[log in to unmask] wrote:
> It's OK, Alaric, I don't mind your making fun of my remarks. Two definitions
> may help us:
>
> "responsibility": In its primary meaning, it is defined (SOED) as being
> answerable for what you do, liable to be called to account. This is the way I
> am using the word. Other meanings more justify Alaric's dislike for the word,
> for they have middle class or indeed aristocratic connotations: morally
> accountable (1836), reliable and of good credit and repute (1691), respectable
> (1780). I do not claim myself to be a responsible poet, but I have always
> tried to make my work answerable for what it says. No doubt in some circles
> this is regarded as a fault -- if so, that is part of my being answerable, in
> this case to those who prefer open-ended interpretation, which I have no
> aggression towards.
>
I have always been very fond of Robert Duncan's deconstruction of the term
"responsibility" as "the ability to respond." An activation of the term that rids
it of the stuffy "bourgeois" layers, and can usefully accomodate both Doug's &
Alaric's sense of responsibility.
happy hops to all (tho I wish this bloody credit-card-hype season were over; long
live Easter: all you need to do is hardboil eggs.)
Pierre
--
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Pierre Joris
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http://www.albany.edu/~joris/
6 Madison Place
Albany NY 12202
tel: 518 426 0433
fax: 518 426 3722
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Nomadism answers to a relation that
possession cannot satisfy.
— Maurice Blanchot
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