roast beef
--as i was saying to jared yesterday, the only problem with this blog is that when everyone gets excited by discussions of a topic, it goes silent, bc we start talking on the phone (or, you midwesterners, in person). i’ve been meaning forever to post my defense of prose poetry (against jared’s charge that it isn’t musical). so i’m going to do a minimal, lame version of my defense...as a phosphor trace of large excitable phone conversations. my exhibit a (from tender buttons):
-----------------------------------------
ROASTBEEF
In the inside there is sleeping, in the outside there is reddening, in the morning there is meaning, in the evening there is feeling. In the evening there is feeling. In feeling anything is resting, in feeling anything is mounting, in feeling there is resignation, in feeling there is recognition, in feeling there is recurrence and entirely mistaken there is pinching. All the standards have steamers and all the curtains have bed linens and all the yellow has discrimination and all the circle has circling. This makes sand.
--here’s another fun one (just because):
------------------------------------------
A TIME TO EAT
A pleasant simple habitual and tyrannical and authorised and educated and resumed and articulate separation. This is not tardy.
-------------------------------------------
and, huzzah, my exhibit b:
-------------------------------------------
THE STRUCTURE OF RIME II
What of the Structure of Rime? I said.
The Messenger in guise of a Lion roard: Why does man retract his song from the impoverishd air? He brings his young to the opening of the field. Does he so fear beautiful compulsion?
I in the guise of a Lion roard out great vowels and heard their amazing patterns.
A lion without disguise said: He that sang to charm the beasts was false of tongue. There is a melody within this surfeit of speech that is most man.
What of the Structure of Rime? I asked.
An absolute scale of resemblance and disresemblance establishes measures that are music in the actual world.
The Lion in the Zodiac replied:
The actual stars moving are music in the real world. This is the meaning of the music of the spheres.
----------------------------------
in both cases, i think the prose (or semi-prose) calls attention to things being twisted and heightened in the sentences – sound, syntax, transformations of sense that aren’t just easy surreal stuff bc they are also transformations in the language. (i throw in the surreal comment because i was wondering if one of the problems with some prose poetry, or that makes it read as unmusical, is the idea of transporting some kind of dream/surreal ‘poetic logic’ into an inert prose vehicle. but if that’s the fault of prose poetry, then wouldn’t all poems we don’t like be the fault of poetry poetry ?)
i know this isn’t exactly an issue, since i know that jared actually likes the same prose poems i do, at least for the most part (which is why i can enjoy bringing up the duncan). but i do wonder if you think that prose poems are more likely than other forms to make their writers inattentive – i.e., do you worry that they allow people to do something that seems surface-ly cool without giving much thought as to why? what if tomorrow couplets become the flavor of the month? eh?
in a slightly related issue: what do y’all think about the issue of rigor in poetry? tony was talking tonight about rigor in architecture, and it interested me. i was thinking about how someone like spicer can seem really sloppy and really rigorous at the same time (in a good way). the idea of rigor feels related to some of these ideas about form, clarity (what it is, how it is obtained), outwardness, abstraction, and skepticism that it seems like we’re interested in in our different proportions and ways. and then it also kind of sounds like a horrible trap, which makes it appealing to kick around.
one kid in one of my third grade classes is making a little booklet (on his own, not under my direction, he just showed it to me) called “the ways people act”. it was really charming, not least, i'm embarassed to admit, because i get to be a character...the way i act is that i smile a lot, according to the book of ways of jw banks.
-----------------------------------------
ROASTBEEF
In the inside there is sleeping, in the outside there is reddening, in the morning there is meaning, in the evening there is feeling. In the evening there is feeling. In feeling anything is resting, in feeling anything is mounting, in feeling there is resignation, in feeling there is recognition, in feeling there is recurrence and entirely mistaken there is pinching. All the standards have steamers and all the curtains have bed linens and all the yellow has discrimination and all the circle has circling. This makes sand.
--here’s another fun one (just because):
------------------------------------------
A TIME TO EAT
A pleasant simple habitual and tyrannical and authorised and educated and resumed and articulate separation. This is not tardy.
-------------------------------------------
and, huzzah, my exhibit b:
-------------------------------------------
THE STRUCTURE OF RIME II
What of the Structure of Rime? I said.
The Messenger in guise of a Lion roard: Why does man retract his song from the impoverishd air? He brings his young to the opening of the field. Does he so fear beautiful compulsion?
I in the guise of a Lion roard out great vowels and heard their amazing patterns.
A lion without disguise said: He that sang to charm the beasts was false of tongue. There is a melody within this surfeit of speech that is most man.
What of the Structure of Rime? I asked.
An absolute scale of resemblance and disresemblance establishes measures that are music in the actual world.
The Lion in the Zodiac replied:
The actual stars moving are music in the real world. This is the meaning of the music of the spheres.
----------------------------------
in both cases, i think the prose (or semi-prose) calls attention to things being twisted and heightened in the sentences – sound, syntax, transformations of sense that aren’t just easy surreal stuff bc they are also transformations in the language. (i throw in the surreal comment because i was wondering if one of the problems with some prose poetry, or that makes it read as unmusical, is the idea of transporting some kind of dream/surreal ‘poetic logic’ into an inert prose vehicle. but if that’s the fault of prose poetry, then wouldn’t all poems we don’t like be the fault of poetry poetry ?)
i know this isn’t exactly an issue, since i know that jared actually likes the same prose poems i do, at least for the most part (which is why i can enjoy bringing up the duncan). but i do wonder if you think that prose poems are more likely than other forms to make their writers inattentive – i.e., do you worry that they allow people to do something that seems surface-ly cool without giving much thought as to why? what if tomorrow couplets become the flavor of the month? eh?
in a slightly related issue: what do y’all think about the issue of rigor in poetry? tony was talking tonight about rigor in architecture, and it interested me. i was thinking about how someone like spicer can seem really sloppy and really rigorous at the same time (in a good way). the idea of rigor feels related to some of these ideas about form, clarity (what it is, how it is obtained), outwardness, abstraction, and skepticism that it seems like we’re interested in in our different proportions and ways. and then it also kind of sounds like a horrible trap, which makes it appealing to kick around.
one kid in one of my third grade classes is making a little booklet (on his own, not under my direction, he just showed it to me) called “the ways people act”. it was really charming, not least, i'm embarassed to admit, because i get to be a character...the way i act is that i smile a lot, according to the book of ways of jw banks.
posted by Lauren | 7:49 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home