Friday, May 30, 2003
John Erhardt and I have been having an (uh-oh) "interesting" exchange on Ammons, after his posting of an Ammons poem and my "huh?" response. John's put up an informative and longer post on Ammons, apparently previously Bloggobbled.
Stephanie says some of Kasey's categories were arranged "alphabetically, which seemed properly democratic." Stephanie--I would have thought that as somebody else who has a "Y" last name you'd recognize the alphabet for the repressive apparatus that it is!
I shouldn't pick on her. My links are alphabetical too. But by title.
I hope the cat comes back.
I shouldn't pick on her. My links are alphabetical too. But by title.
I hope the cat comes back.
Wow. Jordan reads me on the subway. On his Handspring.
if I didn't download 'em I'd never get any work done.
Clever solution. I just don't get any work done.
if I didn't download 'em I'd never get any work done.
Clever solution. I just don't get any work done.
While I am by no means a Robert Pinsky fan, I have to admire his willingness to do ugly things to get his point across.
I guess I am still a little confused over what David means by a "social poet."
Initially I thought he meant a quality of writing: a poetry which creates (as he put it) "a social language that desires all to speak, hear and be heard." You could argue that O'Hara has this quality in the way he lets "everything" into the poem, no matter how ephemeral or casual; but the question is whether "all" means "other people," whether other voice that are not O'Hara's are heard and welcomed in the work or whether we still hear O'Hara behind it all. You could also argue (in doctrinaire langpo style) that Andrews has this quality because he directly engages the reader, forcing attention onto the way the reader (not just the writer) is implicated in the language that makes up the poem, that his "Hey you" style forces you to respond in some way.
But the "social" also seems to overlap with a biographical quality (shades of psychological criticism!): the "social" (networking, scenester, movement) poet vs. the loner, the homeless maverick. I guess neither O'Hara nor Andrews would be "asocial" on these grounds, which is why I imagine Adorno wouldn't have been too fond of either of them.
And then vs. the political (i.e. the critical?)--in David's sense it seems you could be social without being political, inclusive of the social world without necessarily being critical of it and seeking change.
If I'm being cynical I might even say that there is no poet who is truly social in David's terms, even if we endorse a bardic notion in which a poet speaks for a community--for even in this model, the poet is speaking on behalf of others rather than allowing or encouraging others to speak.
Whitman is perhaps the most inclusive of modern poets. But when we read Whitman, do we really hear the voices of all those persons he evokes? Or do we simply hear the ever more expansive and all-absorbing voice and ego of Whitman?
Initially I thought he meant a quality of writing: a poetry which creates (as he put it) "a social language that desires all to speak, hear and be heard." You could argue that O'Hara has this quality in the way he lets "everything" into the poem, no matter how ephemeral or casual; but the question is whether "all" means "other people," whether other voice that are not O'Hara's are heard and welcomed in the work or whether we still hear O'Hara behind it all. You could also argue (in doctrinaire langpo style) that Andrews has this quality because he directly engages the reader, forcing attention onto the way the reader (not just the writer) is implicated in the language that makes up the poem, that his "Hey you" style forces you to respond in some way.
But the "social" also seems to overlap with a biographical quality (shades of psychological criticism!): the "social" (networking, scenester, movement) poet vs. the loner, the homeless maverick. I guess neither O'Hara nor Andrews would be "asocial" on these grounds, which is why I imagine Adorno wouldn't have been too fond of either of them.
And then vs. the political (i.e. the critical?)--in David's sense it seems you could be social without being political, inclusive of the social world without necessarily being critical of it and seeking change.
If I'm being cynical I might even say that there is no poet who is truly social in David's terms, even if we endorse a bardic notion in which a poet speaks for a community--for even in this model, the poet is speaking on behalf of others rather than allowing or encouraging others to speak.
Whitman is perhaps the most inclusive of modern poets. But when we read Whitman, do we really hear the voices of all those persons he evokes? Or do we simply hear the ever more expansive and all-absorbing voice and ego of Whitman?
I stacked the deck a little in the O'Hara/Andrews cage match, I think. O'Hara seems inward, concerned with his own "sordid identifications"; while Andrews is (aggressively) outward, portraying "You as the human labor saving device," a product of all the economic and political discourses that plug up the poem's arteries.
