Comments on: Internal Data http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/10/5643/ 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/2009/10/5643/#comment-25711 Margo Berdeshevsky Sat, 10 Oct 2009 11:33:19 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=5643#comment-25711 definitely useful, anselm. thanks for the thoughtful response, & may the intensifying bear fine fruits. margo definitely useful, anselm. thanks for the thoughtful response,
& may the intensifying bear fine fruits.

margo
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]]> By: Anselm Berrigan http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/10/5643/#comment-25686 Anselm Berrigan Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:40:29 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=5643#comment-25686 Thanks, Noah, I'll look for the story. Thanks, Noah, I’ll look for the story.
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]]> By: Anselm Berrigan http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/10/5643/#comment-25685 Anselm Berrigan Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:39:03 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=5643#comment-25685 I dig this, in relation to matters of scale especially. I dig this, in relation to matters of scale especially.
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]]> By: Anselm Berrigan http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/10/5643/#comment-25684 Anselm Berrigan Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:34:57 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=5643#comment-25684 Hi Edwin. Yeah, I have to say that your comment is the first time, literally, that the word innocent has crossed my mind in thinking of Sylvie - or anything else for that matter. The word seems to have disappeared from my register. Have to give that some thought. Hi Edwin. Yeah, I have to say that your comment is the first time, literally, that the word innocent has crossed my mind in thinking of Sylvie – or anything else for that matter. The word seems to have disappeared from my register. Have to give that some thought.
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]]> By: Anselm Berrigan http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/10/5643/#comment-25683 Anselm Berrigan Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:29:43 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=5643#comment-25683 Hi Margo. Thanks. I'll look up Varda's mirrors. I would say that generational discomfort Cathy speaks of is something that I recognize but haven't felt, for my own part - my feeling at the moment is a desire to intensify a kind of self-examination in the writing because I want to cover more ground and the ground is growing. Something like that. The poet Lorenzo Thomas gave an interview to Calaloo about a decade ago in which he basically said anyone might be able to express themselves; the question, vis-a-via poetry or another art, is how to do it on several levels. I've found that useful in a very basic way from time to time.... Hi Margo. Thanks. I’ll look up Varda’s mirrors. I would say that generational discomfort Cathy speaks of is something that I recognize but haven’t felt, for my own part – my feeling at the moment is a desire to intensify a kind of self-examination in the writing because I want to cover more ground and the ground is growing. Something like that. The poet Lorenzo Thomas gave an interview to Calaloo about a decade ago in which he basically said anyone might be able to express themselves; the question, vis-a-via poetry or another art, is how to do it on several levels. I’ve found that useful in a very basic way from time to time….
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]]> By: Margo Berdeshevsky http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/10/5643/#comment-25678 Margo Berdeshevsky Fri, 09 Oct 2009 05:14:51 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=5643#comment-25678 Young baby fingers as palm readers. Stabilization of self through salty origins. Lovely. And where else to begin? Beginings are what we have,no? Your quotes, Anselm, put me in mind of an “old baby” seeker of truths--Agnes Varda's balancing act/quest through deliberate mirrors placed on all her beach... that old French dame kicking sand forward, backward & present. If your Sylvie shows you the way so well as that, you’re surely blessed. And potent, Anslem, the reminder from Doug Oliver's writings that a way to survive a panic is to float until a ground suggests itself/ appears.... And if, as Cathy Wagner suggests above, : if “a discomfort our generation of poets inherited — discomfort with self-expression equating to some naive, transcendent, boundaried notion of self” do NOT so equate…might you speak more to that discomfort? One vital question, it seems. margo Young baby fingers as palm readers. Stabilization of self through salty origins. Lovely. And where else to begin? Beginings are what we have,no?

Your quotes, Anselm, put me in mind of an “old baby” seeker of truths–Agnes Varda’s balancing act/quest through deliberate mirrors placed on all her beach… that old French dame kicking sand forward, backward & present. If your Sylvie shows you the way so well as that, you’re surely blessed. And potent, Anslem, the reminder from Doug Oliver’s writings that a way to survive a panic is to float until a ground suggests itself/ appears….

