‘convincing’ is good, Max.
As to the sincerity Andrew was talking about, I don’t know; sure we write sometimes about what happened to us or others; narrative poems depend on that i guess.
I always think of Northop Frye on Milton’s ‘Lycidas,’ a poem that first appeared with many others in a book of elegies, but is really the only one still read (if only in grad seminars). Frye’s point was that Milton was, of all who wrote, the leaf close to the man elegized, & that his ‘sincerity’ was very much in doubt, if demean by that how sincerely he felt about the loss; but how sincerely he felt about the poem he was writing? How ‘sincerely’ it;s unfolding rope etc strike readers? Ah, a different story.
So, with Tim, I come back to the ‘fact’ that words are what we work with & it’s in them, in how they go together that our writing comes.
I also recall, & still agree, with Robert Creeley’s statement, to the effect, that he writes what is given to him, not to some predetermined concept …
Doug
On Mar 16, 2015, at 11:42 AM, Halvard Johnson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> As in Hollywood, sincerity in poetry is easily faked.
>
> "*Vraiment*,
> Poetry can be so many more things
> Than what people mostly believe it is."
>
> --Anselm Hollo
>
> Halvard Johnson
> ================
>
> [log in to unmask]
>
> <http://www.amazon.com/Remains-To-Be-Seen-Works/dp/1933132787/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367618323&sr=8-1&keywords=Halvard+Johnson>
> Trapeze <http://issuu.com/swirlmag/docs/halvard_johnson> <--- Newest!
> Junkyard Dog
> <http://gradientbooks.blogspot.fi/2015/01/halvard-johnson-junkyard-dog.html>
> <--- New!
>
> On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 9:51 AM, Tim Allen <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Can't let this pass. 'Slippery fish' sincerity certainly is, especially
>> when used in the same sentence with 'true facts'.
>>
>> I wanted to come in on this when Bill said that thing about a word must
>> never precede an idea, something which is not just problematic but probably
>> impossible- but I never because it gets into that tricky realm of whether
>> ideas are always made of words and if not what? pictures, feelings etc -
>> but then when pictures or feelings get transferred into ideas don't words
>> get involved? - don't go there, it's a swamp. So I didn't. I know that if I
>> sat around waiting for an 'idea' before writing a poem I might have written
>> about 20 poems in my life instead of 2000 etc - mind you, they might be 20
>> very long poems.
>>
>> Seriously though, sincerity is a real sod to talk about in relation to
>> poetry. The multiplicity of voices and tricks of utterance that are
>> involved in poetry (never mind the variety of functions that poetry can
>> perform) make the normal meaning of sincerity meaningless, and that
>> includes the kind of sincerity that Andrew seems to be referring to.
>>
>> Sincerity in poetry is something else, something that has nothing to do
>> with 'true facts', whatever they are.
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Tim A.
>>
>> On 16 Mar 2015, at 05:06, Andrew Burke wrote:
>>
>>> Oh what a slippery fish sincerity is when speaking of creativity. For my
>>> practice, the 'true facts' are my basic sincerity, as I see them or
>>> remember them, written in plain language
>>
>
Douglas Barbour
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Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuation 2 (UofAPress).
Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
There is no life that does not rise
melodic from scales of the marvelous.
To which our grief refers.
Robert Duncan.
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