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>I've started books and just put them > down after a few pages, and have never followed up why the work hasn't > excited me, apart from a vague thought about rhythm Bells ringing here too, and thanks as well to Harriet, and that dance of 'intellectual avoidance'. A very human matter that, and unintimate in scale. Best Dave ----- Original Message ----- From: <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2001 2:43 AM Subject: Re: A contrary opinion of the worth of Ms Graham's recent poems > > Is this inability related to a > >frequent emptiness in her verse rhythms that denies an orgasmic utterance, a > >certainty of being? the poet is searching, searching for a "secret we don't > >know we're trying to find." All is the quiet though insistent voice of the > >searcher in exile, without fullness, with only the attempt > >to touch, without the ability to yield to the final utterance of being." > > Thanks for that, Harriet - I think you've illuminated for me why I > haven't been able to read Graham; I've started books and just put them > down after a few pages, and have never followed up why the work hasn't > excited me, apart from a vague thought about rhythm. > > I've been reading Douglas Oliver again lately, and there's a poet who > does take the gamble of articulating being in language, but quietly and > forcefully, without an ounce of sentiment; a startling humility at times, > which is articulated with a poetic skill which at times is breathtaking. > He had the courage to implode his intellectual structures if the human > honesty of the poem required it, but he was never unintelligent, and he > achieves a raw sense of feeling which is remarkable, and unusual - it > makes me think of that line of Nietzsche's (which haunts me, and which > I'm about to misquote) - The poets have not thought deeply enough, they > have not understood feeling. Oliver was able to think deeply enough to > come to real feeling. I liked this, from the prologue to the poem/prose > sequence An Island That Is All The World, in relation to various other > discussions which have been happening here: > > What does it mean to talk of spirituality in poetry when no religious > belief lies behind the inquiry? An unfashionable question... Literary > philosophy cannot escape scepticism or programmatic ambiguity about > spiritual issues because we are trapped in a web of language, doomed, it > seems, to disbelieve in the unity of self and of artistic forms: along > with that, goes a loss of spirit. Such theorists are dangerous guides in > areas where the poem, on the other hand, can make evident to the > simple-hearted: "This happened - spirit entered language and > simultaneously I perceived such and such sights, spoke such and such > words." > > Best > > Alison >