tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593764226213882767.post8914171390990593589..comments2024-02-22T15:48:50.427-08:00Comments on Poems and Poetics: David Antin: Notes for an Ultimate Prosody (2)Jerome Rothenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14166931849293504537noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593764226213882767.post-77154013396461330762010-05-10T17:44:49.901-07:002010-05-10T17:44:49.901-07:00Lord, I don't have anything nearly as complica...Lord, I don't have anything <i>nearly</i> as complicated to say about all this. I just thought poems was just supposed to just sound good (kidding - i can count an' even rhyme sometimes). A fun read - sort of like reading about software construction, but rather more intelligible.<br /><br />Blank verse is only as blank as those that blunk it - and i don't warble myself<br />in public<br /><br />later folks - <br /><br />PGPeter Greenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17806372860467057912noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593764226213882767.post-44271086865780299562009-08-13T18:26:07.171-07:002009-08-13T18:26:07.171-07:00Please permit me a follow-up. I must convey my ap...Please permit me a follow-up. I must convey my apologies to David Antin, to Jerome Rothenberg and his remarkably dedicated generosity for the arena of discourse he affords us, and to all the readership for the terrible error in my original posting. My posting marked 1:15 PM, April 13th, is cursed with the error of addressing it as a response to David Antin, when it was directed to comments found in Adam Katz's posting of June 17, 11:23 PM. My embarrassment on a national scale may be punitive enough, although I'll turn it into a mentor-lesson for my students, also.<br /><br />Be well, all,<br />Chris Paris<br />San Antonio, TexasUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09511799813566389351noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593764226213882767.post-17801566735910076062009-08-13T13:15:44.292-07:002009-08-13T13:15:44.292-07:00I'm saddened by David Antin's comment, alt...I'm saddened by David Antin's comment, although my sadness is nonetheless accompanied by my respect and deference for his opinions. But, his comment, I think, demonstrates the re-occurrence of orthographic mechanics as a justification or need for the receipt of printed versification to be a cognitive endeavor--which concerns me; i.e., versification moving away from the imminence of experience and the existential song that versification attempts to capture in its truthful response to the human condition. If one looks at the "mystifying indentations" not as Cartesian orthographic rigor, but as the translation of the internal vision for what it is--physical as well as emotional response to life, they are no longer mystifying, but the lyrical responsive attempt for the "doer" of the poetics to embrace the recipient in his or her virtual reality that is the artifact. Only Cartesian thinking as cognitive stepping back from the immersion of experience turns the "mystifying indentations" into orthography; hence, the true intention of the wizardry of art is defeated--i.e., transcendance. The Cartesian, tragically, removes us from imminence, and the imminence the artist struggles to resurrect in a virtual reality of trope-ic and mechanical means because the artist is so empathically compelled by the experience of life, that he or she is driven to share it with everyone as close as he or she can be true to the translation of the experience and its underlying ontological relevance. It's the experience that does the telling, not the teller. My heart breaks with the growing regularity of of "relatively equal line-weights" and regularized margins, and regularized orthography I witness more and more frequently. Just pull up the plethora of on-line poetry journals to witness the trend. Something to consider: what did Yeats really feel and mean under the regularization of rhyme and meter that obscured the true rhythm and response and significance of his voice in "Sailing To Byzantium"? We'll never know, will we, no matter how much research or historicisizing we may engage in because the natural rhythms of his voice with all their meanings appended to them were tragically obscured. We can never get so close to an artist for us to arrogantly say, "that's what the artist meant"; but, if the artist is true to his or her natural rhythm, vocal inflection, and emphasis upon morphemes with the artist's translation of that voice with honestly executed spacing for the audience to respond to, we do get a hell of a lot closer--which is what the artist craves, unless he or she is some sort of solipsist. Otherwise, what's the point of artistic communication? If one wishes to discursively communicate life's meanings orthographically committed to stringent rules of format and rhythm, then write a discursive essay. And, there's nothing wrong with that, either. Just take your pick, and don't try to rule or dominate, or coerce, or exclusivize a lyrical form true to itself. This has nothing to do with "polemicizing against whatever is most done." It has to do with being true to one's existential voice, and the desire to embrace with imminence. For some reason, I don't see the return of something "classical" just for the sake of classical accomplishing that. Please give us some classical scansion that captures a nightingale's song with directly translated honesty. Even Keats couldn't accomplish that in his regularized poetic. Maybe his Nightingale and its significance would have been even greater--if that can be imagined, if felt through the rhythm and emphases upon the morphemes of his language as he did receive and internalize it. Hell, his experience of the Nightingale as he truly felt it may even have transcended time for us to respond to as he did emotionally, as well as a cognition that would naturally follow from it. This has nothing to do with defending free verse in its time. It has everything to do with the timelessness of the natural.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09511799813566389351noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593764226213882767.post-41855353607121074512009-06-17T11:23:40.359-07:002009-06-17T11:23:40.359-07:00Perhaps this was written at a time when free verse...Perhaps this was written at a time when free verse needed to be defended against detractors??? But the idea today that columns of poetry of relatively equal line-weights "refer to other poetry" while the distinct varieties of free verse visual signatures do not, isn't true. Nothing looks like poetry more than a text punctuated by scattered and often mystifying indentations. Maybe now we should be calling for the return of something classical - after all, the point is, isn't it, to polemicize against whatever is most done???Adam Katzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15697999742501448021noreply@blogger.com