Zukofsky is HARD. I'ma skip it because he's just way too hard. Srsly. I've read it like 10 or 15 times and highlighted things (I never highlight things) and made my boyfriend's roommate read it and I get it but I don't get it.
Although I do feel special for recognizing at least one in each group of the poems/authors he quotes and knowing what he's talking about (thank you, Topics in Brit Lit before 1800).
4.30.2007
Fenollosa
This essay bothered me. I feel like he’s being ridiculously ethnocentric (the curse of the era) and I can’t tell whether he’s giving the Chinese culture the respect it deserves or whether he’s just another Orientalist. In the introduction, there’s that bit about how he “restored, or greatly helped to restore, a respect for the native art.” Like the Japanese couldn’t do that themselves! I’m not sure what about it bothers me so much. Like maybe I had a class where someone told me that statements like that (like those throughout the text) are superflawed and racist(ish) but I don’t remember their argument why. The college experience does that.
And now to the text.
“Hey, the Orientals rock, let’s steal all their ideas and then maybe we can kick their butts!”
Fenollosa argues that ideograms are inherently better suited to poetry because they look more like what they’re supposed to be. Is visual art superior to word-only poetry? It’s not only because characters look like what they represent, but because the etymology is visible. It is in English, too, and poets have all kinds of fun with it—at least, I do. Inspire = to (be) breath(ed) in(to). English just requires a little more abstract thought, because of the lack of visual representation. I’ve looked at Japanese characters and had no idea what they were supposed to represent—-a stylized tree looks like any number of things!—-until someone explained it to me (as Fenollosa explains “sun rises (in the) east”). The image works more on a mnemonic level than a literal one.
Once again, I love the idea of syntax mirroring perception (man---sees---horse) but growl at his limiting perception to only the one “right” order. Horse---man---sees works too (and is more appropriate to Japanese...not all languages are SOV!).
Fenollosa says later that Nature has no grammar...yet only one order of perception is “right.” Hmm.
And as far as talking about how the Chinese language hasn’t changed like ours has (at least visually)—-that is LIES. The brushstrokes change, bits get left out, essentialized, embellished...the only reason Chinese hasn’t changed its handwriting quite as fast as we have is because they’ve stayed all one nation (more or less) and regulated it more strictly, as well as the whole worldview where change is rarely good (and for us it’s “progress”).
I like Fenollosa’s dig at previous discussers of Chinese poetry—-it’s not their fault, they weren’t POETS! I feel sorry for any of them that actually were. =P
Transitive verbs are more specific, active, yes, perhaps; but sometimes they’re just not what one wants. “Is” can be powerful, just look at the surrealists.
Fenollosa did, however, give me an idea for a series of poems converting Japanese poems into their radicals (the building-blocks of characters) and translating them literally and seeing what happens, maybe even placing them on the page in their relative locations. I think it might turn out really ugly, though.
And now to the text.
“Hey, the Orientals rock, let’s steal all their ideas and then maybe we can kick their butts!”
Fenollosa argues that ideograms are inherently better suited to poetry because they look more like what they’re supposed to be. Is visual art superior to word-only poetry? It’s not only because characters look like what they represent, but because the etymology is visible. It is in English, too, and poets have all kinds of fun with it—at least, I do. Inspire = to (be) breath(ed) in(to). English just requires a little more abstract thought, because of the lack of visual representation. I’ve looked at Japanese characters and had no idea what they were supposed to represent—-a stylized tree looks like any number of things!—-until someone explained it to me (as Fenollosa explains “sun rises (in the) east”). The image works more on a mnemonic level than a literal one.
Once again, I love the idea of syntax mirroring perception (man---sees---horse) but growl at his limiting perception to only the one “right” order. Horse---man---sees works too (and is more appropriate to Japanese...not all languages are SOV!).
Fenollosa says later that Nature has no grammar...yet only one order of perception is “right.” Hmm.
And as far as talking about how the Chinese language hasn’t changed like ours has (at least visually)—-that is LIES. The brushstrokes change, bits get left out, essentialized, embellished...the only reason Chinese hasn’t changed its handwriting quite as fast as we have is because they’ve stayed all one nation (more or less) and regulated it more strictly, as well as the whole worldview where change is rarely good (and for us it’s “progress”).
