[John Beaton]

I have some misgivings about this type of wordless "poetry", and about the "appreciation" of it. Often, the appreciation lies in the interpretation more than in the poem. The poem acts as a catalyst for thought and a base for creative construction. Those who supply such thought and construction enjoy it. But many, who look for the meaning in the poem itself, are turned off by something which appears "meaningless". For instance, I had that reaction when listening to a very long performance of "sound poetry" by the celebrated, and undoubtedly skilled, Canadian poet, Christian Bok.

Here, however, I think the essay which forms the "appreciation" doesn't attempt to read out too much more than is written in. Rather, it elicits mainly what is already there. For me, the title, "Fish's Nightsong", is the key.

That title first presents the idea of the fish, as reflected in the scales and the shape of the overall whole. I think the essay extrapolates too much when it says "the macrons might be crude renderings of horizontal fins". The scalloped effect for scales works for me. I think the tail-less fish-shape of the poem is a failed stretch.

Then the title presents the idea of night, and with it, sleep. I'm surprised the essay doesn't explicitly mention the fact that the breves look like closed eyes.

Finally, "song" takes us to the metrical interpretation and percussive non-sound which those familiar with the scansion-marks will recognize. However, that makes it a poem for poets and academics. I generally don't like poetry that shuts out lots of people, but I think this one has enough appeal to carry it even for audiences unfamiliar with the scansion implications. That said, I think the essay overblows both the musicality and the significance of the source. Yes, the music is there, but it's hardly on a par with Dylan Thomas or Beethoven. The curiosity of its source is what elevates it above a finger-tap on a table. And the essayist goes too far for my liking in describing the poet's neat visual pun as "confronting the enormity of the canon behind him" (a curiously Janus-esque way of putting it).

Overall, I think it's a clever and gently pleasing poem, and that the essay is illuminating. But a poem like this will never grab me very strongly.

John

[Charlotte Innes]

Ah, John B. just said everything I had intended to say about this poem, and he said it so gracefully and beautifully.

When I read the poem ("read?") and the essay earlier, I was reminded of what high school students say when we start discussing poetry. They often think poetry is what you want it to be, that interpretation is everything--forget what the poet might actually be trying to say. In fact, there is a two-way street. Inevitably, readers bring their own experiences, thoughts, feelings, and biases to a poem. But we as readers really ought give poets at least a minute of respect, since in most poems, there is likely a strong intent on the part of the poet to say something. (John Ashbery denies this, but honestly, how can we avoid ourselves, and our inner urgings, however hard we try!)

Here, though, the signs on the page are up for grabs. And the essayist notes this to some degree: "Morgenstern indicates no actual sound, and the stress marks wait for a reader to come along and give them meaning." In fact, without the title, the poem can only say, "interpret me!" The title, "Fish's Nightsong," is an integral part of the poem. You could almost say the title IS the poem, and that the little signs illustrate the poem--or possibly, like a metaphor, help the reader go more deeply into the experience of the poem, although not a huge amount, since what we see are notations, not images, that suggest (a) a fish, (b) closed eyelids (night), and (c) the music of a line, with short and long stresses. Since this is only part of a fish, as others have pointed out (no fins, etc.), perhaps we are meant to think that something is missing, that "night," in fact, is playing the usual part of something dark and scary, even misery--even mystery. We might infer that this is the dark night of the soul--since the fish is a major Christian symbol--or even perhaps that Christianity is lost or lacking in some way. And is there any actual music here? (I don't know music.) The essayist extrapolates the sound of a fish's heart. But again, the fish is really singing any tune we want to hear.

I like the essayist's conclusion, setting the poem in the context of its times (early 20th century), as a precursor of the upheavals of modernism to come. And given the assigned space, the writer does a decent job of touching bases on all this poem might be, all that might be extracted from it. [Added in>] I also loved Chris's context-setting comment above, that the poet's "regular mode is a deeply serious whimsy, and here you don't really need to reference the centuries of German poets staring at water to get the sense of fun." Of course! How many times have I listened to Schubert's lieder and thought how wonderfully he does water? [<] But the bottom-line is that this fish is anything we want it to be, and that, with his/her own language, the essayist injects the poetry into the poem with lovely phrases like this: "Morgenstern, confronting the enormity of the canon behind him, baits the future with a little fish dreaming its silent song, the tune yet to be invented." Well, we are all poets here. We love words. For me, this poem is like a poet's coloring book for all us poets to play with. Is this poetry? The essayist accepts that it is. Do I? Well, OK. But more a trigger for poetry, a prompt, a match to set the imagination on fire, a flintstone to strike the spark of poetry in others. Not such a bad thing, that.

[Tim Murphy]

Macrons and breves, indeed. I "say" it as any trained boy scout would say Morse Code, except that knowing Morse Code, I know it is meaningless and an insult to a tradition of elevated speech going back to the Gilgamesh poet. What a pathetic introduction to a new event! The Emperor has no clothes.

Your trogloditic poet lariat,

Timothy Murphy

[Catherine Chandler]

You asked for our opinions, not only on the "artistic merits of the piece" but also on what we consider "poetry".

