As to what we work with, I've been working in my head on a list of things
that poetry does NOT require. So far, I've got this (a partial list, and,
anyone who'd like to add, please feel free to do so; if you'd like to
argue, just include me out):
words, sentences, paragraphs, stanzas, meter, rhyme, images, metaphors . . .
Hal
"*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 2:47 PM, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> '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
> [log in to unmask]
>
> 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.
>
|