Response to Kent Dorsey (3)
Philip Nikolayev
article by Kent Dorsey. I am not responding in the same sequence,
because in this part Dorsey finally gets to say something about
poetry. I will answer his rambling 'political' accusations shortly.
Kent Dorsey writes:
> PN once wrote:
>
> This is all very well, but consider the other alternative: one may
> be imagining that a certain poem reverberates with transcendent
> harmonies, whereas in reality it isn't worth shit. Something of
> this sort happens in this newsgroup, and in American poetry at
> large, all the time.
>
> I comment:
>
> PN states that "one may be imagining" a certain poem is good, "whereas in
> reality it isn't worth shit". By what criteria is he judging it
> worthless? And contrasted to what _imagined_ criteria? I suspect PN has
> no criteria but judgment by elites such as himself, and he uses _arbitrary
> opinion_ to attempt to propagate _general propositions_ of proper
> behavior later on. This is a logical fallacy that PN builds upon using
> an appeal to "morals", a defining characteristic of any fascist argument.
No, it is a logical fallacy for you to derive your conclusions from
false and unverified assumptions. If you really care to know if I have
any rational criteria for esthetic judgement, learn to ask polite
questions, preferably in a humble tone appropriate for your
demonstrably slow wit and meagre learning; otherwise, hold on
tenaciously to your confirmed function of a propagandistic yenta.
> This attitude of elitist judgment contradicts the following which PN later
> wrote, one of the few times he has critiqued a free verse poem in a positive
> light:
>
> The meaning of a literary work is not objective; it is the reader's
> job to infuse a text with meaning. Thus, the self-manifestation
> of language results in a dual self-expression - the reader's and
> the writer's.
>
> I suspect that this temporary departure from the fascist position was
> demanded by PN's own positive reaction to the poem, which was necessarily
> based in humanism since it exemplified the subjective experience.
>
Poor brainless thing, you are thoroughly devoid of humour as well as
irreparably dyslexic, being incapable as you are of grasping
elementary irony as well as elementary logic. From anything you've
said so far, it seems highly plausible to conclude that you can't
understand any level of text above the syntactical. This may have
something to do with your ardent defence of _merde libre_. The fact
that you took my self-evidently tongue-in-cheek gentle dismantling of
that little talent-free poem at face value, that you rashly subscribe
to the silly, cliche' opinions about it which I correctly predict and
convincingly deride, simply goes to show, firstly, that I have long
considered all your stammering objections, expressed in much better
form by better educated, more discerning and articulate people than
you; secondly, that your 'psychological-political' argument by
ill-digested authority is worth jack shit; thirdly, that it may be
well-nigh useless to attempt a rational conversation with you.
I am still trying, however, because you seem to have an engaging
madness about you, mad as my attempts themselves may be at infusing
some sense into your minuscule lump of grey matter. I hope you aren't
simulating the madness; that would be even more disappointing than
everything you have said so far. All you need is to read what I say
carefully, and to think before you decide to respond, no matter how
strenuous the effort might be. Practice makes perfect. As long as I
talk to you at all, rest assured that no stupidity you utter will go
unrewarded; if I eventually give you up as a bad job, feel free to go
on with your senseless yammering. If you want to overwhelm me with
the sheer monotonous length of your verbal escapades, try harder. But
I suggest, hoping against hope, that you attempt instead to embrace a
modicum of rationality and master some basic elements of good style,
so that we could talk as two sensible men.
> PN once wrote:
>
> But it's a moral need to give some weight to the consideration
> that bad poetry, when disseminated, becomes bad in ways that
> go beyond literary demerit. It corrupts.
>
> [and]
>
> But I'll tell you more than that. The awareness that one's judgement
> is fallible does not in any way obviate the need to make moral decisions.
> I find it strange that you try to find a rational justification
> for your reluctance to discourage bad writing, while stating at the
> same time the real reason - that you don't care enough. Of course,
> everyone is entitled to indifference.
>
> I comment:
>
> Notice the reliance on "the need to make moral decisions". I disagree
> that I, PN, or anyone, has a moral _obligation_ to do anything. To
> postulate a moral system is to differentiate values from their context.
> This is an artificial duality. It leads to rigidity and alienation from
> the dynamic under consideration, a disconnection from reality, often
> degenerating into pure rhetoric.
This is stupid. Take, for example, such a thing as innocent human
life. Do you think that it's not a value, a relative value or an
absolute one? Does it depend on 'context' (whatever that is)? If you
are a relativist or a mayavadin, you should shut up about values
altogether. If, on the other hand, a you agree that it logical to
expect men to regard certain values as absolute, simply because they
are parts of the definition of rational human nature as we know it,
you should stick your 'non-dualist' approach, advaita or whatever else
it may be, where the sun don't shine, and reflect on the fact that
relativism rules out any consistent view of responsibility. Further,
your assertion that there is no need to postulate a moral system, puts
your disgruntlement at my activity in this group in a pertinent
context of perpetuated absurdity - by exposing you as an inconsistent,
and therefore inconsequential, blithering yenta.
> Even honoring his "moral need", the argument now becomes based purely
> upon a new arbitrary proposition: that bad poetry corrupts. Nowhere
> is this assertion supported except by reference to other new _arbitrary
> consequences_.
You haven't been reading my postings long enough. You see, I can't be
expected to repeat everything I've said before without a specific
request. Should you decide to suspend your obsession with playing the
yenta, consider learning some pertinent manners. Remember also that I
can't do your reading for you. Anyone with a _minimal_ grounding in
philosophy would have known instantly from what traditions of thought
my moral postulates are derived.
> PN once wrote:
>
> Chris
> > The point is, both types can be rewarding, and there are
> > shining examples of poetry of all makes and models. Neither is
> > better than the other, though some forms are most definitely harder
> > to master if for no other reason than the sheer mass of what has
> > already been done.
>
> This only sounds good. I challenge you to name one (yes, just one)
> truly great poet writing in free verse in English, who would be
> comparable to any admittedly great author of rhymed verse.
