Candice, I believe you're absolutely right when you say
This issue of formalism relationship to poetry's memorization and
recitation
is important, I think.
After that we part company.
All poetry is "functionless," except to give pleasure of one form or
another -- intellectual, sensual, aesthetic, religious -- and I don't
care to rank those pleasures. Surely one may prefer some pleasures to
others, or prefer particular pleasures to come from particular sources,
or prefer one pleasure now and a different one an hour later. But even
if there were a heirarchy of pleasure, if two poems equally provide some
"higher" pleasure and one of the two additionally provides the pleasure
of memorability, I know which I'd choose. And I certainly don't
believe that memorable verse can't be politically or intellectually
serious.
Best,
Michael
> This issue of formalism relationship to poetry's memorization and
> recitation
> is important, I think. Maybe it signifies something more nostalgic than
> aesthetic, though. The original connection between poetry and memory was
> entirely functional, after all, and since we are not living in
> oral-cultural
> times or places, the forms that served as mnemonic devices no longer
> _serve_. What that says about the value of any poetry now being written
> in
> those functionless forms must be at the very least something to do
> with a
> difference of value as much as a different poetics. That some poetry
> lovers
> get a great deal of pleasure from memorizing and/or reciting poems which
> lend themselves to those practices says nothing more about their value
> than
> that they lend themselves to those practices, and vice versa obviously,
> as
> it does not reduce the value of a poem that lacks appeal for
> memorizers/reciters of poetry either. The value to this extent is all
> in the
> form, and surely poetry of any kind must be held to a higher standard:
> one
> that recognizes poetic thought, for instance, and distinguishes among
> poems
> (and maybe poets) on that basis.
>
> Candice
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