It may be there's some definition drift going on in Britain, I can't
say, but not in the US as far as I know. John's usage is the first
such I've seen.
This has nothing to do with whether or not one revised. Almost
everyone--including Ginsberg, by the way--revises in some manner. Nor
does it have to do with singularity of intention. I'm not alone in
finding myself creating, often, forests rather than individual trees.
But I'm curious what a planned open form poem would look like. Surely
there's a set of expectations about what open form means to John that
would be evident in the product?
Best,
Mark
At 11:16 AM 4/15/2010, you wrote:
>Maybe Mark, and of course Creeley is crucial with regard to this - but
>here in the UK I have witnessed the term 'open form' being used in the
>way John used it. Questions of revision and refining come into this,
>don't they? And there is rarely a single intention going on in an
>initial poem draft - what happens with the final poem, with the way
>many Brit mainstream poems come across, is that there is an imposition
>of an artificial single intention - a making it look as though it is
>all of one and was from the very beginning. It's a trick, a tired
>trick.....
>
>I must stop writing these posts - I sit here at the machine to write
>my poems and find myself doing this instead.
>
>Tim A.
>
>On 15 Apr 2010, at 15:59, Mark Weiss wrote:
>
>>Then it's not open form. I think my understanding of the term is
>>pretty universal.
>>
>>At 10:16 AM 4/15/2010, you wrote:
>>>I don't necessarily agree with this assertion, Mark. I know that I
>>>have, in
>>>fact, planned so called 'open form' poetry.
>>>John Herbert Cunningham
>>>
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics
>>>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
>>>Behalf Of Mark Weiss
>>>Sent: April-15-10 8:41 AM
>>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>>Subject: Re: review of the new Les Murray
>>>
>>>Does it matter?
>>>
>>>My understanding of open and closed form (I work in the former) has
>>>nothing to do with "form" as in sonnet, prose poem (a form in a very
>>>different sense of the word), etc, but with how one goes about it.
>>>Recollected in tranquility is closed form--the poet knows where
>>>he/she's going before he/she starts. Closed form. Or discovers form
>>>and its extension content (and vice versa) in process. Open form.
>>>Using the word form in yet another sense.
>>>
>>>Best,
>>>
>>>Mark
>>>
>>>At 07:47 AM 4/15/2010, you wrote:
>>> >After reading numerous prose poems or things purported to be prose
>>>poems,
>>> >I'm still in the dark about what constitutes same and what the
>>>discernible
>>> >difference is between prose (particularly now that we have a
>>>category
>>>called
>>> >'postcard fiction') and the prose poem?
>>> >John Herbert Cunningham
>>> >
>>> >-----Original Message-----
>>> >From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics
>>>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
>>> >Behalf Of Tim Allen
>>> >Sent: April-15-10 5:32 AM
>>> >To: [log in to unmask]
>>> >Subject: Re: review of the new Les Murray
>>> >
>>> >Well yes Doug, the shift has by no means been absolute, just
>>> >considerable enough to my mind to be worth mentioning.
>>> >
>>> >My bias too has always been towards open forms but the
>>>relationship of
>>> >lots of little open forms to a more fixed macro form that
>>>encompasses
>>> >the lot, such as in many modern long poems and sequences, is
>>> >problematic.
>>> >
>>> >Is the prose poem (or what we normally think of as being a prose
>>>poem)
>>> >an open or closed form?
>>> >
>>> >Tim A.
>>> >
>>> >On 14 Apr 2010, at 20:49, Douglas Barbour wrote:
>>> >
>>> > > Um? I would not assume any such shift as absolute, that's for
>>>sure.
>>> > > But, indeed, one finally has to come back to what works, & that's
>>> > > how well any particular poet does the job at hand. (Though I
>>>admit
>>> > > my bias is toward the open not the closed forms...
>>> > >
>>> > > Doug
>>> > > On 14-Apr-10, at 4:03 AM, Tim Allen wrote:
>>> > >
>>> > >> I have written before concerning the subtle shift in the
>>>ideology
>>> > >> of free verse from progressive to reactionary that has taken
>>>place
>>> > >> over the past 30 years.
>>> > >
>>> > > 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 .
>>>h
>>> >tml
>>> > >
>>> > > The secret
>>> > >
>>> > > which got lost neither hides
>>> > > nor reveals itself, it shows forth
>>> > >
>>> > > tokens.
>>> > >
>>> > > Charles Olson
>>>
>>>Announcing The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry (University
>>>of California Press).
>>>http://go.ucpress.edu/WholeIsland
>>>
>>>"Not since the 1982 publication of Paul Auster's Random House Book of
>>>Twentieth Century French Poetry has a bilingual anthology so
>>>effectively broadened the sense of poetic terrain outside the United
>>>States and also created a superb collection of foreign poems in
>>>English. There is nothing else like it." John Palattella in The
>>>Nation
>>
>>Announcing The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry (University
>>of California Press).
>>http://go.ucpress.edu/WholeIsland
>>
>>"Not since the 1982 publication of Paul Auster's Random House Book
>>of Twentieth Century French Poetry has a bilingual anthology so
>>effectively broadened the sense of poetic terrain outside the United
>>States and also created a superb collection of foreign poems in
>>English. There is nothing else like it." John Palattella in The
>>Nation
>
>Announcing The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry (University
>of California Press).
>http://go.ucpress.edu/WholeIsland
>
>"Not since the 1982 publication of Paul Auster's Random House Book
>of Twentieth Century French Poetry has a bilingual anthology so
>effectively broadened the sense of poetic terrain outside the United
>States and also created a superb collection of foreign poems in
>English. There is nothing else like it." John Palattella in The
>Nation
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