>
> I comment:
>
> Again, I draw the parallel between this attitude of strict either-or
> categorization and the inability of the fascist perception to admit
> the possibility of degrees of integration between styles.
There is no strict either-or categorisation here, except in your dull
flustered imagination. I said explicitly elsewhere that although some
free verse is good, there is a necessary limit to how good it can be.
And since I never mentioned any integration between styles, you
allegation about my inability to admit that it's possible once again
confirms your relished status of a lying and/or deluded yenta.
> And if PN
> believes there has never been a great free verse poet, then _how can
> it possible_ for him to _admit that any great free verse poet exists_?
> (hint: it is not possible) This is an example of pretending to be
> open to discussion by disguising a foregone conclusion by attempting
> to shift the burden of proof for a conclusion you have already made!
> -- logical trickery. Meaningless rhetoric.
Meaningless rhetoric yourself. For the most monumentally, hopelessly,
unadulteratedly stupid, I explain: although PN 'believes there has
never been a great free verse poet', it is still possible for him to
'admit that any great free verse poet exists' by changing his opinion,
if there's a good reason to change it. In the same manner as people
once believed that, say, evolution of species did no exist, but then
came to believe it by changing their opinion. Think a little, this
shouldn't be too difficult to grasp.
> PN once wrote:
>
> Chris
> > One must know the rules to break them though, and it seems to me that this is
> > where you are coming from.
>
> It's not just that. I would like to argue that the status of even those
> brilliant works that break the rules is necessarily marginal, and that
> there is always a limit to what they can achieve.
>
> I comment:
>
> Note the arguing for the status quo and belittling of any accomplishment
> that falls outside its venues.
Free verse *is* the present-day status quo; therefore, arguing for it
makes you a fascist in your own right - by your own stupid standards.
By my standards, though, you are simply a mindless yenta.
> PN once wrote:
>
> I am not saying that old poets are better simply because they are old,
> revered and dead, nor am I interested in arguing British vs. American.
> Nor will I say that poetry is better than prose. All that would be silly.
> I will argue, however, that the figure of Whitman expresses, and contributes
> towards, a general decline in the standards of public taste.
>
> (and)
>
> I believe that there is a necessary connection between
> these pervasive features of his writing and the fact that the public
> chose to lionise him. I will accept no objection to the effect that
> what I am saying here is nothing but a matter of personal taste,
> because it remains to be shown that my personal taste is arbitrary.
>
> I comment:
>
> What is the "necessary connection" that what PN considers to be bad
> poetry with public adoration. Was it because Whitman's writing is
> more accessible to the non-poet? If the public decided to embrace
> Whitman, how can you cite Whitman as the cause of any decline? In
> short, where does the responsibility of first cause fall? This
> argument is circular and meaningless.
No, but your understanding of it is as circular and meaningless as the
murky circuits of your malfunctioning semblance of a mind. For the
most phenomenally, transcendentally, preternaturally stupid, I
explain: at one time public opinion lionised Byron; at another time
public opinion lionises Whitman. Byron as a poet is vastly better than
Whitman. Therefore there must have been a decline in the standards of
public taste, and the poor quality of Whitman's verse serves to
perpetuate the trashiness of public taste, which in turn results in
more garbage being written and published. I did not mention 'first
cause'. If, contrary to what one expects of your philosophical
illiteracy, the phrase 'necessary connection' makes you think of Hume,
keep in mind that he does not define it in terms of cause and effect,
either. If it doesn't remind you of Hume, I have no idea why you start
talking about causes.
> The statement by PN that his personal taste is arbitrary conflicts with
> the omniscient judgmental attitude he radiates, thus, it cannot be
> accepted at face value due to the lack of self-consistency. Notice that
> he does not say his taste is arbitrary, just that it remains to be shown
> otherwise.
With the formidable implication that it may be pretty damn hard for a
mutton-headed yenta such as yourself to show my personal taste to be
arbitrary, or to show anything worthy at all for that matter.
Nevertheless, please try harder.
> PN once wrote:
>
> My task is much more limited. I simply suggest that anyone who
> *knows* that he can't write, and *believes* that he'll never be
> able to write well, should stop writing, or at least posting.
> I also have reasons to think that the vast majority of posters
> to this group are perfectly conscious that their stuff is
> worthless. It only takes a little courage to stop participating in
> this endless exchange of dribbles.
>
> I comment:
>
> What does "can't write" mean? To what degree of failure are you
> alluding? How is someone to improve their writing without posting for
> critique? I suspect you have a hidden agenda to censor all writers
> who do not qualify as professionals in your eyes. You say "the
> vast majority of posters" know their stuff is "worthless", but
> how do you know they believe they'll "never be able to write well"?
> I suspect that most of them sincerely wish to improve.
Those who sincerely wish to improve should be prepared to take certain
risks, such as harsh criticisms and a lack of sympathy for their
efforts. There is no inherent reason for anyone to expect anyone to be
sympathetic. I, too, am taking certain risks. One of them is the need
to deal with a logorrheic yenta. Free speech, get it, twerp?
> (in a later follow-up post PN contradicts himself)
>
> Chris
> > I wonder how many people really ARE aware that what they write is "worthless"
> > ???
>
> I don't know.
>
> So what is his position really? How are we to consider this argument
> seriously when it is based on fluctuating opinion and nothing more.
So far, you have been alleging that my opinions are excessively rigid,
but now you find them insufficiently stable. Good for an irresponsible
proselytising yenta. As a first step to considering my arguments
seriously, try improving your reading skills; this might help you
understand the elementary statement that although I think that most
people on r.a.p. are aware that they write crap, I have no idea
exactly how many, since I haven't an incling about the size of this
group's readership. Gee, wasn't this one easy?
> (because PN also adds)
>
> For all your unsubtle irony, please consider, even in this limited
> context, that what I am talking about here may relate in some ways
> to the larger sphere of human nature and human dignity.
>
> All human activity affects the sphere of human nature and human dignity.
> This nebulous statement merely distracts without adding any new support,
> as if the sheer amount of statements imply justification.
