surf this poem

January 2, 2006 7:16 PM

Three Invitations to a Far Reading "But what if some poems aren’t meant to be read at all? What if they are meant to be viewed? What if, like TV, they are meant to be surfed? " [via]
posted by dhruva (9 comments total)

So many poems are written in such a way that you could mix and match lines from each and you would never know the difference- much of modern poetry is already much like flipping channels.

I'll stick with T.S. Eliot.
posted by Meredith at 7:35 PM on January 2, 2006

At mating time the hippo’s voice
Betrays inflexions hoarse and odd,
But every week we hear rejoice
The Church, at being one with God. 20

The hippopotamus’s day
Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts;
God works in a mysterious way—
The Church can sleep and feed at once.
T.S. Elliot!
posted by I Foody at 7:59 PM on January 2, 2006

In university I learned that self-referential, self-contained art was interesting, valuable and worth studying. Autonomous was the word to use about this kind of literature.

Another point of interest in academia was the art that somehow frustrates the normal way of reading, watching etc.

That's what is described in the linked article with respect to poetry but it is a large influence in other arts as well.

I don't think these are fruitful paths to follow for a prolonged time in art.
posted by jouke at 8:06 PM on January 2, 2006

Here's my thoughts, as a poetry novice:

1) The first third of the essay was good, even though I disagreed with the author, Joan Houlihan (I liked the Baus poem she quoted).

2) Houlihan, for the remaining 2/3 of essay, falls into passive-aggressive tone, which was more bitter than insightful.

3) Her main conclusion seems to be: if poetry doesn't follow a set of formal rules, then it should be ignored. A strange (or sad) position for an artist/thinker to take.

4) Houlihan's own work seems rather sappy and un-interesting:

Surgeon Speaking

Lie down. I am hand and finger
to you, intent in my medium,
fluent in what flourished before
guided by the noise of trapped being.

I was yours at birth, privy to your washings
and waste. Words spoken by us
are lysis and ligature. What matters
is the gash, the possible rush

between us. How to conduct the bleeding?
Bent to you, I provide from my fingers
something small and mammal,
parted from one discarded.

Ten hours of us and we are wed.
Mumbling of vein, I finish you,
who will emerge new-made, doll-sewn.
The furthest thing from my mind.

Anyway, thanks for the link.
posted by slow, man at 8:28 PM on January 2, 2006

slow, man -- that's an intriguing contrast between houlihan's poem and hanlon's poem ... different perspectives at being percieved as an object ... in the houlihan poem, it's obviously how someone feels about being on an operating table and feels how she is percieved by the surgeon, but it doesn't quite work, as it has to be a work of imagination, not experience ... she had no idea how she was percieved at the time because she was out like a light

on the other hand, the picture i got from the hanlon poem was vivid ... a young woman being watched by her father as she prepares for a graduation ceremony ... i don't think it's a "brick of words" at all, but an attempt to describe in emotional language the experience of being seen as someone else's memory ... it works for me and sounds good

the baus poem did seem like more of the same kind of deliberate non-meaningful language that the 2004 best american poetry was riddled with ...

harder to say about the last wolff poems ... what exactly they mean ... the first one started out well and then i lost the thread ... the last one's difficult but seems to be a meditation on the fight between the part of oneself that believes one is in control and in charge and the part that realizes that society is determined to compel obedience ... it's not meaningless

it's an old trick to cut up and rearrange poems to "prove" their lack of sense or art ... a long time ago, i read a book by a reactionary critic of the 50s ... no one famous ... who did this to robert lowell, t s eliot, ezra pound and other notables, making sure that he pointed out their personal failings, addictions and political errors as he did so ... he was quite fond of making sure the reader knew that some of the poets had been institutionalized

the contemporary poetry he cited as good was godawful imitations of milton and longfellow ... this article seems like a gentler kinder hatchet job with a nerf hatchet
posted by pyramid termite at 8:59 PM on January 2, 2006

My days, they are the highway kind
They only come to leave
But the leavin’ I don’t mind
It’s the comin’ that I crave.
Pour the sun upon the ground
Stand to throw a shadow
Watch it grow into a night
And fill the spinnin’ sky.

Time among the pine trees
It felt like breath of air
Usually I just walk these streets
And tell myself to care.
Sometimes I believe me
And sometimes I don’t hear.
Sometimes the shape I’m in
Won’t let me go.
posted by nola at 9:42 PM on January 2, 2006

I don't think these are fruitful paths to follow for a prolonged time in art.
posted by jouke at 12:06 AM AST on January 3 [!]

I think the intent of this approach is to divorce oneself from the current art "scene" by creating an artistic vision which is a world onto itself. A short cut for this, rather counterintuitively, is self-conscious self-reference, especially as it pertains to being part of a scene. Only by doing this can the contemporary artist bypass the many layers of ironic bullshit that currently bog down the art world. That or you play right into the irony and bullshit and create meaningless, self-important tripe.

We aren't sure yet.

and then, because i am talking like an art critic, my head explodes.

Meredith has something, i think. tho i'm not content to stick with t.s. elliot. try david berman?
posted by es_de_bah at 10:23 PM on January 2, 2006

onto = unto
>_<
posted by es_de_bah at 11:24 PM on January 2, 2006

I Foody- point taken. He was the one name that came to mind when I tried to recall poetry I had enjoyed reading, rather than rolling my eyes at what always seemed to me the author trying too hard to sound deep and profound, by speaking in a pretentious mish-mash of seemingly random utterances.

Well then.
posted by Meredith at 5:06 AM on January 3, 2006