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I havent the technical intellect to cope with much philosophy
but I regret never finding a book by Deleuze (or D&G) in the
bookshop to buy and have a try at reading (I did spot a
Deleuze book a month ago but it didnt appear to be relevant).
And I am a simple soul.

REgarding the 'cracked ego' I cant interpret the term.
I base my thinking on my personal experience. And if you
suffer from schizophrenia and depression it is vital
to have a strong I to surface out of the weakness of the
personality (I should say I havent had a schizophrenic
episode for nearly twenty years). You hang onto the I
to maintain your place in the world.

And regarding the I there is nothing wrong with Dom's idea
of fictionalising it. Great fun. A good peg to hang the
language of poetry on. All poets are liars. But for me
I dont like straying too far from the truth because
the truth is what holds me together.



Douglas Clark, Bath, England           mailto: [log in to unmask]
Lynx: Poetry from Bath  ..........  http://www.bath.ac.uk/~exxdgdc/lynx.html

On Sat, 9 Nov 2002, Chris Jones wrote:

> I must check this out! Thanks Mark.
>
> I is dead, the poet said.
>
> /That aint grammatical, Poet.
>
> /(Of course, you do know I am God, and God is dead.)/
> /
>
> Dom wrote:
> But the point may simply be to
> get the view from somewhere else: an immanent perspective can still be
> an impersonal one, since not all of the things in the world capable of
> having a perspective are persons.
>
> Dom, this can be wild.... I am thinking something along this line about
> an immanent I that is no longer human, no longer a three dimensional
> character that is a distinct person. A type of irresponsible production
> by a dead God and so forth.
>
> Douglas Barbour wrote: It's not so much to get rid of the 'I' as to let
> it go free,
>
> Doug, this really does sound like a rather Deleuzian thing to say. (D&G
> argue this in the Rhizome Plateau, for example, and perhaps demonstrates
> the conventionality of D&G, as well, if you can read through my
> flippancy. I do agree.)
>
> Where does this thing come from that says:  get rid of the I or don't
> use it or using I is bad or whatever?  It may have something to do with
> the critique of the Subject in recent philosophy (and theory) but it
> would be a crude reading which simply claims; don't say I. Lacan's
> argument, from memory, that even when not using I, as in so-called
> objective language like journalism, there is still an implied I (so long
> since I read Lacan.)
>
> Douglas Clarke's post about the ego and needing to get the I and have a
> strong ego to write poetry I read as saying very much the same thing. (I
> think it was Doug Clarke, in a recent post. I wanted to keep the remark
> but can't find it, oh well.) Anyway, rather then giving this ego and I a
> Freudian reading in this post, which I felt didn't really work in terms
> of Freud's theory of the ego, there is another reading of gathering the
> I, making it a strong ego, and letting that go in poetry. In this sense
> this ego can be a cracked ego. It becomes too strong and it cracks
> itself, so to speak. In this freedom of the crack poetry happens. I may
> be giving Doug Clarke's comment a reading which may not be intended and
> running away with another reading, but it was a wonderful comment to
> make, so I am happy to run away with it.
>
>
> >
> > Douglas Barbour also wrote
> >   So where is the auto/bio/graphical that is not
> > also fictional, that is constructed within the poem?
> >
>
> I have just been reading this PhD thesis (Alistair Welchman , Wild above
> rule or art, Warwick, 1995) which finds a thought in Milton's Paradise
> Lost about the production of matter and the problem of  hylomorphism.
> There are two things happening, first the epic poem is already
> theretical but also the thesis writer runs away with this thought and
> puts it inside non-fiction prose, the academic technical language of
> philosophy, which is constrained by the rigors of logic such as logical
> contradiction and impossibility.  A distinction then can be made between
> non-fiction prose and poetry where poetry does not know the rules of
> logic such as contradiction and impossibility. Does poetry then only
> know the  possible?  Perhaps only in the sense of exhaustion which
> leaves only possibility? If poetry does not know the impossible then it
> also cannot know the possible, perhaps. Perhaps it only knows what is
> unknown?  Anyway, to leave the thesis (which goes on to argue for wild
> intransitive production after being infected by Milton) it also becomes
> obvious that placing prose fiction like short stories and novels with
> poetry is a more useful move then the verse/ prose distinction. Then
> questions arise as to biography, such as Edmund White's biography of
> Genet. Is this a non fiction biography or another Edmund White novel? It
> could be read as fiction. Anyway, to get to the point, distinctions
> rather then being absolute or set in place, can become mobile and be
> made for whatever may be useful. (You make up your own distinction as
> you need them.) So confessional can become say dramatic monolog, for
> example. Fiction as nomadic. The I word can be given a simliar treatment
> so as it no longer refers to the private production that is me and is
> always distinctly me. I can become landscape, for example, which may
> involve a sort of flattened character, ala JG Ballard. In the
> distinctions I may make this would have more to do with poetry then
> prose. It is a free I.  I can do what I damn well like!
>
> I have just been reading again joanne burns's monolog, real land. An
> excerpt follows:
>
>        i'm gonna be free,     travel round and see real land.     not
> maps in books, travel round in me own wheels.      not gonna have any
> boss breathin down me neck all day.     think i'll be a  semi-trailer
> driver. out on the road with me tranny.    ridin high in the cabin
> wearin what i like.
>
> that i character infected a character some time ago now which I am
> writing as third person and as an i character. Enouh anyway, I rave too
> long. (The lower case i also interests me, BTW)
>
> best wishes
>
> Chris Jones.
>