I assure you that a slow-witted yenta of your variety is in no
position to judge the validity or effectiveness of any of my
statements. The 'nebulous' one you cite here was addressed to Chris,
who I think had no trouble understanding its implications. You may try
to take the cue from your betters in trying to resolve your jarring
cognitive dissonances.
> PN once wrote:
> [marguerite Petersen]
> > upon the world what is clearly garbage. However, one of the major
> > problems I see is deciding just who the "critics who know what they
> > are talking about", as underlined above, are. Philip seems to have
> > taken it upon himself to be such a critic. I personally would like
> > to see his credentials.
>
> No credentials, Marguerite. It's a tough life, isn't it?
> No credentials whatsoever.
>
> I comment:
>
> Note the parallel to the absolute authority of the state.
Before this instance, the last time I was asked for any credentials
was by a couple of coppers in Moscow. I didn't have any on me, so they
gently took me to the nearest precinct for a few hours. Note this
parallel as well.
A further bit of advice: should an itchy yenta ever care to venture
into a totalitarian state for the purpose of verifying its
credentials, I am sure the credentials will be supplied promptly upon
request, and will exceed anything the yenta in question initially
cared to see. Unless, of course, the yenta in question manages to
climb into a position of some power, in which case it will be the
yenta's own business to produce credentials for other inquisitive
minds to see; one of these is a very special form of credential, which
will warrant the yenta's right to ask ordinary citizens for their
credentials in a rigidly compelling manner.
However, r.a.p. is not a totalitarian state, and here anyone's manner
of asking for credentials turns out to be less rigidly compelling. If
this bothers the yenta at hand, the difficulty may be resolved by
trying to evaluate the merits and demerits of anyone's statement on
its own terms, or else the poor thing should be prepared to take a
running jump back into the cesspool of his confused obsession with
notional, national and political authority.
> PN once wrote:
>
> Believe it or not, I have more sympathy for what you say here
> than you or anyone else might expect. But please don't imagine that
> I am building a wall. I'm just expressing myself in the same way that
> those who post here feel impelled or compelled to express their own
> selves. And if you're into fair play, you'll agree that I should have
> an equal chance in the game with everyone else.
>
> I comment:
>
> PN has the same rights as anyone else. However, he has chosen to give up
> certain of his rights involving logic, common sense, and reasonable
> discussion. The philosophy of Fascist Poetics which he has adopted serves
> only to build walls to safeguard the elitist traditionalists.
Methinks you are mistaking the excessive hardness of your own cranium
for a wall. Your own inability so far to appreciate logic, common
sense, and reasonable discussion, has been abundantly demonstrated,
with a little help from me, but mostly by your own untiring,
unsuspecting effort.
> PN once wrote:
>
> I could give you any number of specific examples, but that would be tedious.
> I am sure that you know that Eliot was influenced by Ezra Pound's critical
> writings more, perhaps, than by his poetry; that Tzara's manifestoes
> were formative to Dadaism and Breton's to surrealism; that the birth
> of European Romanticism was caused by critical thought. I believe that
> it is thoroughly anti-intellectual to argue that criticism is somehow
> separate from the rest of literature, or in a worthless way
> secondary to it.
>
> I comment:
>
> Here, PN contradicts this position by stressing an inextricable link between
> criticism and poetry, but he himself does not hold the _poetry_ credentials
> necessary for this link. I suspect that the criticism he cites is an
> irrelevant voicing of unconscious trends that emerged independently
> through the medium of poetry itself.
There is no contradiction, but I am tired of spelling every lucid and
elementary statement out for you. Try to figure that one out yourself
as a bit of homework. It isn't as difficult as it looks to you.
> PN once wrote:
>
> Well, I promised above to say something about those instances of good
> writing which seem to obscure the great divide between prose and poetry.
> Such do indeed obtain. But, as I said, there is a marginal status to them,
> and I feel there is also a limit to how good they can be.
>
> I comment:
>
> The fascist position will always relegate any work that cannot be
> stripped from public acceptance as irrelevant, falling outside the realm
> of _poetry proper_, essentially unimportant. This is a common technique
> employed when the evidence cannot be deflected in any other manner.
> The reader is drawn into unconscious agreement at the outset.
Not an argument against the truth of my statement. But here you are
beginning to show signs of anxiety about your state of mind being
manipulated by some force that is beyond your consciousness. This
plausibly diagnoses you as a schizophrenic yenta.
> PN once wrote:
>
> There are many other works that are formally prose but somehow intuitively
> resemble poetry. I see no inherent reason to regard them as poems simply
> on the strength of their shortness and intense expressivity. The only
> meaningful definition of verse is a formal one, involving rhyme and rhythm.
> There is no type of trope that is peculiar to verse, and hardly any other
> technique, such as voice, understatement, irony, etc.
>
> I comment:
>
> Here PN attempts to promote his purely technical definition of poetry by
> stating that this definition is self-evident, i.e. "the only meaningful
> definition of verse is a form alone, involving rhyme and rhythm" --
> absolutely nothing has been offered up in support of this position, yet
> the reader is now expected to accept this definition as self-evident.
> This logical trickery functions as a smokescreen and nothing more.
There is no need to support this definition because it is merely
descriptive, and follows from Europe's intellectual history.
Similarly, there is no need to support the definition of a window as
'an opening in the wall of a building for admission of light and air',
nor is there any meaningful way to refute it. If you need a further
explanation why I think this definition is acceptable, and to what
extent I insist on it, feel free to ask.
> [end part 1 of 2, Fascism as Philosophy, Nature of Poetry, Free Verse]
Philip Nikolayev
nik...@husc.harvard.edu
Hermes
madmen...
In article <NIKOLAY.93...@husc11.harvard.edu> nik...@husc11.harvard.edu (Philip Nikolayev) writes:
although PN 'believes there has
>never been a great free verse poet', it is still possible for him to
>'admit that any great free verse poet exists' by changing his opinion,
>if there's a good reason to change it.
