In brief, Manet was liberal and a humanitarian. He was a refined and cultivated man of the world, and it would be a mistake to think that his hunger for recognition (which was always bitterly disappointed) was a mere character trait. When presenting his personal exhibition in 1867, he wrote: “It is only sincerity that gives my work a character that could seem to be one of protest. In fact, the artist has tried only to express his impressions. He has no desire to overturn tradition or to create a new kind of painting. He has simply tried to be himself, and not someone else…”
[…]
From beginning to end, Manet’s life was really an impassioned affirmation of a single right—that of expressing a world of feelings that he had really experienced. The refined “dandy” who was full of irony and scepticism, and who loved the superficiality of life on the boulevards, became terribly serious when anyone mentioned his art. Manet’s attitude and the domineering way in which he expressed his ideas about painting needed to be justified by exceptional novelty and clarity of vision, and that he was justified is abundantly shown by the influence that his ideas have had on all art since his time. “Manet was the first,” Matisse wrote, “to work by reflexes and thus simplify the painter’s task…expressing only what affected his senses and feelings immediately.”
—Dario Durbe, Edouard Manet (Premier Book, Oldbourne Book Co. Ltd., 1963)
ursprache
sometimes the words escape me
12.09.2024
12.07.2024
fill 'er up
It was one of those long texts meant for those who need something to fill the blank spaces of their lives.
Labels:
blank space,
empty,
fill,
long,
long text
12.05.2024
out of place
I found one of his poems slumming in an obscure little magazine.
Labels:
famous poet,
little magazine,
slumming,
status
12.04.2024
store of value
Poetry is a lot like Bitcoin: It’s worth a lot to those who value it, and not much to anyone else.
12.03.2024
12.01.2024
architecture without lines
Claude Monet on his Rouen Cathedral series…
When the British painter Wynford Dewhurst asked for an account of the Rouen pictures, Monet replied, ‘I painted them, in great discomfort, looking out of a shop window opposite the cathedral. So there is nothing interesting to tell you except the immense difficulty of the task, which took me three years to accomplish.’
[…]
‘I have wanted to do architecture without doing its features, without the lines.’
Quoted in Jackie Wullschläger’s Monet: The Restless Vision (Knopf, 2024)
When the British painter Wynford Dewhurst asked for an account of the Rouen pictures, Monet replied, ‘I painted them, in great discomfort, looking out of a shop window opposite the cathedral. So there is nothing interesting to tell you except the immense difficulty of the task, which took me three years to accomplish.’
[…]
‘I have wanted to do architecture without doing its features, without the lines.’
Quoted in Jackie Wullschläger’s Monet: The Restless Vision (Knopf, 2024)
Labels:
architecture,
cathedral,
claude monet,
difficulty,
lines,
painting,
shop window
11.28.2024
11.27.2024
11.24.2024
poesy not poetry
Some poets are still writing ‘poesy’, not poetry.
Labels:
antique,
poesy,
poeticisms
11.22.2024
one and done
The saddest thing I could say about the poet was that no poem of his/hers I’d read impelled me to read it again.
Labels:
impel,
once,
reading poetry,
rereading
11.20.2024
what words are
The essential nature of words is therefore neither exhausted by their
present meaning, nor is their importance confined to their usefulness as
transmitters of thoughts and ideas, but they express at the same time
qualities which are not translatable into concepts—just as a melody which,
though it may be associated with a conceptual meaning, cannot be described by
words or by any other medium of expression. And it is just that irrational
quality which stirs up our deepest feelings, elevates our innermost being, and
makes it vibrate with others.
The magic which poetry exerts upon us, is due to this quality and the rhythm combined therewith. It is stronger than what the words convey objectively—stronger even than reason with all its logic, in which we believe so firmly...
If art can be called the re-creation and formal expression of reality through the medium of human experience, then the creation of language may be called the greatest achievement of art. Each word originally was a focus of energies, in which the transformation of reality into the vibrations of the human voicethe&mash;vital expression of the human soul—took place.
—Lama Angarika Govinda, Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism (Rider & Co., 1960), no translator given
The magic which poetry exerts upon us, is due to this quality and the rhythm combined therewith. It is stronger than what the words convey objectively—stronger even than reason with all its logic, in which we believe so firmly...
If art can be called the re-creation and formal expression of reality through the medium of human experience, then the creation of language may be called the greatest achievement of art. Each word originally was a focus of energies, in which the transformation of reality into the vibrations of the human voicethe&mash;vital expression of the human soul—took place.
—Lama Angarika Govinda, Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism (Rider & Co., 1960), no translator given
11.18.2024
11.16.2024
shadow workforce
America doesn’t know how many really good poets it has, doing fine work in the shadows, without public attention.
