Comments on: Hives

By: mearl

mearl — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 14:08:01 +0000

Liz,
Thanks for commenting. I should have gotten back to you earlier, especially since your comments created the impetus I needed for next post (which I should be putting up today); the importance of reading, its connection with living, the solo art and its terms…and thanks for the word “mulga”. I definitely took all of this on board, and you’ll find your observations in a lot of what I have to say in my next post.
Tell us more about Australia. Years ago I wrote a piece on Jacket Magazine for Web del Sol.
I hope you’ll see this response on this now outdated thread. If you don’t I’ll bring it to your attention on the next one.
Thanks again,
Martin

By: Iain

Iain — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:21:06 +0000

Martin,
I do not think that grammar will prevail over ephemera, in fact I actively try to promote an ephemeral view of grammar (in the sense that it’s always in flux). I also don’t agree that “the stuff of the blog” is particularly more ephemeral than any other language act. For instance, if you delete your blogs at Harriet, they are still stored in my RSS reader (which is in turn backed up on my hard drive) for me to access any time I want. In fact, in that the blogs are easier to traverse (easier to find desired information), blogs are somewhat less ephemeral than books. Sure, my books are still there, but since I’m rarely at my apartment, it’s as if I discard them for most of the day.
When you say “ephemera” in the print world, you’re talking about something that’s very wasteful. Whereas on the Internet, it’s just time/context specific material, which is the case with all language acts to a degree. I don’t think there is anything about the blog (or rather the Internet) which hinders the creation of more “lasting” content. Rather than use the word “ephemera”, I would, myself, describe the Internet as being geared toward “language-in-process”. And while there are certain problems that arise from that, I see it as largely positive. Actually, I did want to say “positive”, but I should just say exciting. I don’t have a utopianist view of the Internet, but see it as just as dangerous to have a utopianist view of print (a view of print that I see as being fairly prevalent, especially among writers).
That was, perhaps, too much attention to pay to an aside comment. Here are my thoughts on your more direct responses:
1. No, I didn’t really mean to accuse you of being a propagandist (or maybe I did at the time). Your posts tend to provoke knee-jerk responses in me, for which I apologize. Because I’m not familiar with your critical work before this blog, I tend to put some of the things you say in the context of things said on the Harriet blog in general, which is a mistake.
2. I agree that the word “academic” is over used.
3. I took the your comment about the poet needing to rethink his relationship to the audience to be directed specifically at language poetry because language poetry was the only specific example you gave. You say a lot about poetry in general, but language poetry is the only poetry that is mentioned that has specific problems. You may not have intended it this way, but the article seems to suggest that language poetry is somehow to blame for contemporary poetry’s current pathologies, or that it was itself your metaphorical urticaria indicating the bigger problem. Neither of these things, I think, could be construed as the case. I understand that you didn’t really say this, and that the pathology metaphor had more to do with the media issues. I didn’t address the comments about contemporary media, because I wanted to be more specific. People want to paint “post-avant” writing with really broad strokes, and there’s this tendency to accuse poets of “not caring about their audience”, “being too academic”, “obscuring their humanness”, or anything else that gives an excuse to not have to acknowledge that there’s a lot of excellent work being done there. You weren’t trying to do this, which is more clear to me after your latest response.
5. I don’t think “riffing obscure”, or even the word “obscure” in general, gives an accurate view of what Bernstein or any other language poet is/was doing. There’s nothing that is being obscured, nothing that’s being hidden. In fact, uses for words that we don’t often see are being revealed. Bernstein often riffs on the semiotic values of words rather than purely their ability to convey a message. Language does lots of things. Using it only to convey a message equally “obscures” its other values. Saying “obscurantist” gives this picture of something sneaky, or coercive, and doesn’t convey the deep and genuine love of words that is so present in Bernstein’s work.
6. I cringed at Shakespeare’s work (probably because people around me did) before I was ever exposed to it, of course, never afterwards. The analogy I was trying to make between Shakespeare and language poetry was merely on the topic of “difficulty”. Shakespeare is a very “difficult” writer, and yet remains one of the most read poets of all time. To me, Shakespeare is where arguments about “accessibility” and “inaccessibility” become blurred into nonsense.
Martin, thank you for your kind words, and for taking me so seriously.
-iain

