Comments on: Your Name http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/05/your-name/ Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:40:04 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Margo Berdeshevsky http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/05/your-name/#comment-11908 Margo Berdeshevsky Tue, 26 May 2009 05:07:50 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=3166#comment-11908 Interesting riff on beauty, Terreson; but am thinking thus: you mention "facts" of history as beautiful,as Riding might have it-- but history is writ by so called winners, so no guarantee that such is truth.(only their PR.) (and surely not, mostly, lovely to behold our human PR trails of blood.) re poetry having no truck with truth: I think it would be the same "namers" who insist on it. those who think that persona poems must be somehow 'true." or those who try to ascribe biography to the "Je." the "I". why bother? another thought: for poetry's truck with truth: language & translation are not so dependable. example; another Michelangelo line (poetic, but not in a poem) that I like is : I saw an angel in the stone, and carved to set her free. I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. I saw the angel in the stone and carved to set it free all translations from the Italian, (probably from Georgio Vasari's "The Lives of the Painters" circa 1580) & depending,the Italian w/out gender for "it" -- some truth in that phrase changes quite profoundly. but whether or no poetry has or needs truck with truth- it is its own language. "language of the soul," for some. I like to think of it that way. naming things was Eve's business, in a Mark Twain tale. Otherwise, poetry's business is determined by the poet. at least, thankfully, more creative wiggle room than the coffins of history. best, margo Interesting riff on beauty, Terreson; but am thinking thus: you mention “facts” of history as beautiful,as Riding might have it– but history is writ by so called winners, so no guarantee that such is truth.(only their PR.) (and surely not, mostly, lovely to behold our human PR trails of blood.)

re poetry having no truck with truth: I think it would be the same “namers” who insist on it. those who think that persona poems must be somehow ‘true.” or those who try to ascribe biography to the “Je.” the “I”. why bother?

another thought: for poetry’s truck with truth: language & translation are not so dependable. example; another Michelangelo line (poetic, but not in a poem) that I like is : I saw an angel in the stone, and carved to set her free.
I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
I saw the angel in the stone and carved to set it free

all translations from the Italian, (probably from Georgio Vasari’s “The Lives of the Painters” circa 1580) & depending,the Italian w/out gender for “it” — some truth in that phrase changes quite profoundly.

but whether or no poetry has or needs truck with truth- it is its own language. “language of the soul,” for some. I like to think of it that way. naming things was Eve’s business, in a Mark Twain tale. Otherwise, poetry’s business is determined by the poet. at least, thankfully, more creative wiggle room than the coffins of history.

best, margo
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]]> By: Terreson http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/05/your-name/#comment-11896 Terreson Mon, 25 May 2009 21:33:01 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=3166#comment-11896 Margo Berdeshevsky, your comment, along with what Eileen Myles brought to the table, gets me to thinking about something that has been bugging me for a long time. Ya'll are right. The naming of things amounts to a cheat, really an existential failure of will. Names don't just amount to an exercise in proprietorship. The naming of things also constitutes a lie. The act persuades the namer she knows the person, place or thing she is referring to and talking about. For a poet this is actually a serious problem, damn near dire, since, poetry is always looking to get inside the thing, past the name, well inside the person, place or thing's nature. I can't decide if this is a paradox or a flat out contradiction. I just know it is worrisome. I can think of three remarkable poets, two French and the third a woman, who rejected poetry for just this reason, that it amounts to a contradiction and a hypocritical act, an existential falseness: Rimbaud, Artaud, and Laura Riding. Riding was the most explicit when she declared that poetry cannot have, never has had, truck with truth. I frankly challenge anyone, and would welcome it, who can counter her logic. To Keats she might have said, 'Well, my Cockney friend, if beauty is truthful then I guess ugliness is a falsehood; and if truth is beautiful so are all of the facts of history: Stalin, Hitler, the KKK.' The naming of people, places, and things is a problem endemic to poetry. And there is not a poet, never has been, never can be, who doesn't trade like a merchant looking to make a dollar in the naming of things. And while I know the lang-po folk have convinced themselves they have found an end-run around the problem they haven't. Their strategies amount to an avoidance, nothing better than a defense mechanism to keep them safe, untouched, inviolate from...things. Here is what I think. Keats' was a moral truth, Kantian in its persuasion of the categorical imperatives. Riding's was also a moral truth, existential in its impetus. In the interstice there is poetry looking to get behind the names of things while trading in the same. Poetic truth always should involve the contradiction. Terreson Margo Berdeshevsky, your comment, along with what Eileen Myles brought to the table, gets me to thinking about something that has been bugging me for a long time. Ya’ll are right. The naming of things amounts to a cheat, really an existential failure of will. Names don’t just amount to an exercise in proprietorship. The naming of things also constitutes a lie. The act persuades the namer she knows the person, place or thing she is referring to and talking about. For a poet this is actually a serious problem, damn near dire, since, poetry is always looking to get inside the thing, past the name, well inside the person, place or thing’s nature. I can’t decide if this is a paradox or a flat out contradiction. I just know it is worrisome.

