Check out Book II of Gunslinger, in which the "I" of the poem
has died.
What
happened to I she asked
his eyes don't seem right.
I is dead, the poet said.
That aint grammatical, Poet.
and much fun and philosophy thereafter.
At 08:05 AM 11/8/2002 -0700, you wrote:
Chris
It's not so much to get rid of the 'I' as to let it go free, & to
recognize
how multifarioous it can be. So where is the auto/bio/graphical that is
not
also fictional, that is constructed within the poem? Discussions of
O'Hara,
for example (& I choose him simply because of class discussions this
week),
note that although everything he writes is about his life, he is
not
confessionsl, & in fact he keep shifting pronouns throughout even
the
shortest poems, as if to say just what is this I, & who speaks
through it.
There's also that fine little poem of Creeley's that begins:
As soon as
I speak, I
speaks. It
wants to
be free but
impassive lies
in the direction
of its
words. ...
Which puts it as clearly as possible I think...
Doug
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
You know, verse
is a lovely thing.
It issues,
like the vapors,
from the rock
Charles Olson
