepts, nor a simple appeal to lived experience. On the contrary, it
> >> undertakes the most insane creation of concepts ever seen or
>heard. Empiricism
> >> is a mysticism and a mathematicism of concepts, but precisely one
>which
> >> treats the concept as object of an encounter, as a here-and-now, or
>rather
> >> as an *Erewhon *from which emerge inexhaustibly ever new,
>differently
> >> distributed 'heres' and 'nows'. Only an empiricist could say:
>concepts are
> >> indeed things, but things in their free and wild state,
>beyond 'anthropological
> >> predicates'. I make, remake and unmake my concepts along a
>moving horizon,
> >> from an always decentred centre, from an always displaced
>periphery which
> >> repeats and differenciates (*sic*) them."
> >>
> >> All best
> >>
> >> John
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: British & Irish poets [mailto:BRITISH-IRISH-
>[log in to unmask]<[log in to unmask]>]
> >> On Behalf Of Jeffrey Side
> >> Sent: 27 August 2009 23:26
> >> To: [log in to unmask]
> >> Subject: Re: "Has British Poetry had any significance since
>Wordsworth?"
> >>
> >>
> >> Pierre, you may be right. I felt the Deleuze quote was an attempt to
> >> provoke me as it was just "thrown" at me with no comment given. I
>still
> >> think that it does not reflect Wordsworth's ideas about the matter.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >--
> >Anny Ballardini
> >http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
> >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
> >http://www.lulu.com/content/5806078
> >http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
> >I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
> >star!
> >Friedrich Nietzsche
> >
> >« Stulta est clementia, cum tot ubique
> >vatibus occurras, periturae parcere chartae »
> >Giovenale
> >