And if, as Cathy Wagner suggests above, : if “a discomfort our generation of poets inherited — discomfort with self-expression equating to some naive, transcendent, boundaried notion of self” do NOT so equate…might you speak more to that discomfort? One vital question, it seems.

margo
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]]> By: Edwin Torres http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/10/5643/#comment-25658 Edwin Torres Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:28:57 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=5643#comment-25658 Our kids...oh yeah! A simple innocent gesture...though who am I to say what is innocent and what is gesture...that lets us interpret what we need when we need it. Like my 3 year-old boy asking me; who are you dadda?—well, I'm dadda—no, who ARE you dadda? A moment of being as intense as any I could invent. "Information of all kinds – public and private – is and has been striking me as simultaneously fleeting and over-charged on a second by second basis..." The sense of losing oneself in an increasingly non-private world has been pulsing inside me for the last few years, the Twitter mainframe that society has become wired to and what filtering system to get what you need. Like holding up fingers and fitting inside a tiny palm...that's probably all we need. Our kids…oh yeah! A simple innocent gesture…though who am I to say what is innocent and what is gesture…that lets us interpret what we need when we need it. Like my 3 year-old boy asking me; who are you dadda?—well, I’m dadda—no, who ARE you dadda? A moment of being as intense as any I could invent.

“Information of all kinds – public and private – is and has been striking me as simultaneously fleeting and over-charged on a second by second basis…” The sense of losing oneself in an increasingly non-private world has been pulsing inside me for the last few years, the Twitter mainframe that society has become wired to and what filtering system to get what you need. Like holding up fingers and fitting inside a tiny palm…that’s probably all we need.
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]]> By: Cathy Wagner http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/10/5643/#comment-25657 Cathy Wagner Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:08:54 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=5643#comment-25657 "projection on [Sylvie's] part of a lightness that I completely need in order to continue to work without freezing. I’ve been looking for something to help me put a shape around this feeling that my writing has to head in a more intensely self-examining route that can also refocus my humor" -- The thing Sylvie put in your hand has no boundaries, though it has a shape and size. I think that's key to dealing with a discomfort our generation of poets inherited -- discomfort with self-expression equating to some naive, transcendent, boundaried notion of self. It doesn't. Figure and ground shift. Go Sophie. “projection on [Sylvie's] part of a lightness that I completely need in order to continue to work without freezing. I’ve been looking for something to help me put a shape around this feeling that my writing has to head in a more intensely self-examining route that can also refocus my humor” –

The thing Sylvie put in your hand has no boundaries, though it has a shape and size. I think that’s key to dealing with a discomfort our generation of poets inherited — discomfort with self-expression equating to some naive, transcendent, boundaried notion of self. It doesn’t. Figure and ground shift. Go Sophie.
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]]> By: NEG http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/10/5643/#comment-25656 NEG Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:28:41 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=5643#comment-25656 Hey Anselm, Mary Gaitskill has a great story called “Tiny Smiling Daddy” although it’s dealing with much darker terrain than the anecdote you’ve got here. There's a moment when the father there tells his daughter that it’s not like we all have some tiny smiling daddy we keep in our pockets and pull out when we need him. Of course, the other anecdote here—the drowning one--proves that wrong in a way... Hey Anselm,
Mary Gaitskill has a great story called “Tiny Smiling Daddy” although it’s dealing with much darker terrain than the anecdote you’ve got here. There’s a moment when the father there tells his daughter that it’s not like we all have some tiny smiling daddy we keep in our pockets and pull out when we need him. Of course, the other anecdote here—the drowning one–proves that wrong in a way…
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]]> By: Carol Peters http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/10/5643/#comment-25655 Carol Peters Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:44:01 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=5643#comment-25655 Anselm, thank you for this post. Carol Anselm, thank you for this post.

Carol
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