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Impossible to respond to this without examples of what bothers you. The one you give is decidedly odd. I can't think of a less "concealing" poet than Olson. -----Original Message----- >From: Peter Riley <[log in to unmask] >Subject: Re: Northern > >I've no problems with the discussion taking place now, except that I >remain a spectator, not willing to cross a sideline of my own making. >I've always had a problem with poetry that disables itself from >saying. I know there's a mass of theory and explanation that justifies >not saying, but I don't trust that either. What I've always wanted >from poetry is enhanced saying. > >By "saying" I don't just mean statements about the world or the self >or the price of fish. I also mean the language structures with which >you'd make a narrative, or a song so that people know here they are. > >But the big obstacle has always been >Most of the avant-garde is at the other end of the football field from >this point of view, but some isn't and the borderline is fuzzy. Some >stuff, like perhaps Geraldine's, hovers on the edge of avant-garde: >there is a clear urge to say, complicated by a not-saying which seems >to be part of the urgency. Other poets are full of the urgency of >saying but take pains to conceal the message (I can't help thinking of >Olson at this point). > >Once someone's poetry is committed to not-saying there's nothing I can >do with it, least of all evaluate it. Surely when you "enlarge" the >poetry into that kind of condition you also shrink it to a narrowness.