By: mearl

mearl — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 22:48:15 +0000

Iain,
“Earl’s attitude toward language is further revealed for what it is in the comment section as, on a number of occasions, he ignores valid criticism only to correct the verb tenses of a quick typing commenter.”
This is from a blog called PATHOLOGOS authored by “Iain”…is that your blog?
If it is, I like what you say. And the style does seem to match the style of your comments on Harriet; you’re terse, to the point.
But don’t your think that in the end grammar will prevail over ephemera, which is the stuff of the blog? And if you agree with me there, then bloggers should, and indeed, have a duty, to tip their hats in that direction once and a while, especially when there is nothing to respond to in a comment except to how badly it’s written.
Anyway, to your present comment. I think it’s best to take it, more or less point by point, since the points are interesting beyond their immediate context.
1. Do you really think that I am “trying” to misrepresent the positions I am “attacking”? That’s like accusing me of writing propaganda. I’m not Joseph Goebbels, the frustrated novelist.
2. I think the term “academic” needs redefining for the present period. It has meant a lot of different things over the years: conservatism, a perceived tarnish through association with a university, the poetry of the establishment, etc. There’s a wonderful interview at Jerome Rothenberg’s blog, Poems and Poetics. It’s at the top of the scroll – very worthwhile. He takes up the subject of academic poetry in the historical context. My notion of what constitutes academic poetry today is simply based on who at the moment is controlling the institutional life of poetry via the MFA system, and as a consequence orienting the thousands of younger poets who enter these programs in a given year. They take up certain theoretical and ideological stances that wind up influencing their personal styles. The massification of such processes, in my opinion, leads to homogeneity, staleness and predictability. I don’t think it’s a question of difficulty, in the traditional sense.
3. When I say “poetry” needs to rethink its relationship to its audience, I am speaking about poetry in general, not just “language” poetry, which, really, no one writes anymore, including Charles himself. In fact, I think there has been some confusion here. Whenever I speak about language poetry I am speaking about an already historical movement.
4. As to Ron Silliman. His book Tjanting is one of my favorite books. I think, in terms of “difficulty”, I was distinguishing between difficulty and willful obscurity. Like you, I don’t consider language poetry (when it’s poetry) either inaccessible or difficult. Lyn Hejinian’s work, as you say, is an excellent example. Her difficulty is the genuine difficulty of first-rate poetry.
5. I think that when Bernstein is more “difficult” it is when he’s riffing obscurely. Then he is not at his best. His great talent lies in satire, in my opinion.
6. I can’t imagine cringing at Shakespeare. In this case we really must be of two different planets. I don’t care about “most people reading Shakespeare.” Let them cringe and eat their cakes. And I see no workable analogy between Shakespeare and language poetry. The “understanding”, as you say, is of a completely different order. If today’s poetry reader is not sufficiently challenged, I think she should read Chaucer instead of flarf.
Thanks, Iain, for the energy and intelligence that you’ve brought to these threads…what about my discussion of contemporary media?
Martin

By: louise waller

louise waller — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 22:16:42 +0000

i think martin has raised the most important issue with his comment ’stop writing and read’ and to that comment i would expand – start living your life, stop writing for a while and start observing, read more and then read more and then write something that you would read, that you would value, that you would want to be the author of. it (poetry/writing) isn’t about mass markets, academic creds, showmanship, cadres, movements, or it sn’t just about those things.
it is usually a solo art, writing. making language happen in ways that matter to the solo art.
if other people get it, that’s a good thing, good for them. but why write? because, (if you are interested), why not.
the australian poet michael sharkey, in a poetry retreat/workshop in 2000 said he thought most (younger) poets should head out into the mulga (outback/bush/country/elsewhere) and live and write for a while before thinking about publishing anything, and o, yeah, he added they should probably read other peoples poetry for a while. it is very difficult to find poets here in australia and i’m guessing in the us/uk and europe who actually experience life, read a lot and then think about writing. most new writing seems to come straight out of ’school’ creative writing / mfa / ma / programs. as a means to an end. the old fashioned idea of vocation may be pissed on by many, but, it is an art, and sometimes an artist is talented, interested, gifted, and enriched by training, not o yeah, maybe i’ll do the writing program and publish something. sometimes creative talent is imbued within the complex cell splitting that happens in the womb.
post avant/language/flarf/conceptual/hip-hop/lyric/new lyric – all the new forms and the old forms – usually a matter of taste. the best of the forms are not written by slavish rote followers of schools and movements. talented solo artists make it on their own terms.

By: thomas brady

thomas brady — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 18:24:08 +0000

Iain,
Fascinating stuff. I wish we had examples.
Cheerleader chants, Army marching chants, the prose of technical manuals, doggerel, all these things have rhythm, and often quite complex rhythms.
We can point out that something is ‘poetry’ or that something is ‘popular,’ or that something has complex rhythms, but we’re not really saying much at all. Such formulas are too easy to make.
This is why I am not quite ready to concede your point.
It is also doesn’t matter, to me, really, how much technology an art needs or does not need. Or whether it’s done in Radio City Music Hall, or the slums of Havana.
None of these things matter to me, really.
What matters to me is ‘the Good.’
What matters to me is: What does poetry, as we define it, do better than anything else? Not, what makes it valuable, not, what makes it unique, but what makes it valuable AND unique at the same time?
As for the issue of what makes the rhythm, the words, or the music, I think the key to poetry is that it must SEEM that the words are making the music, the music is not selecting the words, for isn’t the latter what we call (pejoratively) doggerel?
As soon as “The Raven” by Poe was parodied, the spell was broken; we realized Poe’s words were not making that rhythm, for any number of words (meanings) could be used with that rhythm.
“The Raven” has been parodied many, many times.
But I don’t believe this has ever been parodied:
“DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country ; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.”
This, too, has a rhythm. But it would be far more difficult to parody the first sentence of ‘The House of Usher’ than ‘The Raven.’
Anyway, I think the idea of parody may hold the secret to what we are both trying to explain.
Thomas

