ursprache
sometimes the words escape me
7.04.2022
cards play themselves
In poker, we say ‘the cards play themselves’, no interpretation needed to determine who has the better hand. So it should be in book reviewing—quote heavily from the book, and let the lines themselves show their relative value.
7.03.2022
odd man in
Often Dante gets inserted in a list/lineage of English poets.
Labels:
dante,
english poets,
lineage,
list
7.02.2022
parts of the whole
A lyric poem retains its wholeness; while the long poem is known by its lyric parts.
6.30.2022
6.28.2022
repetition or insistence
Gertrude Stein once declared that ‘there is no such thing as repetition’—a surprising pronouncement form a writer whose most enduring line of poetry is a loop of intoxicating repetitions: “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose’. Stein distinguished the idea of repetition from insistence; in poetry, she suggested, only the latter was possible. By this logic, each time a word or phrase repeats, it lands with a different inflection. Stein’s ‘rose’ line is a perfect case in point; it begins with Rose as a proper name, which then blossoms into the flower itself, and ultimately suggests the past tense verb, ‘arose’. Stein’s string of roses has been often interpreted as an affirmation of reality over metaphor—a rose is a rose, and nothing more—but she also saw it as an intensifier, one that manifested the rose in all its vividness. ‘I think in that line the rose is red for the first time in English poetry for a hundred years’, Stein later wrote of her famous line in Four in America.
—Sarah Holland-Batt, “Repetition and Rhetoric: On Michael Sharkey,” Fishing for Lightning (University of Queensland Press, 2021).
—Sarah Holland-Batt, “Repetition and Rhetoric: On Michael Sharkey,” Fishing for Lightning (University of Queensland Press, 2021).
Labels:
color,
getrude stein,
inflection,
insistence,
reality,
red,
repetition,
rose
6.27.2022
6.25.2022
6.24.2022
welcome emptiness
How I enjoyed these ‘open field’ poems; especially welcome were the blank spaces in between phrases and fragments.
Labels:
bad blurb,
blank space,
fragments,
open field,
phrases,
welcome
6.22.2022
bird by its name
When you say ‘bird’ in a poem, think what kind of bird. When you say ‘tree’, think what kind of tree. And if it matters, and it should, then use the specific name.
6.21.2022
act to narrative
The instant you admit any action whatever, no matter how simple, you admit some suggestion of what went before the action and of what is to follow it and of the cause and intention of the action—that is, you admit some element, however slight, of story.
—Kenyon Cox, What is Painting?: Winslow Homer and Other Essays (W. W. Norton, 1988)
—Kenyon Cox, What is Painting?: Winslow Homer and Other Essays (W. W. Norton, 1988)
6.18.2022
annoying innovation
The poet was doing something innovative with typography—it was annoying to read.
Labels:
annoying,
innovation,
reading poetry,
typography
6.17.2022
6.16.2022
poetical failure
The most common failure of beginning poets is that they think poetry should be poetical.
Labels:
failure,
poetical,
tyro,
young poets
6.15.2022
6.13.2022
unable to suffer further
The critic had wanted to write a scathing review but, being a person of character, he was unable to do so—realizing he’d closed the book only a few pages in.
Labels:
bad review,
character,
critic,
review,
stopped reading
6.12.2022
wide-eyed
Wide-eyed, ready for anything, I’m trying to read like a young person again.
Labels:
reading,
ready,
young reader,
youth
6.10.2022
swim out
'The English language
belongs to us. You are raking at dead fires,
rehearsing the old whinges at your age.
That subject people stuff is a cod’s game,
infantile, like this peasant pilgrimage.
You lose more of yourself than you redeem
doing the decent thing. Keep at a tangent.
When they make the circle wide, it's time to swim
out on your own and fill the element
with signatures on your own frequency,
echo soundings, searches, probes, allurements,
elver-gleams in the dark of the whole sea.'
—Seamus Heaney (in the voice of James Joyce), Station Island (1984)
belongs to us. You are raking at dead fires,
rehearsing the old whinges at your age.
