If only I could find the font that Faber&Faber used to use....

Cal 

-----Original Message-----
From: Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and
poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Halvard Johnson
Sent: Thursday, 14 September 2006 2:16 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: O my america, and other things

What I love about reading poems online is the bright screen (which can
be dimmed or brightened as I wish), the type (which can be made smaller
or larger as I wish-- yes, oldish eyes here too), the ability to move
backwards or forwards through a text at whatever speed I choose (try
doing that at a poetry reading, especially if you don't have the text in
front of you). I like the way online reading favors (or seems to)
individual poems over collections. I especially like the way, reading
online, the poet isn't placed between the text and the reader. I like
what I hear in my ear when I'm reading well (and that's not always, to
be sure, but it's much more often that what occurs, for me, at even the
best of readings (the standing-up poet kind). Nothing against paper, but
I love the feel the keys, the sleek, smooth feel of a touch-pad.

Hal

"We are in the age of nerves. The muscle hangs,
   Like a memory, in museums . . ."
		--Vicente Huidobro

Halvard Johnson
================
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http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
http://www.hamiltonstone.org

On Sep 13, 2006, at 11:23 PM, Mark Weiss wrote:

> Your initial reaction did seem out of character. Apology accepted.
>
> Poetry online. Partly it's the simple mechanics of old eyes 
> confronting a bright screen. But I think there's something more to it,

> if not a whole lot. I should start by saying that I have nothing in 
> theory against publishing on line, god knows I've done a lot of it. 
> But for me the act of reading is an intimate, very private experience,

> even when I read to an audience. The computer feels distancing to me. 
> The need to scroll down is probably part of it--a lot of reading is 
> the ability of the eye to reread at will and at random, and I 
> experience it as part of the process of learning how to read the poem:

> I tend not to be very interested in any poem that I don't need to 
> learn how to read (only the difficult stimulates growth, according to 
> Lezama Lima, and I'm with him).
> Which is a big piece of why I go to readings and why I give them-- 
> curiosity about how the poet (myself included) on a given occasion 
> understands the movement of the poem, phoneme by phoneme and breath by

> breath (I never read a poem exactly the same way twice--it's something

> like performing a piece of music). A poem, it seems to me, has a very 
> complex timeline for the reader, a process unfolding peculiarly in 
> time. The computer seems to enforce linearity. I suppose that I also 
> miss the feel of the paper--keyboard or mouse are very different 
> tactile experiences.
>
> On political poetry: it's probably a good idea to remember how 
> different the discussion would be outside the anglophone world, even 
> in a country as close as France, where Mallarme's art for art's sake 
> position was revolutionary, and exceptional, post Hugo and Baudelaire 
> and pre-surrealism. In Latin America it's been expected that the poet 
> will be a political actor since at least the early 19th century, in 
> verse and in public presence. In even the self-avowedly least 
> political Cuban poets, for instance, like Baquero or Kozer, one 
> doesn't have to read very far before bumping into something that bears

> a political scent. Kozer, who's adamant about being apolitical in his 
> poetry, although he's acknowledged to me that there are moments, has 
> said that the decision not to be political is a political statement, 
> which in his context it certainly is.
>
> I've been moving boxes all day, and I'm beyond exhausted. Time for 
> someone else to pick this up.
>
> Mark
>
>
>
> At 11:47 AM 9/13/2006, you wrote:
>> Mark,
>>
>> Back from work now and have a little more time to answer.
>>
>> You've raised a lot of interesting issues: the role of the concrete, 
>> the abstract and so on. The idea of the cost to a poet seems to get 
>> more and more complex the more I think about it, and I realise you're

>> not just talking about calories or kilowatts.
>>
>> I'm sorry that I was unfair to you. I did have some notion that your 
>> last number of posts in reply to Alison were all negative, and was a 
>> little concerned that there might be something behind this. I meant 
>> well, however deluded I my attempts. As you point out, I didn't go 
>> back and analyse or do anything that would have clarified things even

>> to myself. I'm glad I was barking up the wrong tree. I'm not glad I 
>> sounded off incorrectly and at your expense. I apologise.
>>
>> I'm interested in your saying that you are uncomfortable reading 
>> poems online. If you got a chance I'd be interested in hearing more 
>> about this.
>>
>> best
>>
>> Randolph


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