By: Iain

Iain — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:58:15 +0000

Thomas,
In Hip-Hop, the lyrics drive the rhythm as often (or at least nearly as often) as the rhythm drives the words. There are many points in Lil Wayne’s new album where an irregularity in meter will be reflected by an irregularity in the song’s beat. Also, Hip-Hop albums frequently feature songs with no music or beat in the background. Either way though, much historical poetry (most really) features words driven by a beat (any metrical poetry). In fact, for the most part, in Hip-Hop, the beat doesn’t actually provide the rhythm for the words as much as it provides a frame-work for the words to happen in.
The most interesting thing about Hip-Hop to me is that it explores how language reacts to its environment. This happens on many different levels, from Black Vernacular’s response to an oppressive environment to how the words in the songs themselves form around a beat. As I said before, the beat provides a framework, but words are stuffed in, slurred, elongated, the regional accent shifted, etc. It is about conquering and overcoming the beat, subverting it, as much as “following” it. The lyrics are not merely recited later by the listener (as with pop lyrics, for the most part), but placed into a new environment, reinterpreted, and improvised upon.
Hip-Hop doesn’t need to rely on technology as much as poetry on the page. For poetry on the page, if you take away the press, the paper, the writing instruments, whatever, the poetry is gone. Whereas with Hip-Hop, as much as it uses and responds to technology, if you take the technology away, Hip-Hop remains, reacting organically to any environment it’s placed in. And this is very much what the poetry of Hip-Hop is “about”. Hip-Hop seems very capitalist in our country because that is the environment, but Hip-Hop thrives in Cuba too, and takes very different forms.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:06:46 +0000

Liz,
Just checked, No translator involved…all the better!
Thanks,
m

By: thomas brady

thomas brady — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:03:42 +0000

Iain,
You are not the first person I have heard say this: “Hip-Hop is way beyond what you hear on the radio. Hip-Hop happens all the time without any accompaniment.”
But doesn’t all the chart-topping Hip Hop/Rap have that booming bass line as its signature, as well as other sorts of musical elements? It depends on music, really, just as much as any pop music form.
Hip Hop without any accompaniment is something I’m also familiar with, but it doesn’t sell like the musical kind does.
I grant that a recognizable beat in words signals ‘poetry’ to most people, but I was trying to make a distinction between1) word-arrangement which creates its own unique rhythm v. a 2) rhythm that is first established and then words are made to fit that pre-established rhythm.
The two are often confused, but I think it’s an important distinction. Song, as well as poetry, can use both methods, but the former method above–where the words themselves create the rhythm, instead of the rhythm holding up the words–is the one I prefer.
Thomas

By: mearl

mearl — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:58:21 +0000

Liz
I don’t even know if this is legal, but I’ll risk it. Here’s a 2008 comment you made on Quill & Quire, with a poem from Mark Yakich’s book, The Importance of Peeling Potatoes in Ukraine (Penguin, 2008). I take the liberty because of what you said on my thread. Can you fill us in on the poet and the translator? On the basis of this one poem, I’m extremely curious.
Martin
August 1, 2008 | 10:22 pm Elizabth Booker says:
Dear Mr Weller:
If you would like a precise and unusual take on poetry and suicide bomber, try this poem below from Mark Yakich’s new book, The Importance of Peeling Potatoes in Ukraine (Penguin, 2008).
Sincerely, Elizabeth Booker
For a Suicide Bomber
If you stare right between your thighs
You will find that one of the many beauties
Of poetry is that you can go from a sedentary
Lump all the way to a lean, self-righteous
Hard-on without touching nostalgia. I
Have seen people exaggerate the flower
Of poetry. For example, it can make you have
Longer, more distinguished orgasms; it can
Make you fall in love with your worst enemy;
It can placate crotch odor. I have known men
And women who deliberately crap their own
Pockets and leotards trying to suffer the same
Misery of Buddha, Dante, Dickinson, and Li Po
It�s time to put the big myth about these
Pilots to bed. By definition their crying is
A low-intensity way to burn calories and their
Tears are a low-down way to get someone
Into the sack. Even so, I have worked with
Many people who felt they were climbing
Everest as they struggled through their first
Twenty-minute crying jag. Remember,
You have thought your whole life about how
Wonderful fame would be. Let your
Hand form a loose fist around my trigger
Point. The rules for success are clear: you
Must never give candy to a dandy; and
You must learn to die, like the Moors
On a Spanish galleon, in five-minute shifts.

By: mearl

mearl — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:57:44 +0000

Iain
And I appreciate the challenge and your attention to the substance of my post. (It’s being commented on from all different kinds of perspectives.) I’ve read your large comment a few times now and have kind of half formulated a response, but I lost the index card (for the moment) that contained those formulations. But I plan to get back to you, hopefully tonight. I’m working under deadline this week so it’s been a bit difficult to keep up.
And I don’t think it’s ever a mistake to respond to Bill. He one of our greatest poets, and I – for one – have learned a lot from him over the years.
Anyway, thanks for nudging me.
Martin