OK Richard, I'll oblige, but just this once...

On Wednesday, November 24, 1999 11:12 PM, Richard wrote:

> - ok, fair cop, Labi - perhaps I should've put that the other way
> about, "self-evident but pretty important".

Self-evidently you should have. Strange then that you repeat the error:

 >I mean, I genuinely don't
> think we need to debate the fact that everything's political
> particularly after all this time, as in "we hold these truths to be
> self-evident".

Being genuine or sincere is a defence/justification as old as the first act
of cruelty.

What do you mean "after all this time"? "After all this time" for who?
To use a Netherlands expression, you seem to believe that as far as either
of
these propositions is concerned, you're "the only book in the world".
OK, perhaps *you* understand/believe/live by them; venture beyond your front
door
(even vicariously via TV) and you should notice that many, perhaps most
(armed militarily and/or economically and/or patriarchally) *don't*
understand/believe/live by them.

It is clearly not self-evident to you that certain "truths", such as
"we hold these truths to be self-evident..." have to be repeated, debated,
re-examined, re-affirmed with each generation, indeed with each birth.

Merely search Hate Groups/White Supremacists/Christian Family Groups etc on
the net
and you will find your "self-evident propositions" are merely matters of
opinion.
While we play this little game, the fundamentals of human rights (which I
hope, but do not presume,
we agree upon) are being turned upside down and re-written (mixed with the
popular lyric
"everybody needs someone to despise/hate/feel superior to").
The resulting sewage is being eagerly devoured by millions of adults (of
disparate faiths and cultures)
regurgitated and fed to their children. Your complacency is cause for
concern.

>The machete man in Ruanda who you posit, and his
> counterparts all over the world, wouldn't stop to debate it, nor wd he
> / they act differently either side of a debate about it. That's
> angels-on-pinheads for you. I'd certainly no intention to demean your
> argument, which I respect.

Had the proposition "we hold these truths to be self-evident..." been
available and truly *believed*
and acted upon, during the previous four hundred years, the machete man in
Rwanda,
an icon posited by his too numerous existence, may well have been
*harmlessly* nurturing
decadent capitalism (by tilling the soil or checking the till preparatory to
buying the latest fashion accessory,
DVD player or perhaps even a book of poems). Instead, he was bloodily
dividing his countries future.

> >There are people in poetry who tell us what rhythms we should like. They
> >give these rhythms names.
> - not me, mate:

Good grief, there you go again, mate. Who said *you*?
As everything, including chaos, has a rhythm... names (and thus
sanction/legitimacy)
are given to the ones we register/recognise/like/accept as "valid"; e.g. the
anapaest, the shuffle,
various iambics,the waltz, the trochee, ligging, the dactyl, the boogie and,
I'm sure,
many others to be found catalogued in reference books.
What some in the plastic arts call rhythm, others (me included) call
balance.
It's an endless debate of infinite definitions.

> the thread started with a set of academic definitions
> of rhythm, which many of the listmembers (as I recall) sought to link
> back to the necessities of poetry as a physical presence - I'm sorry
> if this seems like angels-on-pinheads to you; to me it seems one vital
> part of the articulation of (amongst other things) your
> everything's-political point.

Angels-on-pinheads is neither derogatory nor frivolous. I suspect that
at the time it was raised, an incorrect response may well have resulted in
someone's death (in some places this probably still applies). However,
as I said, the question is an endless one, as is the debate about rhythm;
thus the list
(rant as you call it) which I kept brief but hoped would illustrate my
angels-on-pinheads point (clearly it did not).

> > A major problem for the poet, if rhythm is
> >essential to the "meaning" of your work, is in getting the reader to
read
> >the rhythms you have written.
>
> - ain't that the truth. One way (only one way) is to read it aloud, to
> articulate the rhythm yourself. "Poetry must be read aloud" a great
> man once said. Self-evidently. However, I've been reading (my own and
> others') poetry meself for some years now, and when I just DON'T get
> any sense of what's going on rhythmically in someone's poem, well, I
> feel at least justified in asking.

I'm used to registering rhythm by feel. Have been doing so, consciously,
since the age of 11.
In Jazz, and it's derivatives, you don't ask...you feel. For me, it's been
the same with poetry.
>From my first poem I recognised the rhythmic path I wanted to take
(completely different, incidentally, to that in song).
For good or ill, what I perceive as the academic approach confirms to me the
sad fact that even today
(though things are improving) too many classically trained musicians can't
swing (Kennedy...luv ya...
but puh-lease leave Hendrix alone!). The rhythm can be notated... but though
you can read it,
if you can't feel it... you can't do it.