But both are a kind of slide show of social roles that "I" or "you" might be pressed into. If O'Hara has a gleeful freedom, there's also the "constant anxiety over looks," the sense of the self as a dissipating mist and as a ($2,000,000) commodity. And if in Andrews "you" are helplessly interpellated (by "money gobble gobble money") there's a chance of finding a crack in the delirious excess, the reframing and jumping from one language to another, knowing that "the situation has a situation." Which optimism? and which grace?
But both are a kind of slide show of social roles that "I" or "you" might be pressed into. If O'Hara has a gleeful freedom, there's also the "constant anxiety over looks," the sense of the self as a dissipating mist and as a ($2,000,000) commodity. And if in Andrews "you" are helplessly interpellated (by "money gobble gobble money") there's a chance of finding a crack in the delirious excess, the reframing and jumping from one language to another, knowing that "the situation has a situation." Which optimism? and which grace?
"Thinking in poetry," for me, was greatly nourished by "thinking in postcards." If sitting down to write each day--and needing to produce something before a 5 p.m. postmark deadline--was daunting in the abstract, the actually small size of the blank space I had to fill was comforting, a perfect example of constraint producing freedom. Each postcard on its own was "minor," enough if it captured a stray thought or scrap of conversation--Cassie sent me at least one single-line postcard, but I always felt compelled to fill the whole space, a leftover reflex I guess from the grade-school short answer test.
The form also blunted my usual instinct for closure. I'd run out of space before I could come up with some dramatic flourish, which is almost always for the best.
And for some reason I wrote a bunch of things that rhymed.
Hotel in Afternoon Sunshine
Cars nose in rows
to the floodgates: those
varied finishes
permit no blemishes.
Why a hotel should rhyme
is beyond me: a crime
against my usual
distaste for the audible
The form also blunted my usual instinct for closure. I'd run out of space before I could come up with some dramatic flourish, which is almost always for the best.
And for some reason I wrote a bunch of things that rhymed.
Hotel in Afternoon Sunshine
Cars nose in rows
to the floodgates: those
varied finishes
permit no blemishes.
Why a hotel should rhyme
is beyond me: a crime
against my usual
distaste for the audible
I'd like to be "contagiously smart & supple & capacious" (& seductive) when discussing poetry.
Too late, Stephanie--you already are.
Stephanie comes about as close to that blogtopia as anybody I can think of--how "our lives & poetry cross each other's boundaries," exactly.
I'll admit that in that region I've been tentative. My poetry seemed to get better when I stopped talking about myself.
And contaigous--it was reading Stephanie's blog that started me down this lonely road. Reading her makes me want to move to the Bay Area. And I already live here.
And yes, cheers to Steve for getting down & dirty in the bloggy muck with the rest of us.
Too late, Stephanie--you already are.
Stephanie comes about as close to that blogtopia as anybody I can think of--how "our lives & poetry cross each other's boundaries," exactly.
I'll admit that in that region I've been tentative. My poetry seemed to get better when I stopped talking about myself.
And contaigous--it was reading Stephanie's blog that started me down this lonely road. Reading her makes me want to move to the Bay Area. And I already live here.
And yes, cheers to Steve for getting down & dirty in the bloggy muck with the rest of us.
Thursday, May 29, 2003
HiH has returned to the question of a "social" poet and whether Frank O'Hara and/or Bruce Andrews might be one.
David had originally asked:
Who is the more 'social' poet -- Frank O'Hara or Bruce Andrews? It would seem that optimism or something resembling grace would be an axiom of a truly social poetry. As I define it are there then any social language poets?
Perhaps then the role of the poet is not to create a discourse in which only the initiate can participate but a social language that desires all to speak, hear and be heard.
To which I responded:
iI guess I think of O'Hara as less a social than a sociable poet, someone who's always talking to everybody and reporting on talking to everybody, friendly and open in that way--but the question is whether that sociability is just being reported on at a remove or whether the reader is really invited into it, included in it.
You make the call. Two examples, chosen at semi-random.
O'Hara, from "In Memory of My Feelings" (chosen in part because David cited "grace" as one of the qualities of a social poet):
Beards growing, and the constant anxiety
over looks. I'll shave before she wakes up. Sam Goldwyn
spent $2,000,000 on Anna Sten, but Grushenka left America.
One of me is standing in the waves, an ocean bather,
or I am naked with a plate of devils at my hip.
Grace
to be born and live as variously as possible. The conception
of the masque barely suggests the sordid identifications.
