Yes, Doug, it's a cloudy 'answer', but a smoky nebulous drifting sense is
more the likeness of consciousness, and these questions that touch on the
nature of poetry and how we encounter it always twist in the mirror. What is
poetry eludes us and becomes a metaphor for what is consciousness, which
also escapes definition.
On 16 March 2010 14:56, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> That's a good way of putting it, Dave. I've just been participating in a
> discussion on Facebook, where I was agreeing more or less with Roger Day
> about the importance of the Pound-Williams line, as opposed to Eliot,
> especially the elder Eliot, yet the person who started the discussion was
> more interested in a different tradition (& the discussion had problems in
> defining what it was each individual was looking for: Roger & I were
> interested in what we could learn, as writers, from the poets we admired
> so, others were simply interested in what they read for a complex pleasure,
> which we also sought). So, back to Sheila's & your points, etc....
>
> I mean, I then went & got my Collected Olson & enjoyed n afternoon
> rereading some of the great poems that continue to men so much to me...(many
> would go elsewhere).
>
> Doug
>
> On 13-Mar-10, at 3:48 AM, David Bircumshaw wrote:
>
> I think the 'answer' as far there is one is that there's a constant
>> unconscious dialogue between what we have read and what is new to us and
>> this is prior to the magisterial essay-moment of judgement. It's
>> comparable
>> to how relationship networks form: a constant threading of like and
>> dislike,
>> attraction and aversion, as well as the facts of necessity.
>>
>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
>
> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
>
> Latest books:
> Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
> http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
> Wednesdays'
>
> http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
>
> The secret
>
> which got lost neither hides
> nor reveals itself, it shows forth
>
> tokens.
>
> Charles Olson
>
--
David Bircumshaw
"A window./Big enough to hold screams/
You say are poems" - DMeltzer
Website and A Chide's Alphabet
http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
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blog: http://groggydays.blogspot.com/
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