One example of this would be the Republicans' use of Springsteen's Born in the USA as a celebratory anthem.
Have we lost the idea of a misreading?
Robert
-----Original Message-----
From: British & Irish poets [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jeffrey Side
Sent: 20 February 2010 20:42
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Response to my criticisms of Armitage's poetry
I posted a response to this but it hasn't appeared yet, for some reason.
The gist of it was that I agree texts have no single meaning but many,
and that each reader can favour one of these meanings for themselves
depending on their mood or emotional state when reading the text.
Most people do this with songs anyway so I don't see it as being all
that outlandish an idea to apply to poetry.
On Sat, 20 Feb 2010 13:04:23 +0000, Sean Bonney
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Jeff /// maybe your "free associative" theories of reading would be
more fruitfully applied to texts and poems that have a more fixed
surface meaning. you know, a form of reading that went against the
grain of what the text is trying to say and so on. of course, there's a
long tradition of this: maybe a reading of Walter Benjamin's "Origin of
German Tragic Drama" would be helpful to you.
>
>as it is, for you, "free association" doesn't seem to be anything more
than an abdication of the complexities of reading. even the most
abstract of texts has 'meanings', entire constellations of them.
>
>Sean
>
>http://abandonedbuildings.blogspot.com/
>
>--- On Sat, 20/2/10, Jamie McKendrick
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>From: Jamie McKendrick <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Response to my criticisms of Armitage's poetry
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Date: Saturday, 20 February, 2010, 1:36
>
>Jeff,
> Sorry - I should have read through my last post before sending it:
2nd line "other" should read "others" and later
>"a poem, any poem, sets up associations that have to restricted"
should read "sets up associations that have to be restricted" (adjusted
below).
>A case where what you call the "grammatically syntactical" would
definitely have helped!
>Jamie
>
>----- Original Message ----- From: "Jamie Mckendrick"
<[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Friday, February 19, 2010 8:40 PM
>Subject: Re: Response to my criticisms of Armitage's poetry
>
>
>Jeff,
> Your sweeping veto on narrative elements in poems leaves behind
you a
>pretty scorched and impoverished terrain, as others have noticed - but
I'm just
>as worried by your defence of free-association:
>“I think most people free-associate at some point when reading
poetry. I
>always thought this was the point of poetic language—to allow for
this.
>Poetry that precludes such an act, in my view, is not poetry.â€
> It’s hard to deny that “most people free-associate at some
point when
>reading poetryâ€, though I’d argue that at the point they do so
they’ve already
>stopped reading it. No kind of poetry can quite “preclude†the
activity: I can
>free-associate in the bath, on the bus, or watching a tv programme,
>particularly if it doesn’t interest me much. I've no need of poetry
for this
>purpose, so I don’t see free-association as “the point of poetic
languageâ€. It
>goes without saying that the experiences, memories and knowledge
that
>people bring to a poem are crucial in understanding it, but I think a
poem, any
>poem, sets up associations that have to be restricted (including those
that might
>not have been intended, but that are still operative). Certain poems
are more
>and others less restrictive in their associations, but this isn’t a
necessary
>indicator of their quality.
>Â Â Â In the Jacket article, presumably as a corrective to
Armitage’s ‘Night Shift’
>you offer one of your own compositions:
>
>I a egg
>I a waffle
>I broken
>the better to live
>
>followed by a commentary which deserves to be quoted in full:
>"For example, if we look at the words ‘egg’, ‘waffle’,
‘broken’ and ‘better to live’
>it is possible to free-associate from each one. From ‘egg’, we
can get
>to “delicateâ€, or “clever†(as in “egg-headâ€) or
“baby†(as
>in “chickletâ€). ‘Waffle’ has another meaning apart from a
food; it also
>means: “Pause or hold back in uncertainty or unwillingnessâ€.
‘Broken’ can
>mean, “broken physically†or “broken emotionallyâ€, the
word can also
>mean: “interruptâ€. ‘Better to live’ can mean “able to
liveâ€, “more fit to liveâ€
>or “more worthy of lifeâ€. My interpretation of these lines is:
“I am an unborn
>baby (egg). I sense my mother’s uncertainty about having me
(waffle). I hope
>she does not abort me (broken). I am worthy of life (better to live).
>Consequently, from a set of ungrammatical phrases it is possible to
confer a
>depth of meaning. Such interpretations as given in the above two
examples
>would be difficult with lines that were grammatically syntactical."
>
>Both verse and commentary leave me in even deeper doubt about the
virtues
>of free-association and made me turn back with relief to Armitage.
I’d also like
>to think you were “having a laughâ€, but I fear you weren’t.
>Jamie
>
>On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:14:29 +0000, Sean Bonney
><[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Jeff, you're having a laugh, right? otherwise, Mayakovsky's "An
Extraordinary
>Adventure" isn't a poem, or Frank O'Hara's "The Day Lady Died", or
about a
>million others.
>> what about long stories? or is "Paradise Lost" not a poem either?
>>
>> http://abandonedbuildings.blogspot.com/
>>
>> --- On Thu, 18/2/10, Jeffrey Side <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> The only rule I have is that a poem should not be a short story, or
>> vignette. Everything else is allowed.
>>
>> You systematically favour the kind of vagueness or indeterminacy
you
>> find in various song lyrics and a particular kind of poetry, perhaps
>> because it allows you to happily free-associate.
>>
>> I think most people free-associate at some point when reading
poetry. I
>> always thought this was the point of poetic languageâ€â€to
allow for this.
>> Poetry that precludes such an act, in my view, is not poetry.
>>
>
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