Oh but there is a good reason. Three good reasons:
WALLACE STEVENS
WALLACE STEVENS
WALLACE STEVENS
> at one time public opinion lionised Byron; at another time
>public opinion lionises Whitman. Byron as a poet is vastly better than
>Whitman. Therefore there must have been a decline in the standards of
>public taste,
Hardly. Two examples prove nothing. From what little I remember of my
English literature degree, there have been plenty of douchebag poets
lionized by the public throughout history. A taste of this can be
derived from a list of England's poet laureates.
Thank you, kind public, for your brief tolerance of my presence,
Posthumous-in-Exile
perhaps a more worthy antagonist for Philip the Great
--
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT Theresa "Hermes" Bock
TTTTTTT_____ _____TTTTTTT
TTTTTTTTTTTT TTTTTTTTTTTT pale...@byron.u.washington.edu
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
Administrator
> explain: at one time public opinion lionised Byron; at another time
> public opinion lionises Whitman. Byron as a poet is vastly better than
> Whitman. Therefore there must have been a decline in the standards of
> public taste, and the poor quality of Whitman's verse serves to
> perpetuate the trashiness of public taste, which in turn results in
> more garbage being written and published. I did not mention 'first
Philip, when you say that Byron is a better poet than Whitman, are you
stating a personal opinion or are you suggesting that there is some
universally objective measurement by which Byron can indeed be shown
to be the better poet?
If it is just your opinion, then what you are really saying is:
I THINK Byron is a better poet than Whitman.
I percieve American poetry moving away from Byron towards Whitman.
I do not LIKE this because I do not LIKE Whitman.
In this case, all I have to say is "Tough Noogies". I happen to think
Whitman is far better poet than Byron and that the state of American
poetry is just fine. Your opinion to the contrary does not concern me.
If, however, what you are suggesting is a universal statement of fact
rather than just a personal opinion, then indeed, I am most axious to
learn the objective basis by which you claim Byron is better than
Whitman.
--
Bing H Bang +---------------------------+
Senior Systems Analyst | This is my home computer. |
National Data Corporation, Atlanta, GA | I do not speak for NDC. |
uucp: ro...@bing.atl.ga.us +---------------------------+
Philip Nikolayev
ro...@bing.atl.ga.us (Administrator) writes:
{...}
> Philip, when you say that Byron is a better poet than Whitman, are
> you stating a personal opinion or are you suggesting that there is
> some universally objective measurement by which Byron can indeed be
> shown to be the better poet?
The short answer is this: there is something approximating a universal
objective standard in the fact that the better a poet, the less his
stuff lends itself to convincing hostile parody. Whitman is so devoid
of humour that practically all of his stuff is its own parody. The
long answer is much more complicated; and honestly, at the moment I'm
not terribly ineterested in launching yet another avalanche here. The
short answer should be enough: _sapienti sat_.
> Bing H Bang +---------------------------+
> Senior Systems Analyst | This is my home computer. |
> National Data Corporation, Atlanta, GA | I do not speak for NDC. |
> uucp: ro...@bing.atl.ga.us +---------------------------+
Philip Nikolayev
nik...@husc.harvard.edu
Vance Maverick
|>
|> The short answer is this: there is something approximating a universal
|> objective standard in the fact that the better a poet, the less his
|> stuff lends itself to convincing hostile parody.
Why should this be true? On the face of it, it seems
good writing should be praised for what it does, not
for what it prevents -- was <name your favorite writer>
primarily concerned with defending himself against
parody? Kindly fill in this lemma for us....
Vance
Da Poet Knowit
> ro...@bing.atl.ga.us (Administrator) writes:
>
> {...}
>
>> Philip, when you say that Byron is a better poet than Whitman, are
>> you stating a personal opinion or are you suggesting that there is
>> some universally objective measurement by which Byron can indeed be
>> shown to be the better poet?
>
> The short answer is this: there is something approximating a universal
> objective standard in the fact that the better a poet, the less his
> stuff lends itself to convincing hostile parody. Whitman is so devoid
> of humour that practically all of his stuff is its own parody. The
> long answer is much more complicated; and honestly, at the moment I'm
> not terribly ineterested in launching yet another avalanche here. The
> short answer should be enough: _sapienti sat_.
Oh, come on... your opinion is that Whitman's work is its own parody, which
does not come anywhere close to satisfying some kind of "universal objective
standard" -- of course, a work lending itself to parody has much less to do
with the poet than the work. Formal poetry by virtue of its form lends
itself to parody more than free verse can. And the more well known a poem is,
then the more succesful a parody will be.
I am interested in the long answer, and who gives a rat's ass if it starts an
avalanche? E-mail would work just as well though.
I also wonder about your assertion that free verse is a lesser form because it
owes its status as "poetry" to the recognition given fixed forms. You call
this parasitic. I would call it evolution. Just as all art forms progress and
build on the traditions that come before them, so does poetry. Again it is a
matter of breaking the old rules to form new boundaries...
>
> Philip Nikolayev
> nik...@husc.harvard.edu
--
Christopher L. Lott
poet and pauper "And now what shall become of
fn...@aurora.alaska.edu us without any barbarians?
Those people were a kind of
solution."
Danny-Boy
>
>I also wonder about your assertion that free verse is a lesser form because it
>owes its status as "poetry" to the recognition given fixed forms. You call
>this parasitic. I would call it evolution. Just as all art forms progress and
>build on the traditions that come before them, so does poetry. Again it is a
>matter of breaking the old rules to form new boundaries...
This is the second time. Chris, and Kent both said that free verse was an
evolution of form. Philip disagreed with the idea of it being evolution.
When I think about it, I cloud it up with too literal images of survival
of fittest and silly baggage. so maybe I should just say, maturation of
form. I dunno.
Anyway, my whole point of posting isn't really to add a new idea to this,
but to under line the "evolution of form" and "progress" and etc, and to
ask someone anyone to elaborate. I would enjoy hearing about it. I have
misgivings about calling it "evolution of form" and will be stuck at work
again tomorrow with lots of time to think, and until then...
Craig Arnold/English
of taste do... in the sense that old standards are abandoned when they are
seen not to accomodate the present. One cannot, however, say that a given
form (a fixed form, or a prosody, or a rhetorical device) has any direct
correspondence to any standard of taste. The analogy is only cosmetic.