I like Fenollosa’s dig at previous discussers of Chinese poetry—-it’s not their fault, they weren’t POETS! I feel sorry for any of them that actually were. =P
Transitive verbs are more specific, active, yes, perhaps; but sometimes they’re just not what one wants. “Is” can be powerful, just look at the surrealists.
Fenollosa did, however, give me an idea for a series of poems converting Japanese poems into their radicals (the building-blocks of characters) and translating them literally and seeing what happens, maybe even placing them on the page in their relative locations. I think it might turn out really ugly, though.
Apologies
by Me. If you make it big you can almost read the words. More of these at http://www.geocities.com/snail_5/mysyte/page10.html.
4.16.2007
Olson
On "Projective Verse":
The musical phrase (breath). Syntax of thought (I think I intuited this).
Musical syllable (Keats); beautiful sound in the non-metrical sense. It makes sense to hit the syllable first, it’s smaller, and then shape it into lines. Then the field, which at first I got confused and was all thinking about only field (big sheets of paper with words and phrases scattered willy-nilly) and not line/breath, but then I remembered and must remember that it’s the next step beyond line, after the syllable and line, the next thing to work on.
“O Western Wynd” is one of my favorite lyrics ever even though something bothers me about the last two lines, I think the rhythm of “Christ”.
What does he mean by OBJECTS? Words? Nouns? Relationships? The elements (syllable line image sound sense)? I think the latter combined with the “objects of reality.” He says they must be treated without “ideas or preconceptions from outside the poem;” I wonder if he’d allow the sorts of loose associations and connotations that words have for individual readers to be treated.
Man, it’s hard to read Olson and not start to write like him. His voice gets stuck in my head.
What the heck is he saying about tenses? Is he arguing against the use of past and future? “Do not tenses.” Mmmmmmkaywhat?
Back to the syntax of thought: it’s odd how each of Olson’s sentences makes sense, and is (mostly) grammatical, and yet sometimes I have a really hard time following his thought-jumps between them. I almost feel like I’m reading an article summary with all the arguments cut out and only the conclusions. But Shelley was like that too.
On the uses of typesetting: Olson’s discussion of the powers of evenly spaced letters, the “stave and the bar a musician” has, reminds me of some of Jackson Mac Low’s “Twenties” poems, which were supposed to have pauses precisely measured by typewriter spaces: three spaces indicated a pause for the length of an unaccented syllable, four spaces was accented, etc., or something like that. It was totally impossible to figure out how many spaces there were between phrases / words. It’s a nice idea, but really it doesn’t work that well. It DOES work, just not in the precise way he’s suggesting. And I really agree with the spaces equaling thought-pauses. Same with indentations and stuff. The form affects the way the reader perceives it.
The musical phrase (breath). Syntax of thought (I think I intuited this).
Musical syllable (Keats); beautiful sound in the non-metrical sense. It makes sense to hit the syllable first, it’s smaller, and then shape it into lines. Then the field, which at first I got confused and was all thinking about only field (big sheets of paper with words and phrases scattered willy-nilly) and not line/breath, but then I remembered and must remember that it’s the next step beyond line, after the syllable and line, the next thing to work on.
“O Western Wynd” is one of my favorite lyrics ever even though something bothers me about the last two lines, I think the rhythm of “Christ”.
What does he mean by OBJECTS? Words? Nouns? Relationships? The elements (syllable line image sound sense)? I think the latter combined with the “objects of reality.” He says they must be treated without “ideas or preconceptions from outside the poem;” I wonder if he’d allow the sorts of loose associations and connotations that words have for individual readers to be treated.
Man, it’s hard to read Olson and not start to write like him. His voice gets stuck in my head.
What the heck is he saying about tenses? Is he arguing against the use of past and future? “Do not tenses.” Mmmmmmkaywhat?
Back to the syntax of thought: it’s odd how each of Olson’s sentences makes sense, and is (mostly) grammatical, and yet sometimes I have a really hard time following his thought-jumps between them. I almost feel like I’m reading an article summary with all the arguments cut out and only the conclusions. But Shelley was like that too.