In literature, some know how to fashion words the way a river flows...
many do well enough not to jar, and too many make words flow like a car
with square wheels on a boulder strewn road...it's still rhythm, but it
doesn't get me.
On the other hand, there is the rhythm of ideas. This can compensate for a
lack
of textual rhythm... and on and on and on we go... doing interesting things
on the heads of pins.

As to "a set of academic definitions of rhythm" I offer this:
If you want to know the secret of Funk, repeat after me:
"Mamas' little baby loves short'nin', short'nin
Mama's little baby loves short'nin bread".
That's the secret of Funk (ask George Clinton). Funny thing is, if you
listen
carefully ...you realise that Ludwig van B knew that very same thing.

> no way can I answer
> all those questions without descending to angels-on-pins level. This
> rhythm thing I'm still trying to work out for myself, for my own
> practice, and I rather object to people making generalised global
> assumptions about it. It's not academic, it's real and physical,
> worked out on the air according to personal necessity, or it's
> nothing. OK, now let's talk about it!

As to global generalisations, your founding proposition that once you and
some others
understand something, it becomes self-evident and can be taken as read, is
a common
and very dangerous global generalisation.

And finally ('cause, I'm tired of this...the discourse not the quest):
Surely you don't mean "OK, now that *you* have set the correct agenda, we
can talk about it?".

No, no, you couldn't possibly mean that.

Cheers
Labi

----- Original Message -----
From: Richard Caddel <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 1999 11:12 PM
Subject: Re: Rhythm, & the poem Metridium


> On Wed, 24 Nov 1999 20:36:21 -0000, Labi wrote:
>
> >Dear Richard,
> >
> >Funny thing about "important but pretty self-evident" propositions ... so
> >few realise how self-evident they are
>
> - ok, fair cop, Labi - perhaps I should've put that the other way
> about, "self-evident but pretty important". I mean, I genuinely don't
> think we need to debate the fact that everything's political
> particularly after all this time, as in "we hold these truths to be
> self-evident". The machete man in Ruanda who you posit, and his
> counterparts all over the world, wouldn't stop to debate it, nor wd he
> / they act differently either side of a debate about it. That's
> angels-on-pinheads for you. I'd certainly no intention to demean your
> argument, which I respect.
>
> >There are people in poetry who tell us what rhythms we should like. They
> >give these rhythms names.
>
> - not me, mate: the thread started with a set of academic definitions
> of rhythm, which many of the listmembers (as I recall) sought to link
> back to the necessities of poetry as a physical presence - I'm sorry
> if this seems like angels-on-pinheads to you; to me it seems one vital
> part of the articulation of (amongst other things) your
> everything's-political point.
>
> > A major problem for the poet, if rhythm is
> >essential to the "meaning" of your work, is in getting the reader to
read
> >the rhythms you have written.
>
> - ain't that the truth. One way (only one way) is to read it aloud, to
> articulate the rhythm yourself. "Poetry must be read aloud" a great
> man once said. Self-evidently. However, I've been reading (my own and
> others') poetry meself for some years now, and when I just DON'T get
> any sense of what's going on rhythmically in someone's poem, well, I
> feel at least justified in asking.
>
> >How important is the rhythm in the first sentence of this piece?
> >Important to communication / comprehension? An end in itself?
> >A means to an end?
> >Which of the last two is poetry while, of course, the sentence is not?
> >Can rhythm, poetically, suffice?
> >Which academic will release a treatise on this?
> >Who will hear the time in his/her expression?
> >Like soul, can you acquire it? Why, when people talk of poetry as song
> >do I feel the same irritation as when wine correspondents favour every
fruit
> >except the grape?
> >Should every babe be carried on a parents back as the parent dances?
> >How could an audience "getting down" clap on 1 & 3 to James Brown on
British
> >TV?
> >Was it because the audience was White and it was the Michael Ball Show?
> >If the rhythm of your mum's digestive system grabs you more than her
> >heartbeat...
> >should you forget about being a poet?
>
> - love the rant here, the rhetorical questions, and can agree directly
> with much of what's proposed (especially your scorn for the sloppy
> language of the poetry-as-song merchants) - but no way can I answer
> all those questions without descending to angels-on-pins level. This
> rhythm thing I'm still trying to work out for myself, for my own
> practice, and I rather object to people making generalised global
> assumptions about it. It's not academic, it's real and physical,
> worked out on the air according to personal neccessity, or it's
> nothing. OK, now let's talk about it!
>
> RC







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