That subject people stuff is a cod’s game,
infantile, like this peasant pilgrimage.
You lose more of yourself than you redeem
doing the decent thing. Keep at a tangent.
When they make the circle wide, it's time to swim
out on your own and fill the element
with signatures on your own frequency,
echo soundings, searches, probes, allurements,
elver-gleams in the dark of the whole sea.'
—Seamus Heaney (in the voice of James Joyce), Station Island (1984)
Labels:
english language,
heritage,
james joyce,
probes,
sea,
seamus heaney,
searches,
swim,
tangent
6.09.2022
6.08.2022
grand steps
Like steps up to a palace door, you know by the first few lines you’ve entered the realm of a poem.
Labels:
first lines,
palace,
realm,
steps
6.06.2022
6.05.2022
bad blurb
I confess I couldn’t wait to get to the end of this story. I had to skip ahead many pages to get to that comforting sigh of the book closing.
6.04.2022
prose poem is
I would have placed emphasis on the subversive character of prose poetry. For me, it is a kind of writing determined to prove that there’s poetry beyond verse and its rules. Most often it has an informal, playful air, like the rapid, unfinished caricatures left behind on cafĂ© napkins. Prose poetry depends on a collision of two impulses, those for poetry and those for prose, and it can either have a quiet meditative air or feel like a performance in a three-ring circus.
—Charles Simic, "Essay on the Prose Poem," delivered on June 1, 2010 at The Poetry Festival in Rotterdam.
—Charles Simic, "Essay on the Prose Poem," delivered on June 1, 2010 at The Poetry Festival in Rotterdam.
Labels:
cafe,
definition,
meditative,
napkin,
performance,
playful,
prose poem,
rapid,
unfinished
6.02.2022
5.29.2022
yadda yadda yaddo
A writer who took pride in having done the full circuit of residencies and retreats.
Labels:
circuit,
pride,
retreat,
writer's residency
5.28.2022
two not three
Terza rima: A sequence of interrupted couplets.
Labels:
couplet,
definition,
form,
interrupted,
terza rima
5.27.2022
5.26.2022
5.24.2022
doing the same thing
I don’t dismiss a poet for being prolific, but I am suspect of rote output.
Labels:
critical assessment,
dismiss,
output,
prolific,
rote
5.22.2022
5.20.2022
comes with the territory
It’s rare to find a formal poem that doesn’t sound stilted in places.
Labels:
formal poetry,
rare,
stilted
5.19.2022
block off the chip
The book I ordered, a study of the fragment in literature, arrived today. Turns out it’s over four-hundred pages.
5.18.2022
blood to poem
Hard for the word to travel from blood to poem.
—Yannis Ritsos, Monochords (Tavern Books, 2017), translated by Paul Merchant.
—Yannis Ritsos, Monochords (Tavern Books, 2017), translated by Paul Merchant.
Labels:
aphorism,
blood,
language limits,
travel,
yannis ritsos
5.17.2022
5.16.2022
around the corner
Poet, write a line that can look around
the corner.
the corner.
Labels:
charge,
corner,
line,
poetic line
5.15.2022
know how
Knowing things makes for better writing: connections multiply, metaphors arise easily.
Labels:
connections,
good writing,
knowledge,
metaphor
5.13.2022
not part way
Don’t start this poem unless you mean to finish it.
Labels:
charge,
difficulty,
finish,
start
5.12.2022
poor poet
Poor poet. (One who earns no income from poetry writing.)
Poor poet. (One who writes inferior poetry.)
Poor poet. (An expression of sympathy for one who struggles to write superior poems.)
Poor poet. (One who writes inferior poetry.)
Poor poet. (An expression of sympathy for one who struggles to write superior poems.)
Labels:
iterations,
poor poet
5.11.2022
foreign language
A work of art, like a foreign language, is closed to us until we learn to read it. Meaning is latent, seemingly hidden. There is also the illusion that the meaning is concealed. A work of art is a structure of signs, each meaningful. It follows that a work of art has one meaning only. For an explicator to blur an artist’s meaning, or to be blind to his achievement, is a kind of treason, a betrayal. The arrogance of insisting that a work of art means what you think it means is a mistake that closes off curiosity, perception, the adventure of discovery.