Labels:
acclaim,
american poetry,
fine work,
public attention,
shadows
11.15.2024
published poet
When someone refers to themselves as a ‘published poet’, their writing is likely at a very low level.
Labels:
amateur,
bad poetry,
naive,
published poet
11.14.2024
11.13.2024
burned library
Such was his erudition that when he died it felt like a great library had burned.
[Thinking of Borges]
[Thinking of Borges]
11.12.2024
let's get lost
From the start of this poem you could hear Chet singing from the backseat, Let’s Get Lost…
Labels:
backseat,
chet baker,
composition,
lost,
start
11.11.2024
drawn to poetry
He who draws noble delights from sentiments of poetry is a true poet, though he has never written a line in all his life.
—George Sand, The Devil's Pool (1846)
—George Sand, The Devil's Pool (1846)
Labels:
george sand,
noble delights,
sentiment,
true poet
11.10.2024
first to last
From the first line you couldn’t have foreseen the last.
Labels:
first line,
foreseen,
last line
11.08.2024
innovative v. novel
Is the work innovative, an improvement of the art, or merely novel, different in a way that makes little difference to the art?
Labels:
art,
different,
innovative,
novel
11.07.2024
11.06.2024
11.04.2024
cards play themselves
That last line, lay it down like a full house or straight flush.
Labels:
confidence,
flush,
full house,
last line,
poker
least made first
Their art so undervalued, poets act as though the world can’t do without their work.
11.03.2024
higher speech
A poet of resplendent rhetoric.
[Thinking of Wallace Stevens]
[Thinking of Wallace Stevens]
Labels:
resplendent,
rhetoric,
wallace stevens
11.01.2024
flowers are few
Much that charms is small and fleeting
To the greatness of eternity.
The earth is a tiny shadow tottering on the edge of death;
The moon is a throb of splendor in the heart of the night;
And the stars are ephemera in the long gaze of God.
So grieve not
That your poems are the cool, fresh grass of a short summer;
The flowers are few.
—Pascal D’Angelo, last eight lines of “To Some Modern Poets,” Of Clouds and Mists: The Collected Poems (Sublunary Editions, 2024), with an introduction and Notes by Dennis Barone
To the greatness of eternity.
The earth is a tiny shadow tottering on the edge of death;
The moon is a throb of splendor in the heart of the night;
And the stars are ephemera in the long gaze of God.
So grieve not
That your poems are the cool, fresh grass of a short summer;
The flowers are few.
—Pascal D’Angelo, last eight lines of “To Some Modern Poets,” Of Clouds and Mists: The Collected Poems (Sublunary Editions, 2024), with an introduction and Notes by Dennis Barone
Labels:
eternity,
fleeting,
flowers,
grass,
modern poets,
pascal d'angelo
10.29.2024
different kinds of poets
There are poets who make poems and poets who receive and record them.
Labels:
composition,
kinds of poets,
make,
makers,
receive,
record
10.27.2024
situational awareness
A poet should have the observational skills of a Jason Bourne.
Labels:
jason bourne,
observation,
seeing,
sensing,
skill
10.24.2024
recalling past voices
A poem…has the power to remind poet and reader alike of things they have read and heard. Also—and this is partly why the subject is so complex—it has the power to remind them of things that they have not read and heard, but that have been read and heard by others whom they have read and heard.
Thus the art, so private in execution, is also communal and filial. It can only exist as a common ground between the poet and other poets and other people, living and dead. Any poem worth the name is the product of a convocation. It exists, literally, by recalling past voices into presence. This has been no more memorably stated than in Spencer’s apostrophe to Chaucer in Book 4 of The Faeire Queene:
through infusion sweet
Of thine own spirit, which doth in me survive,
I follow here the footing of thy feet.
Poetry can be written only because it has been written. As a new poem is made, not only with the art but within it, past voices are convoked—to be changed, little or much, by the addition of another voice.
—Wendell Berry, “The Responsibility of the Poet,” What Are People For: Essays by Wendell Berry (North Point Press, 1990)
Thus the art, so private in execution, is also communal and filial. It can only exist as a common ground between the poet and other poets and other people, living and dead. Any poem worth the name is the product of a convocation. It exists, literally, by recalling past voices into presence. This has been no more memorably stated than in Spencer’s apostrophe to Chaucer in Book 4 of The Faeire Queene:
through infusion sweet
Of thine own spirit, which doth in me survive,
I follow here the footing of thy feet.
Poetry can be written only because it has been written. As a new poem is made, not only with the art but within it, past voices are convoked—to be changed, little or much, by the addition of another voice.
—Wendell Berry, “The Responsibility of the Poet,” What Are People For: Essays by Wendell Berry (North Point Press, 1990)
Labels:
chaucer,
communal,
convocation,
filial,
heard,
read,
spencer,
voices,
wendell berry
10.22.2024
10.21.2024
book before horse
Poets more concerned over publications than whether they’re read.