There is no reason why, for example, Western culture's abandonment of
Christianity should change the way poets write. Certainly there have been
revivals of older forms (the classical meters, in bastardized English
versions) to serve some larger prelapsarian idea, but these have generally
created more problems than they have solved.
I don't think poetic form will ever fit into the vocabulary of evolution. I
suppose "maturity" would connote the same sort of growth -- it
presupposes something being grown toward. Forms are followed, or they are
resisted, but they do not grow, nor are they broken.
CAA (Criticism As Avoidance)
Administrator
> In article <1993Mar7.0...@bing.atl.ga.us>,
> ro...@bing.atl.ga.us (Administrator) writes:
>
> {...}
>
> > Philip, when you say that Byron is a better poet than Whitman, are
> > you stating a personal opinion or are you suggesting that there is
> > some universally objective measurement by which Byron can indeed be
> > shown to be the better poet?
>
> The short answer is this: there is something approximating a universal
> objective standard in the fact that the better a poet, the less his
> stuff lends itself to convincing hostile parody. Whitman is so devoid
> of humour that practically all of his stuff is its own parody. The
> long answer is much more complicated; and honestly, at the moment I'm
> not terribly ineterested in launching yet another avalanche here. The
> short answer should be enough: _sapienti sat_.
>
> nik...@husc.harvard.edu
Well, I think I could do some really serious hostile paradying on Byron.
Isn't it true that who gets parodied depends on the point of view of the
person doing the parody? This would seem to indicate subjectivity, not
objectivity.
--
Danny-Boy
caa...@u.cc.utah.edu (Craig Arnold/English) writes:
>...
>I don't think poetic form will ever fit into the vocabulary of evolution. I
>suppose "maturity" would connote the same sort of growth -- it
>presupposes something being grown toward. Forms are followed, or they are
>resisted, but they do not grow, nor are they broken.
>
>CAA (Criticism As Avoidance)
I disagree about your idea that evolution pressupposes something being
grown toward. Perhaps 'growth' or 'maturation' would. A child will grow
towards an end form of an adult. Its genes hold the pattern for the form.
But evolution - C,H,O,N do not start out to grow into a Form, human or
otherwise. It is a matter of what survives long enough to propogate.
evolution metaphor, on the other hand:
Using evolution as a metaphor for poetical forms just makes me confused.
And I guess the idea of a form to be grown toward is part of the confusion.
even though evolution does not pressupose this idea, its use in the metaphor
might (because people think it does).
other metaphors:
I also don't like the metaphors of plant growth for explaining forms or
poetics because of the mysticism it invites.
I have trouble interpreting your sentence: "Forms are followed, or they are
resisted, but they do not grow, nor are they broken."
Please elaborate, if you feel so inclined.
--
she...@wam.umd.edu
Don Zirilli
>Christianity should change the way poets write.
I don't get what you're saying. Surely, this abandonment (to whatever extent
it has occurred) HAS affected the way poets write. Or do you think form is
separate from content? If so, there's just no talking to you.
>I don't think poetic form will ever fit into the vocabulary of evolution. I
>suppose "maturity" would connote the same sort of growth -- it
>presupposes something being grown toward. Forms are followed, or they are
>resisted, but they do not grow, nor are they broken.
the "evolution of poetry" is only evolution in the sense of change in the
face of one's environment. There has been no improvement or maturation of
poetry. Merely change. I believe that a poet writes a poem within a context.
This context includes a literary tradition AND the society around him, incl.
such issues as whether or not Christianity has been "abandoned". One reason
for rhyme and meter is that of defamiliarization, a concept I have mentioned
before and one a certain group of Russians (of all people) came up with.
However, when there is a long tradition of rhymed poetry then writing in
rhyme no longer defamiliarizes. It then becomes tempting to write in "free
verse". And now, free verse is the norm, so rhyme and meter are as useful as
ever, unless you are writing parody, song, etc. People who think poetry
should be "clear" with its "message" miss the point of poetry completely.
Just write a letter or use the phone if you want to convey a "message". The
content of a poem is its form, not its message. But by form, I don't mean
just rhyme and meter, I mean words interacting with other words in all their
ambiguity and connotations. The "message" is just one layer in a multitude
of layers. Just look at Bing's "translation" of a Shakespeare poem into
what it "really meant". The result is ridiculous. And then when you read
Wallace Stevens, you CAN'T translate his poems into what they "really mean"
because they don't "really mean" ANYTHING. I think it's hilarious to call
Wally's poetry "free verse" because all it is is form. Viva Wally!
yours,
Posthumous O'Toole
Defender of the Realm
--
Chucklehead awaits the return of his .sig
Aaron Radomski, where are you???
Sherri
>> In article <1993Mar7.0...@bing.atl.ga.us>,
>> ro...@bing.atl.ga.us (Administrator) writes:
>>
You remember, by what standard do you claim Byron to be a better poet
than Whitman?
>> The short answer is this: there is something approximating a universal
>> objective standard in the fact that the better a poet, the less his
>> stuff lends itself to convincing hostile parody. Whitman is so devoid
>> of humour that practically all of his stuff is its own parody. The
>> long answer is much more complicated; and honestly, at the moment I'm
>> not terribly ineterested in launching yet another avalanche here. The
>> short answer should be enough: _sapienti sat_.
>
>
>Oh, come on... your opinion is that Whitman's work is its own parody, which
>does not come anywhere close to satisfying some kind of "universal objective
>standard" -- of course, a work lending itself to parody has much less to do
>with the poet than the work. Formal poetry by virtue of its form lends
>itself to parody more than free verse can. And the more well known a poem is,
>then the more succesful a parody will be.
I don't agree with this claim. I would say rather that the more distinctive
a particular style, the easier it is to parody. It would be harder to
parody the work of a good sonnet writer, for example, because it would
be hard to decide which good writer of sonnets was being parodied. Certain
types of free verse would be much easier to parody, Pope was able to parody
bad rhymed poetry in general... I think Philip short answer is correct,
but not particularly interesting. I, too, would much prefer the long
answer.
