Thanks for these links, Alison. I enjoyed reading this, and
I've been reading with interest this continuing thread. I think
you're right to distinguish between poems which reference
music rather than drawing on its structures and likewise
wonder if it was impossible. For instance, in reading these
poems by Enslin, while they may be written with the compositional
structures of music in mind, I found myself wondering at the
sound in them, which is not to say that the poems don't have
aural qualities, but what is the sound of C minor in a word?
For when he writes C minor and I don't hear it in the language
in any way, it seems merely a conceptual device.

There's an aural qualities in vowels for instance that could
be compared to a musical scale, the sound between "you"
and "I" for instance, but it seemed to me that Enslin in these
poems, for all they did have aural qualities, was thinking
mostly in terms of the structure of music, rather than
some aural equivalent in language, and that is not a particularly
startling thing to do, a number of poetic forms derived, if
in much altered form, from musical structures. And it seems
to me that it is precisely the difficulty between words and music,
the impossibility of translating one entirely into the other, that
gives the richness to great vocal music, that implicit tension
between disseparates.

Best,

Rebecca

Rebecca Seiferle
www.thedrunkenboat.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Dec 5, 2003 2:02 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Ives at first writing

These are all poems which reference music, rather than drawing on its
structures which, given the very big differences in practice between
musical and poetical composition, seems to me the bigger challenge
(and I suspect is probably impossible). I haven't read Zukofsky
(ducking here) but Enslin, whom I like very much indeed, said some
fascinating things about the process of writing poems with
compositional structures of music in mind.  Unfortunately I can't
find the magazine where they were printed... but a quick google
search brought up a couple of poems, which will probably be more
interesting anyway -

http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/lenslin1.htm

http://www.languagehat.com/archives/000665.php

Best

A


>  > And of course Stevens' "Peter Quince at the Clavier."
>>
>>  Mark
>
>It always seemed to me that "Peter Quince" went back to Browning -- maybe
>even specifically "historical thoughts occurring while playing a keyboard
>instrument" ('A Toccata').  More general musical reference is of course
>pervasive in Stevens -- e.g. "A High Toned Old Christian Woman".
>
>Another Scot (one whom Tom Leonard admires immensely):
>
>W.S.Graham, "Johann Joachim Quantz's Five Lessons".
>
>Robin


--


Alison Croggon

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