I have been interested in the discussion about Easter Wings, but have not
kept up with the whole discussion this far so if I restate something I beg
your pardon. Some time ago I
devised a freeze for an exhibition of church history, and one of the
elements I included alluded to this. I had a curate holding a sheet with
the poem displayed for the congregation while the minister read it from a
pulpit. It occurred to me that Herbert used the visual as a "lesson" in
order to reach the casual observer who may not read the poem, or who may be
unable to read the poem, so that everyone could find something in it. In
this way the whole poem can be seen as an act of devotion on the part of
Herbert.

Jim



----- Original Message -----
From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: British poets <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 28 July 1999 01:06
Subject: Re: nuke followup


> >But what has increasingly come to trouble me about these rather
determined
> >exercises in making sense of resistant poems or at any rate of coming to
> >"enjoy" them-- is the question of how you authenticate the object. To
put
> >it simply: how do you know that what you get from texts as a result of
> >these applications are actually qualities of the text itself, or how do
> >you know that you won't get just as good results from almost any text if
> >you treat it that way?
>
> This is a question that has come to interest me a lot, especially since
> reading a number of computer-generated poems, which did nothing for me
> but which seemed strikingly similar to other poems I had read that also
> did nothing for me. But then, I can only understand using those kinds of
> techniques, computer generated or not, in ways that are close to how
> Francis Bacon discusses "accident", as a way of disrupting perception in
> order to uncover a more "poignant" reality.
>
> I don't want to enter into any discussion about AI, except to point out
> that computers don't have bodies and, as Randolph suggests, consciousness
> is about a lot more than merely cerebral processes. There are
> suggestions, for example, that the processes of the immune system are a
> different kind of consciousness operating in the body, and there are
> legion examples of the close connections between physical, emotional and
> intellectual states (Catullus catching a cold from reading bad poetry is
> one). For me, the pleasures associated with poetry of all kinds stems
> from language which simultaneously calls on all these states. The words
> themselves and their relationships in a poem have sensual properties
> which attract my attention. If the attraction is strong enough, I'll
> read on, and again. I have no reason to read poetry I don't enjoy, and
> life's too short. But I don't mind being baffled, because I've learnt to
> trust an intuition that poetry that attracts me in this way will yield
> other kinds of meanings if I return to it. Also, I commonly fail to
> grasp what even straightforward poetry is "about" on first reading, so
> the division between what is immediately graspable and what isn't is not
> very obvious to me. I'm perfectly willing to admit I'm stupid, but for
> the sake of my vanity I prefer to think that what engages my attention on
> first reading is always the sounds, shapes and feelings of a poem. I
> can't understand how Stephen can say that the shape of Easter Wings is
> only tangential to the poem: the structure and the shape and the sound
> are so much part of its meaning that it seems nonsensical to privilege
> one above the other in terms of reading (or saying).
>
> Best
>
> Alison
>
>
>
>
> Alison Croggon
> PO Box 186
> Newport VIC 3015
> Australia
>
> Masthead Online: http://www.masthead.com.au
>
> Home Page: http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/bronte/338
>
>








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