>I am interested in the long answer, and who gives a rat's ass if it starts an
>avalanche? E-mail would work just as well though.
No, please, post it here. It's far more relevant than playing 'Who's the
fascist?"
>
>I also wonder about your assertion that free verse is a lesser form because it
>owes its status as "poetry" to the recognition given fixed forms. You call
>this parasitic. I would call it evolution. Just as all art forms progress and
>build on the traditions that come before them, so does poetry. Again it is a
>matter of breaking the old rules to form new boundaries...
But in that case, what are the new boundaries? I think that Philip has
made some good arguments for the need for some sort of discipline in poetry,
some aesthetic other than "I can put down anything I want and call it
art and no one can disagree with me 'cause beauty and quality and
goodness and all that are relative". I agree with you that Philip hasn't
made an argument worthy of his claim about the parasitism of free verse on
the recognition given fixed forms.
nor has he discussed the purpose rhyme and meter serve in poetry other
than providing poets with a net to serve their balls over. Perhaps we
are too polite to get his attention and should either discuss it among
ourselves or come up with some good names to call him.
I have found the poems that K.A. Rice has been posting to present
a far better case than the current flames. The rhymes in poems like
"Eye Contact" and "After Cutting" are not strained or predictable, and
they are certainly a part of these poems' success, for example, neither
of these poems would have the same intensity if they'd been written
in free verse.
I also find the wholesale adherence of many r.a.p.pers to relativist
thought disturbing and alien to common sense. Come on, standards of
quality exist whether or not we have found, argued, and proved them.
I'm not saying we shouldn't contemplate why we find one thing better or
more beautiful than another, but to use a 'nothing is better than anything
else except in some person's personal opinion' statement as a starting
point is silly. By what objective universal standard is Philip Nikolayev's
opus "Response to Kent Dorsey--volumes 1-5" a work of lesser beauty or
value than the greatest poetry ever typed or penned? I personally want
to reserve the right to slam it even if it means I'll be labelled intolerant
for life.
>>
>> Philip Nikolayev
>> nik...@husc.harvard.edu
>
>--
> Christopher L. Lott
> poet and pauper "And now what shall become of
> fn...@aurora.alaska.edu us without any barbarians?
> Those people were a kind of
>
Sherri
Vance Maverick
|>
|> I also find the wholesale adherence of many r.a.p.pers to relativist
|> thought disturbing and alien to common sense. Come on, standards of
|> quality exist whether or not we have found, argued, and proved them.
This requires demonstration, to say the least.
|> I'm not saying we shouldn't contemplate why we find one thing better or
|> more beautiful than another, but to use a 'nothing is better than anything
|> else except in some person's personal opinion' statement as a starting
|> point is silly.
I think you anti-relativists are afraid because you think
people's "mere" likes and dislikes are completely random. They
aren't: people learn from what's around them.
|> By what objective universal standard is Philip Nikolayev's
|> opus "Response to Kent Dorsey--volumes 1-5" a work of lesser beauty or
|> value than the greatest poetry ever typed or penned?
What do we sacrifice by saying "None, except that nobody
[who shares my assumptions and something of my way of reading]
would want to read it?"
|> I personally want
|> to reserve the right to slam it even if it means I'll be labelled intolerant
|> for life.
You have that right, but you can't claim the backing of
God, or whoever it is that implements universal standards.
Vance
Marek Lugowski
>I also find the wholesale adherence of many r.a.p.pers to relativist
>thought disturbing and alien to common sense. Come on, standards of
>quality exist whether or not we have found, argued, and proved them.
>I'm not saying we shouldn't contemplate why we find one thing better or
>more beautiful than another, but to use a 'nothing is better than anything
>else except in some person's personal opinion' statement as a starting
>point is silly. By what objective universal standard is Philip Nikolayev's
>opus "Response to Kent Dorsey--volumes 1-5" a work of lesser beauty or
>value than the greatest poetry ever typed or penned? I personally want
>to reserve the right to slam it even if it means I'll be labelled intolerant
>for life.
Sherri, what leads you to equate relativism with absence of standards of
quality? In physics, relativism does not imply absence of local order,
merely a lack of preferred frame of reference.
Similarly, anyone aspiring to presenting an aesthetic, I feel, has to work
pretty hard at delivering a useful corpus of categories and prototypes for
these categories.
Also, none of us lives in a vacuum, and none is an island, as one
Englishman once said. :) Our culture is a shaping manifold for our
aesthetic. In many cultures, the choices are narrowed to what is
grammatically correct, in the cultural sense, and what is a transgression.
Here, in rap, it seems some are arguing that relativism is bad because its
onset forces us to abandon useful distinctions and the power to make good
choices. Some others argue just the opposite -- that relativism empowers
us to make excellent choices as well as allows us to view others in
whatever light we construct to view them, or in whatever light we inherit
from our ancestors/elders.
I cannot see anything more humanizing than the feeling of responsibility to
oneself and to the community that flows from embracing relativism. Once
you reject Divine Intervention under any guise, be it Platonic Forms or
Jesus Christ Our Lord, the choosing show is in *your* hands, and it is
yours to live with convictions such as "Wallace Stevens wrote cute but
sterile pieces", and these convictions will not be traded stamped with the
King's Coin, but will forever float in the "meme" pool of ideas.
-- Marek
Da Poet Knowit
More distinctive style obviously makes the parody more recognizable, just as
being a widely read poem or well known author does. But I still think, judging
from the number of parodies I have seen, that rhyme lends itself to parody
more in a general sense than free verse...
>>I am interested in the long answer, and who gives a rat's ass if it starts an
>>avalanche? E-mail would work just as well though.
>
> No, please, post it here. It's far more relevant than playing 'Who's the
> fascist?"
>>
>>I also wonder about your assertion that free verse is a lesser form because it
>>owes its status as "poetry" to the recognition given fixed forms. You call
>>this parasitic. I would call it evolution. Just as all art forms progress and
>>build on the traditions that come before them, so does poetry. Again it is a
>>matter of breaking the old rules to form new boundaries...