I can think of three remarkable poets, two French and the third a woman, who rejected poetry for just this reason, that it amounts to a contradiction and a hypocritical act, an existential falseness: Rimbaud, Artaud, and Laura Riding. Riding was the most explicit when she declared that poetry cannot have, never has had, truck with truth. I frankly challenge anyone, and would welcome it, who can counter her logic. To Keats she might have said, ‘Well, my Cockney friend, if beauty is truthful then I guess ugliness is a falsehood; and if truth is beautiful so are all of the facts of history: Stalin, Hitler, the KKK.’

The naming of people, places, and things is a problem endemic to poetry. And there is not a poet, never has been, never can be, who doesn’t trade like a merchant looking to make a dollar in the naming of things. And while I know the lang-po folk have convinced themselves they have found an end-run around the problem they haven’t. Their strategies amount to an avoidance, nothing better than a defense mechanism to keep them safe, untouched, inviolate from…things.

Here is what I think. Keats’ was a moral truth, Kantian in its persuasion of the categorical imperatives. Riding’s was also a moral truth, existential in its impetus. In the interstice there is poetry looking to get behind the names of things while trading in the same. Poetic truth always should involve the contradiction.

Terreson
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]]> By: Margo Berdeshevsky http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/05/your-name/#comment-11868 Margo Berdeshevsky Mon, 25 May 2009 09:15:48 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=3166#comment-11868 a brokered deal. yes, i think, as well. ...and the body snatchers may be trying to abscond with our best new leader's bod, and replacing it with one who lets the old "other" have sway, even tho we prayed not, and believed not. but history is, yes, about property - so is parenting, that's why families hold on to names, so they can pass the property. that's also why folks believe in the name of their countries, or call their progeny "mine." then again, otherwise, it's called nationalism. it's property. it's believing in a name and calling it "mine." never mind the rose by any other name. my own name is long, so I asked a producer, once to make a bigger marquee. how silly & vain of me. really. I also try to see beauty. Every dawn. with care, even in such times, margo "Beauty is the purgation of superfluities"— Michelangelo Buonarroti a brokered deal. yes, i think, as well. …and the body snatchers may be trying to abscond with our best new leader’s bod, and replacing it with one who lets the old “other” have sway, even tho we prayed not, and believed not. but history is, yes, about property – so is parenting, that’s why families hold on to names, so they can pass the property. that’s also why folks believe in the name of their countries, or call their progeny “mine.” then again, otherwise, it’s called nationalism. it’s property. it’s believing in a name and calling it “mine.” never mind the rose by any other name.

my own name is long, so I asked a producer, once to make a bigger marquee. how silly & vain of me. really. I also try to see beauty. Every dawn. with care, even in such times,

margo

“Beauty is the purgation of superfluities”— Michelangelo Buonarroti
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]]> By: Terreson http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/05/your-name/#comment-11836 Terreson Sun, 24 May 2009 18:29:26 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=3166#comment-11836 Interesting reflections on history, Eileen Myles. Maybe that is the best service a museum can provide, giving moment to certain reflections. What was it Joyce said? "History is a nightmare from which I am still trying to awaken." Terreson Interesting reflections on history, Eileen Myles. Maybe that is the best service a museum can provide, giving moment to certain reflections. What was it Joyce said? “History is a nightmare from which I am still trying to awaken.”

Terreson
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