Comments on: It Must Give Pleasure, It Must Change

By: Ange

Ange — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 18:36:00 +0000

Francisco, I remember that anecdote from when Kleinzahler taught at Brown. I think he is an excellent touchstone for an aesthetic that emphasizes pleasure in language, image and music. And believe me, if/when I ever teach again, my syllabus will be all about aesthetic pleasure!

By: Don Share

Don Share — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:05:12 +0000

Juxaposition gives much of the pleasure, doesn’t it, in reading and listening, and is one of the pleasures of editing, too!

By: Francisco Aragon

Francisco Aragon — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:01:59 +0000

“[A] poem they are taken with” and “something turns my head, some bit of music” does indeed seem to point to the idea of pleasure. The way I tend to describe this (for myself) is, simply, a poem that’s “fun to read.” But this idea of pleasure, I have found, seems taboo in certain circles. Having been in my share of graduate seminars where the subject was poetry the idea or concept of “pleasure” is never given serious consideration. Once, someone (a poet) tried to introduce it in a seminar discussion and the “critics” in the class gave this person a look like she was from Mars. It was a moment I’ll never forget and which has been a touchstone of sorts ever since.
Why do we read (read them aloud to ourselve, others) poems?
Some read them for pleasure. Some because their jobs (prospects of getting a job?) depend on it?
All this reminds me of a wonderful interview I read yesterday in the Paris Review with August Kleinzahler. AK describes what it was like to have Basil Bunting as an instructor.
He was most unpopular among a certain ilk of student—those who wanted their own poems and their ideas about poems discussed (oblivious, it seems, to who Basil Bunting was). Bunting was content to just read poems aloud to them–poems he thought worth reading, of course. Not suprisingly, knowing what I know about Auggie, he relished every moment of it and considered this experience among his most, if not most, seminal experiences as a young poet.

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:39:13 +0000

I like the phrase "the discipline of suspending judgment." And as a former amateur rock radio DJ I find many similarities between what critics do and what DJs do. The surprising followed by the familiar, the distant styles unexpectedly juxtaposed, the claim about history, influence or inheritance, the claim about analogy-- all are frequent components of a review or essay about poems, and frequent components of any good radio set.

By: john

john — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:26:46 +0000

As a music listener, I come across tons of music I don’t like. But other people like it. I’m always curious to hear in it what others hear; trying to imagine what others like in it. That usually doesn’t end up with me liking it, but it’s a side-step around the mere assertion of “I like, I don’t like.” It’s harder for me to do this with poetry, but a similar approach may be possible.
Not that there’s anything wrong with “I like, I don’t like,” either. In our culture, it’s what makes us persons.