>
> But in that case, what are the new boundaries? I think that Philip has
> made some good arguments for the need for some sort of discipline in poetry,
> some aesthetic other than "I can put down anything I want and call it
> art and no one can disagree with me 'cause beauty and quality and
> goodness and all that are relative". I agree with you that Philip hasn't
> made an argument worthy of his claim about the parasitism of free verse on
> the recognition given fixed forms.
> nor has he discussed the purpose rhyme and meter serve in poetry other
> than providing poets with a net to serve their balls over. Perhaps we
> are too polite to get his attention and should either discuss it among
> ourselves or come up with some good names to call him.
Some of the best writers of free verse today are the new boundaries. Writers
need discipline in order to produce work that people will want to read, and
even more (plus some talent and a little luck) to write something that will be
regarded as good art down the road. BUT, this is something that comes from
within the writer. This freedom is what allows the generation of original
creative work in the first place. I think the problem here is that I do not
agree that some, and definitely not most writers of free verse feel that they
can "put down anything they want and call it art" -- but there is a part of
the reception of art that IS totally dependent on what a piece does for a
person. Does it move them or make them retch. . . or do they forget it as soon
as they read it?
I have a problem with someone (anyone) wanting that "discipline" or
"aesthetic" imposed on the writer from the outside in any other way than
through the writer's exposure to poetry and the world he lives in. Regardless
of the metaphor used, poetry is always changing, and it is moving away from
fixed forms into free forms, and the way we approach poetry will change
accordingly. Doesn't mean other forms will disappear, and doesn't mean that we
can not use these other poems as a means of understanding whichever we are
interested in at the moment.
>
> I have found the poems that K.A. Rice has been posting to present
> a far better case than the current flames. The rhymes in poems like
> "Eye Contact" and "After Cutting" are not strained or predictable, and
> they are certainly a part of these poems' success, for example, neither
> of these poems would have the same intensity if they'd been written
> in free verse.
Haven't seen her poem so I can't comment, but by far the most moving and
intense poems I have read have almost all been free verse. And I have read a
lot of poetry, and admire authors who work in many different forms. Again,
this is my approach. Just as there is much to be said for good rhyming poetry,
I think there is much to be said for good free verse.
>
> I also find the wholesale adherence of many r.a.p.pers to relativist
> thought disturbing and alien to common sense. Come on, standards of
> quality exist whether or not we have found, argued, and proved them.
> I'm not saying we shouldn't contemplate why we find one thing better or
> more beautiful than another, but to use a 'nothing is better than anything
> else except in some person's personal opinion' statement as a starting
> point is silly. By what objective universal standard is Philip Nikolayev's
> opus "Response to Kent Dorsey--volumes 1-5" a work of lesser beauty or
> value than the greatest poetry ever typed or penned? I personally want
> to reserve the right to slam it even if it means I'll be labelled intolerant
> for life.
Then where do these standards come form if we have not found, argued or
"proved" them? It sounds like standards of quality are just floating around
out there waiting for us to become enlightened enough to notice them. Absolute
relativism is not the answer, but personal opinion is still going to be the
base of any pronouncement of quality. You seem to argue against yourself here
in referring to Nikolayev's response to KD: there is no one that can PROVE to
you that this is any less of a poem than <insert your favorite work here>. You
have the right to slam it or praise it or wear it under your shirt, but using
the tools of experience, criticism, and other works we all also have the right
to TELL you that it is less or more than something else. This is why there
will never be any universal standard and shouldn't be.
>
>>>
>>> Philip Nikolayev
>>> nik...@husc.harvard.edu
>>
>>--
>> Christopher L. Lott
>> poet and pauper "And now what shall become of
>> fn...@aurora.alaska.edu us without any barbarians?
>> Those people were a kind of
>>
> Sherri
chris
poet and pauper
Thomas E. Davidson
In a previous article, nik...@husc11.harvard.edu (Philip Nikolayev) says:
>The short answer is this: there is something approximating a universal
>objective standard in the fact that the better a poet, the less his
>stuff lends itself to convincing hostile parody.
I disagree. Sometimes the best work on Earth can be well-parodied;
in fact, it's quite possible that the sheer number of Whitman parodies done
are tributes to his skill. The fact that virtually no one parodies Byron
can perhaps be attributed to the fact that Byron is both dull and comparatively
unknown....
Tom
--
"Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, 'whores, pimps, gamblers, and
SOBs,' by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another
peephole he might have said 'saints, angels, martyrs, and holy men' and he
would have meant the same thing." --John Steinbeck, _Cannery Row_
Danny-Boy
<1993Mar11.1...@wam.umd.edu>, sf...@wam.umd.edu (Sherri) writes:
>|> I also find the wholesale adherence of many r.a.p.pers to relativist
>|> thought disturbing and alien to common sense. Come on, standards of
>|> quality exist whether or not we have found, argued, and proved them.
>
>
>I think you anti-relativists are afraid because you think
>people's "mere" likes and dislikes are completely random. They
>aren't: people learn from what's around them.
>
I've been wondering about ethics and aesthitics since Philip came on board
a while back, and probably a little befor.
so far, reality is objective, through introspection, because
I think the antartic continent existed before people discovered. I also think
the universe existed before sentient beings where there to observe it.
(for brevity, I do not want to dwell on this topic)
As for morals, I am not sure that they exist like jupiter does. So I guess
that makes me a relativist for now.
(aside: let me warn you, when I am first thinking about something, my position
is very apt to change because I am constantly rethinking everything. So don't
argue with me and expect me to be consistant. I might start throwing in
arguments for the opposite side, if you don't think them up. if I do.)
>
>You have that right, but you can't claim the backing of
>God, or whoever it is that implements universal standards.
Well, I am going to try and figure this out over spring break.
so far,
Morals exist because we make them up.
An objective standard is, history of morals. This is probably what you get
when you are socialized.
other standards.