On the uses of typesetting: Olson’s discussion of the powers of evenly spaced letters, the “stave and the bar a musician” has, reminds me of some of Jackson Mac Low’s “Twenties” poems, which were supposed to have pauses precisely measured by typewriter spaces: three spaces indicated a pause for the length of an unaccented syllable, four spaces was accented, etc., or something like that. It was totally impossible to figure out how many spaces there were between phrases / words. It’s a nice idea, but really it doesn’t work that well. It DOES work, just not in the precise way he’s suggesting. And I really agree with the spaces equaling thought-pauses. Same with indentations and stuff. The form affects the way the reader perceives it.
4.08.2007
Shelley
On excerpt from A Defense of Poetry:
The moral duty of poetry, the emotional nature of poetry, the enlightened poet, the sensitive poet, the inspired poet. Cliches that most people still find relevant.
Shelley’s syntax is part of what makes him sound so arrogant. Also the statements of universals, ethnocentricity: the “savage.” At least he acknowledges that cultures are different in a sort of equal way (at least they were “in the youth of the world”). That redeems him a little.
A damn good point in class; modern poetry is sposed to be for the poet, used to be sposed to be for the court / populace.
Shelley says expression of emotion/imagination has as its purpose “to prolong…a consciousness of the cause.” Why a consciousness? I could see us wanting to prolong the pleasurable feeling, but why would a child want to be especially aware of what made hir happy? Curse Shelley’s denseness. Consciousness of emotional response --> consciousness of self: consciousness of self = pleasure?
A glimpse of how radical Shelley is: “…there is a principle within the human being, and perhaps within all sentient beings [emphasis mine]…” There are things other than humans that are sentient? Gasp!
Shelley tries to be a poet/scientist/philosopher, but acknowledges his role as poet as highest.
“Man in society” becomes source of pleasure: we like making fun of people, even ourselves, and we like talking about how we interact with each other. Here the cause and effect blend, and we talk about talking about how we interact, i.e. poetry about writing poetry or studying education. But after that the paragraph gets real confusing, and I never get a solid sense of how lawmakers are poets except that they study interactions and relations between people. All that flowery goo about the future being “contained within the present, as the plant within the seed” doesn’t make much sense either. My brain’s tryin’ to make connections but they’re just not gettin' there.
Poetry = Art.
The moral duty of poetry, the emotional nature of poetry, the enlightened poet, the sensitive poet, the inspired poet. Cliches that most people still find relevant.
Shelley’s syntax is part of what makes him sound so arrogant. Also the statements of universals, ethnocentricity: the “savage.” At least he acknowledges that cultures are different in a sort of equal way (at least they were “in the youth of the world”). That redeems him a little.
A damn good point in class; modern poetry is sposed to be for the poet, used to be sposed to be for the court / populace.
Shelley says expression of emotion/imagination has as its purpose “to prolong…a consciousness of the cause.” Why a consciousness? I could see us wanting to prolong the pleasurable feeling, but why would a child want to be especially aware of what made hir happy? Curse Shelley’s denseness. Consciousness of emotional response --> consciousness of self: consciousness of self = pleasure?
A glimpse of how radical Shelley is: “…there is a principle within the human being, and perhaps within all sentient beings [emphasis mine]…” There are things other than humans that are sentient? Gasp!
Shelley tries to be a poet/scientist/philosopher, but acknowledges his role as poet as highest.
“Man in society” becomes source of pleasure: we like making fun of people, even ourselves, and we like talking about how we interact with each other. Here the cause and effect blend, and we talk about talking about how we interact, i.e. poetry about writing poetry or studying education. But after that the paragraph gets real confusing, and I never get a solid sense of how lawmakers are poets except that they study interactions and relations between people. All that flowery goo about the future being “contained within the present, as the plant within the seed” doesn’t make much sense either. My brain’s tryin’ to make connections but they’re just not gettin' there.
Poetry = Art.
4.02.2007
Welcome to Discordia
I would like to note how resistant I am to the idea of starting a blog (especially since they are so easy to make ugly)--I might as well join MySpace, for christ's sake. Since I HAVE to...here it is, but I refuse to use it for anything outside of class. Grrrr blogs.
~Danyn
My real website: http://www.geocities.com/snail_5
~Danyn
My real website: http://www.geocities.com/snail_5
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