—Guy Davenport, A Balthus Notebook (David Zwirner Books, n.d.)
—Guy Davenport, A Balthus Notebook (David Zwirner Books, n.d.)
Labels:
art is,
balthus,
blur,
discovery,
foreign language,
guy davenport,
structure
5.09.2022
5.08.2022
important poetry
When one reads enough poems, one learns the important entry points to the universe.
5.07.2022
5.05.2022
5.04.2022
learned and declaiming
It’s not hard these days to be known as an intellectual poet.
Labels:
erudition,
intellectual,
learned,
poet is,
times
5.03.2022
first principle
The first principle of architectural beauty is that the essential lines of a construction be determined by a perfect appropriateness to its use.
—Gustave Eiffel
The first principle of poetic beauty is that the essential lines of a construction be determined by a perfect appropriateness to its effect.
—Gustave Eiffel
The first principle of poetic beauty is that the essential lines of a construction be determined by a perfect appropriateness to its effect.
5.02.2022
no outer limit
Language itself is perhaps the only limit on what poetry can be, and sometimes I’m not sure that even that boundary holds.
5.01.2022
4.30.2022
prose poetry defined
Lines that yearn for the roominess enjoyed by sentences in a paragraph.
Labels:
lines,
paragraph,
prose poetry,
roominess,
sentences
4.29.2022
anaphora and more
Do I repeat myself? Very well, then I repeat myself, I am many, I contain multiples.
Labels:
anaphora,
many,
muliples,
refrain,
repeat,
repitition,
walt whitman
4.28.2022
not de-prosed
Adding a metrical lilt to your lines and hanging some rhymes at the line endings, doesn’t de-prose your poetry. The prose remains despite the meter and rhyme.
4.27.2022
made with feeling
Joan Mitchell:
“I carry my landscapes around with me.”
“Painting is made with feeling. One has to have the guts to feel and love outside oneself.”
“The solitude that I find in my studio is one of plenitude. I am enough for myself. I live fully there.”
[Quotes I copied off cards at the Joan Mitchell retrospective exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Arts]
“I carry my landscapes around with me.”
“Painting is made with feeling. One has to have the guts to feel and love outside oneself.”
“The solitude that I find in my studio is one of plenitude. I am enough for myself. I live fully there.”
[Quotes I copied off cards at the Joan Mitchell retrospective exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Arts]
Labels:
feeling,
guts,
joan mitchell,
landscapes,
love,
painting,
plenitude,
solitude
4.26.2022
stunning cover
That four-color cover does nothing to enhance the text inside.
Labels:
cover,
four-color printing,
image,
text
4.24.2022
getting to great
You don’t just get to read great poetry. There’s a bit more to getting it.
Labels:
appreciation,
barrier of entry,
get,
getting,
great poetry,
understanding
4.23.2022
not numbers that count
Among poets, one’s popularity runs inverse to one’s respect among one’s peers.
Labels:
audience,
peers,
popularity,
respect
4.20.2022
title wave
Just the titles of Wallace Stevens’ poems put to shame the entire output of many other poets.
Labels:
output,
shame,
titles,
wallace stevens
4.19.2022
never know enough
We don't know enough, we'll never know.
Oh happy Homer, taking the stars and the Gods for granted.
—Robinson Jeffers, "The Epic Stars"
Oh happy Homer, taking the stars and the Gods for granted.
—Robinson Jeffers, "The Epic Stars"
4.18.2022
counter the common
Often poets write against popular sentiment and the common viewpoint.
Labels:
against,
popular sentiment
4.17.2022
poem's apotheosis
Being printed as a letterpress broadside is the apotheosis of the poem.
Labels:
apotheosis,
broadside,
letterpress,
print
4.15.2022
4.13.2022
good people to know
They were good bourgeois bohemians.
Labels:
bohemian,
bourgeois,
friend,
good people
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