I enjoyed Pete's linear jiggling, bringing out of those unyeilding weasels
a movement which wasn't there in the first place, and throwing me back on
the strength, the individuality of the lineation. I don't mean that's how
JHP oughta have done it of course: I mean it's instructive of what he
didn't do, and a perfectly valid strategy for examining any poetry, where,
in one sense or another, things like this count. JHP's linear forms are
tight, deliberate, and every bit as challenging as the words: in _For The
Monogram_ for instance we get a lineation apparently borrowed from
historical models, a pattern of indents which suggests a pattern of
emphasis within the sound which is simply not the case - it's not written
against, it's set aside, osistm. What is the effect of this on readers?
How do we cope with it? Do we say that the words somehow float freely, a
jazzy series of departure points above the implied bassline of absent
emphasis? I don't believe we do. Could we say that the rigour of the
language, combined with the rigour of the (implied but absent) structure
creates and exploits tensions in both? Again I'd have trouble with this.
Do we say it just doesn't matter, it's just prose chopped up jaggy? I
certainly hope not. It could be that I'm missing something obvious here...
I'm hoping here that someone will come up with a useable model here for
what I feel are urgent and effective structures, but I can't see how they
work. The tell-me-what-it-means squad will end up by showing that it's
good writing, good prose, but the tell-me-how-it-sounds crowd are the ones
who'll show us it's workings as poetry. I'd value a reply which was rooted
in the physicalities of this work, and doesn't need three critical
theorists to prop it up {:->.
RC
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