Quote:
Originally Posted by W.F. Lantry
The idea that we can see everything in the practice is essentially a remnant of both Neo-Platonist Christianity and Romanticism with a big R. Even Frank O'Hara was making fun of that one in the 50's. Everything is in the poems, he said, laughing. Seeing the poem as detached object is from the 30's, something from the Fugitives and the New Critics. If we're still supporting those notions, we're as reactionary as we think other people think we are.  |
Bill, I take it that this particular comment is directed primarily at me, given my response to your demand for 50-word statements of "poetics" from the participants here. I must say I'm intrigued--and rather amused--to learn that my thinking represents nothing more than "a remnant of both Neo-Platonist Christianity and Romanticism with a big R." (Would you care to elaborate?) But then, as I'm sure you must know from reading my workshop threads here, I'm in no way averse to discussing questions of "poetics" when they are relevant to the understanding of a poem--indeed, I'm sometimes accused of going on too much about them. (And incidentally, while we're on the subject . . . no, I don't think that I would "lose an argument about poetics or aesthetics to him [Goldsmith] in under five minutes flat," whether in an "embarrassing" way or any other (post #28). I wouldn't claim the reverse, of course--I've no way of knowing, really, never having met the guy--but
I can see no reason whatsoever why I should unquestioningly accept your assumption on that score about myself . . . or anyone else here. Frankly, I'm at a loss as to why you should ever have said such a thing; it's just so much empty bluster, with the added defect of being demeaning towards Eratosphere's membership. Speak for yourself, Bill.)
So no, I don't believe that a poem is perforce a "detached object" that
must be taken in isolation from anything anyone--and above all, its author--might have to say about it. At the same time, however, I see absolutely no contradiction between that recognition and the statement "My poetics is my practice as a poet." I could elaborate on that statement, of course, and I sometimes do, if only in an informal way, but that's neither here nor there. The point I was trying to make--obliquely, I confess; I'll make it explicitly now--is just that for the practicing poet, it's the practice that matters. If the "poetics" doesn't lead to a poetry worthy of the name, then it's just so much hot air.
Oh and Bill, by the way, we're still waiting for
your statement of poetics here.
.