Hi Michael,
As Van Morrison has it in one of his songs:
"When people understand what I say,
There'll be days like this."
As well as when he cites Blake's Four Zoas or Patrick Kavanagh, his own
compositions sound mercifully different from the telephone book. Though I
regret missing what must have been a galvanizing performance from the
Toronto Telephone Directory.
Jamie
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2014 11:55 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: the avant garde vs. the lyrical
Hi Jamie
I didn't understand everything you said but if I were to perceive and argue
for lyricism in a phone-book context that would be very far indeed from
conceiving it as a practical song-text, so I think Van Morrison's
hypothetical honour would be saved.
Obviously the shared assumption of this classic of blurb-hyperbole is that
the telephone directory is NOT a good song-text; and of course I agree with
this. Popular song is very much wedded to the drama of shaped syntax so I
don't think name-lists or street-signs have a lot of potential as
song-lyrics. For me one of the core fascinations of sound poetry is how do
you give it that line in the absence of syntax, how do you stop it being
just a succession of sound-effects.
I think most of us recognize a list to be a mechanical sort of thing,
something it would be a challenge to put any feeling into reciting. But
there's no doubt that a list can sometimes be very eloquent. I always
eagerly examine the shopping lists that other people leave in supermarket
trolleys, though it feels a bit intrusive to be doing it, they betray so
much about someone's life. Few diary-entries can evoke memory so precisely
as an old list of , say, debt-juggling or gift ideas for relatives. We
nature-lovers are addicted to itemizing our field experience in "arid"
lists.
The counterintuitive prominence of the list as a structural component in
modern poetry maybe has something to do with a recognition that description
always detracts from the bare name. Say "elm" and in a certain sense you
say all; more than if you try to evoke "the scrubby tangled weave of
coarsetoothed leaves" or something of that sort.
I'm rambling.. blame the web conference I'm listening to.
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