I think Harold has an interesting point. Brady's language does seem to me
florid and quite elaborately periphrastic; though also its -syntax- is so,
and not merely its diction. I had meant to hint at this by calling it
'excessive', I suppose we could also say 'aggregative' were we inclined
not to regard these poems as constituting any totality of completed
reference. I'm not sure that there are currently good reasons to object
to this kind of language, provided its copiousness (Cicero defined
eloquence as copiousness) is evidence of an anxiety to limit accidental
exclusion (or reaction, of insight etc.). I find that I'm more frequently
pestered by what could be the superfluity of -objects-, than by any
possible superfluity of -language- in reaction to them; perhaps there is a
bit of fetishism in clawing quite so many aspects of the world into
intimacy with one's own desire to articulate. Brady doesn't seem (in
Liberties) to recognize explicitly how this abundance of objects might
result in a kind of grossly inflated power of choice, but allows the
sentences to stagger fluently between them, registering hurt without
pointing out how any hurt so recursive might eventually appear -desired-,
or chosen (consumed). There: a little of negativity.
Any of us who were at SVP the other night will however have heard a string
of poems in which these questions seem to have been accounted for very
smartly. Particularly the last she read, 'post feste', and 'Sport -
Leisure - Fun - Pleasure' (I think it was called).
k
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