I find even this (which I find ridiculous) is closer to poetry than the fish presented above.

As for the "percussive berceuse" description, I'd rather hear "real" music in a poem/lullaby than thumping and thming. The mini-essay, though it tries desperately with whimsical arguments, fails to convince me that "Fishces Nachtgesang" is poetry.

It is not music. It is not poetry. It's a drawing of a fish made from macrons and breves.

[Amit Majmudar]

The disagreement here is wonderful! Exactly how I would wish to start, Mr. Murphy: with something that gets people weighing in and posting and, hopefully, appreciating something they might not have otherwise.

I suppose I would point out one thing.... which is that there is an entire kind of writing or speech that is meant, precisely, to trigger a cascade in the listener's or reader's mind. Zen koans are like this. So are certain mantras. Or short poems by Paul Celan. Due to the vicissitudes of history and manuscript preservation, the fragments of Sappho often work this way as well, in practice.

There is "not much there" in a literal sense--only a few words, or in this case, none at all. But they serve as triggers. There are hundreds of thousands of other poems out there which contain many more words quite meaningfully sequenced--yet most would never set people contemplating the very nature of what they consider poetry, or contemplating so closely their form on the page--much less reacting so strongly as some of us have. Well done, Herr Morgenstern; well submitted, anonymous submitter!

[David Rosenthal]

Well, actually Amit, I find little about the poem or the discussion that invites me to respond. The first thing in the thread that moved me to respond was you mention of "triggers" and "koans." I don't think what the poem has to offer -- which I think is well explicated by the essay and subsequent discussion -- is all that remarkable. Maybe it was remarkable in 1905, but I actually doubt that.

The fact is it is a gimmick, which I don't think is necessarily a condemnation, but I don't think it is all that effective even as a gimmick. I think it does indeed require some translation -- not all languages have a meaningful way to decode macrons and breves, the title is necessary to establish the fishness of the otherwise abstract image -- and the musical sense I make of the arrangement of the symbols doesn't communicate much to me. The explication communicates the ideas more interestingly than the poem. In any case, my reaction to the poem and the essay was, "O.K., got it, next?" But I am utterly aware that my reaction is mine, and I understand how others find it more interesting than I do.

David R.

[Andrew Frisardi]

People who like conceptual art will probably like this, those who don't won't. I do not--or rather, I should say, conceptual art leaves me cold. I like art that leaves me moved, emotionally, in some way. This one stays (for me at least) at head level, just conceptual. When I want to think about what poetry is, I read the great poet-critics.

De gustibus etc.

That said, hats off to the critter of this one; it's an thought-provoking and observant little essay.

[Tim Murphy]

I'm too busy hunting my puppy to pay much attention to this affair. Amit, I have written one concrete poem, a fully rhymed tetrameter, Frost in Key West, which the Formalist nominated for a pushcart. It was concrete because it started out on the right margin, and the way I wildly lineated it and spaced it, it trended to the left margin, imitating the map of the Keys as it descended the page. I have also written one Zen koan. I don't object to experimentation, but I expect meter and rhyme of anyone pretending to the title of poet.

[Charlotte Innes]

Originally Posted by Charlotte Innes

Is this poetry? The essayist accepts that it is. Do I? Well, OK. But more a trigger for poetry, a prompt, a match to set the imagination on fire, a flintstone to strike the spark of poetry in others. Not such a bad thing, that.

I really liked the little piece you excerpted above, Nemo, on Yoko Ono's "conceptual art." I do think she's describing something akin to a "trigger," which I mentioned in my post (#9) and which Amit also alluded to in his post (#12). He added that "Zen koans are like this. So are certain mantras. Or short poems by Paul Celan..."

The fish poem nudges our preconceptions, makes us think, argue, question, pay attention.... And what Yoko Ono apparently has tried to do is to find more attentive ways of looking IN, and ways of looking further OUT than we are accustomed to--ways of paying attention to what's really there, without worldly clutter, also an attempt to shuck off inner clutter.

But isn't this also is the mark of a good poet? Paying attention is the preparation for a poem, isn't it? So, is the preparation itself a kind of art?

And isn't that kind of attention a matter for the individual? In what way is it accessible to others? Isn't art about sharing with others, or can it be simply in the making, whether it's tangible or not?

How does art include others if it is: "To stand back, to hold back, to keep your mouth shut. To yell with your silence."

Is connecting with others through art always "...the will to power? (See the end of Nemo's excerpt above.)

?????

Charlotte

[Nigel Mace]

I'm afraid this is nonsense. If poetry means anything, or indeed human art, it requires to be the expression of senient human beings capable of understanding and recognition, at least in some part, by other human beings. This prating about meaningful absences and silent yelling is a pathetic, at best, abnegation of the potential of human experience and, at worst, a fraud on human consciousness. The number of people who buy this is, thank goodness, negligible. The number of 'intellectuals' and artistic critics who do so, is tragically large. Time and survival will tell as it has always done. Meanhwile, let it be plainly stated "The Emperor has no clothes."

(This refers back to the posts praising this work and especially to the Lisa Carver piece quoted above.)