Labels:
audience,
book,
poetry publication
10.20.2024
10.19.2024
more is bore
Some poets write two or more poems of the same type or theme within one poem.
Labels:
more is bore,
one poem,
overwrite,
redundancy
10.17.2024
don't abide
Hard to abide poets who abide only one kind of poetry.
Labels:
abide,
aesthetic diversity,
one kind
10.15.2024
markson notes
Because Theodore Roosevelt’s son was enamored with the poetry of E.A. Robinson, then President Roosevelt arranged for Robinson, who was destitute at the time, a job at the New York Customs House. A sinecure that allowed Robinson the means and the time to compose his verses.
Knowing that T. S. Eliot was born in St. Louis, visitors looking for his childhood home are surprised to find only a parking lot where the row house had been on Locust Street: The Waste Land.
Franz Kafka finished his story “A Hunger Artist” while dying from starvation due to complications caused by laryngeal tuberculosis.
Knowing that T. S. Eliot was born in St. Louis, visitors looking for his childhood home are surprised to find only a parking lot where the row house had been on Locust Street: The Waste Land.
Franz Kafka finished his story “A Hunger Artist” while dying from starvation due to complications caused by laryngeal tuberculosis.
10.14.2024
10.13.2024
signal plus noise
From the standpoint of information theory, poetry may contain a good deal of ‘noise’ but in the case of poetry it’s not extraneous to the signal.
Labels:
extraneous,
information theory,
noise,
signal
10.11.2024
not point at all
The scientist [Robert Hooke] turns next to “a point commonly so called, that is, the mark of a full-stop, or period.” Whether printed or made with a pen, the tiny point, circle or dot of the period turns out to be disfigured, ragged, deformed. Under the lens, this microdot looks as though it’s been made with a burnt stick on an uneven floor.
—Brian Dillon, “What Pitiful Bungling Scribbles and Scrawls,” Affinities: On Art and Fascination (New York Review of Books, 2023)
—Brian Dillon, “What Pitiful Bungling Scribbles and Scrawls,” Affinities: On Art and Fascination (New York Review of Books, 2023)
Labels:
brian dillon,
disfigured,
lens,
magnification,
material,
period,
punctuation,
ragged,
robert hooke
10.09.2024
metaphoric power
The metaphor draws its strength from ever more disparate elements being joined until the difference becomes too great and the power of the metaphor dissipates. Of course the tolerance for disparity depends on the particular reader.
10.08.2024
inflated till it pops
His reviews were inflated blurbs, to the point that reading to the end of one you began to wince, sure it was about to burst in your face.
Labels:
blurb,
inflated,
poetry review,
review,
wince
10.06.2024
violent forgetting
I notice where a page has been torn out of my notebook and this feels like a violent forgetting.
Labels:
forgetting,
notebook,
page,
torn,
violent
10.05.2024
limited love
They claim to love poetry but can’t name more than a handful of poems beyond their own.
10.04.2024
markson notes
Of the many languages that arose among humankind over the centuries, most never developed a written form.
It’s been estimated that Sappho wrote about 10,000 lines of poetry, but only 600 lines or so remain, many just single words on papyri fragments. Whole scrolls of Sappho’s poetry were lost to the fire that destroyed the library at Alexandria in 48 BCE.
“View du Boulevard du Temple” (1838) by Louis Daguerre is thought to be the first photograph wherein a living person is present. A small dark figure on the street in the early morning appears to be getting his boots polished. The person doing the polishing is obscured by the blur of the motions he was making during the long exposure, and by his lower station in life.
It’s been estimated that Sappho wrote about 10,000 lines of poetry, but only 600 lines or so remain, many just single words on papyri fragments. Whole scrolls of Sappho’s poetry were lost to the fire that destroyed the library at Alexandria in 48 BCE.
“View du Boulevard du Temple” (1838) by Louis Daguerre is thought to be the first photograph wherein a living person is present. A small dark figure on the street in the early morning appears to be getting his boots polished. The person doing the polishing is obscured by the blur of the motions he was making during the long exposure, and by his lower station in life.
Labels:
loss,
louis daguerre,
markson notes,
photograph,
sappho,
written language
10.03.2024
10.02.2024
be oblique
The poetic line may run straight across the page and be oblique at the same time.
Labels:
oblique,
poetic line,
straight
9.30.2024
knows more
The poet knows more about the poem than the poem shows.
Labels:
knows,
shows,
understanding
9.29.2024
don't go there
Poet, don’t dare to call the clouds flocculent.
Labels:
adjectives,
charge,
odd words,
vocabulary
9.27.2024
9.26.2024
9.25.2024
small change
He was a poet and so he could always dig into his pockets for a few more words.
Labels:
expression,
pockets,
resources,
vocabulary,
words
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