I am a Hittite in love with a horse. I don't know what blood's
in me I feel like an African prince I am a girl walking downstairs
in a red pleated dress I am a champion taking a fall
I am a jockey with a sprained ass-hole I am the light mist
in which a face appears
Andrews, from "Mistaken Identity":
The situation has a situation
Electro-convulsive opinions eat us
Pig brink dollarization, the marriage of money gobble gobble money
Profit margin american cream dream cultures of vultures
A social predicament, the losers are self-preoccupied
Jellyfish FBI -- are you a vending machine?
Who fights the free? -- at least the exploited ones have a future
Dayglo ethics, corporate global chucksteak
Lose the flag, nightstick imitation value goosing me
Estados Unidos, suck o loaded pistol
Scale model blonde -- zoloft, paxil, luvox, celexa
Need money? -- it's easy, it's simple
Dot-commie foreskin arrevederci
Hot mark-up johnny on the spectacle
You as the human labor saving device
Culture, please -- all very non-missionary
Massive doses of dog tranquilizer -- to stop being reeducated
Hostesss of the ecosystem
David had originally asked:
Who is the more 'social' poet -- Frank O'Hara or Bruce Andrews? It would seem that optimism or something resembling grace would be an axiom of a truly social poetry. As I define it are there then any social language poets?
Perhaps then the role of the poet is not to create a discourse in which only the initiate can participate but a social language that desires all to speak, hear and be heard.
To which I responded:
iI guess I think of O'Hara as less a social than a sociable poet, someone who's always talking to everybody and reporting on talking to everybody, friendly and open in that way--but the question is whether that sociability is just being reported on at a remove or whether the reader is really invited into it, included in it.
You make the call. Two examples, chosen at semi-random.
O'Hara, from "In Memory of My Feelings" (chosen in part because David cited "grace" as one of the qualities of a social poet):
Beards growing, and the constant anxiety
over looks. I'll shave before she wakes up. Sam Goldwyn
spent $2,000,000 on Anna Sten, but Grushenka left America.
One of me is standing in the waves, an ocean bather,
or I am naked with a plate of devils at my hip.
Grace
to be born and live as variously as possible. The conception
of the masque barely suggests the sordid identifications.
I am a Hittite in love with a horse. I don't know what blood's
in me I feel like an African prince I am a girl walking downstairs
in a red pleated dress I am a champion taking a fall
I am a jockey with a sprained ass-hole I am the light mist
in which a face appears
Andrews, from "Mistaken Identity":
The situation has a situation
Electro-convulsive opinions eat us
Pig brink dollarization, the marriage of money gobble gobble money
Profit margin american cream dream cultures of vultures
A social predicament, the losers are self-preoccupied
Jellyfish FBI -- are you a vending machine?
Who fights the free? -- at least the exploited ones have a future
Dayglo ethics, corporate global chucksteak
Lose the flag, nightstick imitation value goosing me
Estados Unidos, suck o loaded pistol
Scale model blonde -- zoloft, paxil, luvox, celexa
Need money? -- it's easy, it's simple
Dot-commie foreskin arrevederci
Hot mark-up johnny on the spectacle
You as the human labor saving device
Culture, please -- all very non-missionary
Massive doses of dog tranquilizer -- to stop being reeducated
Hostesss of the ecosystem
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
"The captain from Star Trek (he was Royal Shakespeare first, I just found out) in X-Men-Two, with a helmet on his head, in that giant brain machine, concentrating hard enough to find every single mutant on earth, who appeared to him as red whisps of light."
"A diary, then, warped by the knowledge that others are reading it."
"A meditation tool, or, less pretentiously, a technique for paying attention."
"The way something I say may or may not be picked up for discussion--and in unpredictable ways."
"It amuses me and some others, it helps me work things through and it sharpens my typing skills. "
"I'm predicting more beating of brains all around."
"I have trouble saying the word 'blog'."
"The existentialist revolution, touring the sand of the inflamed puritans, quit copulating with fountains."
"Any binary with 'party' as one of the terms is an okay binary with me."
"A diary, then, warped by the knowledge that others are reading it."
"A meditation tool, or, less pretentiously, a technique for paying attention."
"The way something I say may or may not be picked up for discussion--and in unpredictable ways."
"It amuses me and some others, it helps me work things through and it sharpens my typing skills. "
"I'm predicting more beating of brains all around."
"I have trouble saying the word 'blog'."
"The existentialist revolution, touring the sand of the inflamed puritans, quit copulating with fountains."
"Any binary with 'party' as one of the terms is an okay binary with me."
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