Other standards are what I have to work on. The first postulates would be
very arbitrary - no, I think the first postulates would be that you want
to survive, since this is sort of built in. so you make morals based on
gathering resources, finding shelter, procreating. This is very basic.
Later on you become sentient. It is benificial to us to exist socially,
this facilitates survival. Therefore, one has to create morals to allow
harmony with other individuals. Other individuals will not like it if you
take their resources.
That is one approach, but is ground up. If you already assume a society,
like we have for example a capitalistic society (or what not, I am very
politically ignorant. I am also ignorant about most everything else. feel
free to correct me.) then you will want harmonious standards to allow
the capitalistic society to not fall apart or something.
I have to work on consequences.
...
--
she...@wam.umd.edu
Danny-Boy
>consequences.
I just wanted to reiterate this.
--
she...@wam.umd.edu
Danny-Boy
>>consequences.
>
>I just wanted to reiterate this.
I am still working on figuring out where people get standards for morals.
So far, I've mentioned socialization. In order to figure out where the
first morals came from (the first society) I've guessed that trying
to survive was facilitated by herd behavior and so, things that facilitated
herd behavior were reinforced.
This is one approach. physical.
I don't have any historical background in philosophy or the questions of
ethics, so it would probably be a good idea for me to do some research.
I am entangled with a self enforced huge reading list at the moment though.
For curiosity, I took a strall poll: "Why do people have morals that
don't like genocide?" A reply I got was, "Because they are afraid that if
they do nothing about genocide, someone will kill them also."
Philip Nikolayev
In article <1nnviq$p...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
mave...@fir.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Vance Maverick) writes
with respect to anti-relativism.
[...]
> You have that right, but you can't claim the backing of God, or
> whoever it is that implements universal standards.
If you agree that you exist, that logic is a feature of the universe,
that humans are a race of rational beings sharing a common fundamental
nature, and that the survival of the human race is desirable, then the
possibility of universal standards is mere commentary. God or any
other personified authority has nothing to do with this.
> Vance
Philip Nikolayev
nik...@husc.harvard.edu
Philip Nikolayev
mave...@fir.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Vance Maverick) writes:
Oh, that's simple. What good writing does should rule out the
possibility of convincing hostile parody, more or less in the same
manner as honest behaviour should prevent one from being justly put in
jail, although this is by no means the only reason why honest
behaviour should be praised.
> Vance
Philip Nikolayev
nik...@husc.harvard.edu
Philip Nikolayev
> In article <NIKOLAY.93...@husc11.harvard.edu>, nik...@husc11.harvard.edu (Philip Nikolayev) writes:
>> In article <1993Mar7.0...@bing.atl.ga.us>,
>> ro...@bing.atl.ga.us (Administrator) writes:
>>
>> {...}
>>
>>> Philip, when you say that Byron is a better poet than Whitman, are
>>> you stating a personal opinion or are you suggesting that there is
>>> some universally objective measurement by which Byron can indeed
>>> be shown to be the better poet?
PN
>> The short answer is this: there is something approximating a universal
>> objective standard in the fact that the better a poet, the less his
>> stuff lends itself to convincing hostile parody. Whitman is so devoid
>> of humour that practically all of his stuff is its own parody. The
>> long answer is much more complicated; and honestly, at the moment I'm
>> not terribly interested in launching yet another avalanche here. The
>> short answer should be enough: _sapienti sat_.
CL
> Oh, come on... your opinion is that Whitman's work is its own
> parody, which does not come anywhere close to satisfying some kind
> of "universal objective standard" -- of course, a work lending
> itself to parody has much less to do with the poet than the work.
> Formal poetry by virtue of its form lends itself to parody more than
> free verse can. And the more well known a poem is, then the more
> succesful a parody will be.
Of course, when I said that Whitman's work was its own parody, I was
simply expressing a personal opinion and not describing a universal
standard of judgement. Nevertheless, I think that the criterion of
possible parody makes good sense, and I think parody has nothing at
all to do with the poet as such, but only with his work. After all, no
one can be reasonably expected to know anything about a poet but his
work. All the objections to my claim which I have seen here so far,
misunderstand what I am really saying, which is: CONVINCING HOSTILE
PARODY. Both 'convincing' and 'hostile' are absolutely essential for
this to function as a fairly objective criterion. Even more generally,
I would say that any poetry that lends itself easily to being poked
convincing hostlie fun at, is suspect, or at any rate those of its
aspects that are being poked fun at.
It is arguable, of course (and I anticipate it will be argued) that
the word 'convincing' reduces my claim to a subjective level. Not so.
As a good analogy, consider jokes. Some people have a sense of humour,
some haven't. Does this mean that those who 'don't get' your favourite
joke are simply expressing an 'alternative, equally valid' opinion?
Probably not.
A more reasonable objection would be that my criterion isn't perfect.
Well, it isn't. So what?
As an aside, since you have brought up this 'poet' vs. 'work' thing,
let me say while we are at it, specifically with respect to Whitman,
that his 'real life' radically undermines the ideal posited in and
underlying all his poetry, namely, uninhibited sincere self-
expression, the revelation of one's true self. It so happens that
most noteworthy literature that relies on the ideal of sincerity is
ultimately insincere; but I would say this with greater reservation
about the English Romantics than about old Whitman.
But this isn't the chief reason why I think his poetry is bad. I feel
that the ideal of art as self-expression is quite false if judged on
its own terms, regardless of the artist's actual sincerity or lack
thereof. This ideal stems from the rather ridiculous notion that art
-any art - expresses emotion, or is capable of expressing emotion.
> I am interested in the long answer, and who gives a rat's ass if it
> starts an avalanche? E-mail would work just as well though.
I do give a rat's ass if it does. The long answer would have to start
_ab ovo_, that is, not with poetry, but with a definition of human
nature and most basic values, and would require an amount of effort
which I am not prepared to expend. Sorry. But I think that is possible
to arrive at some interesting results by dealing with more limited
objectives.
> I also wonder about your assertion that free verse is a lesser form
> because it owes its status as "poetry" to the recognition given
> fixed forms. You call this parasitic. I would call it evolution.
> Just as all art forms progress and build on the traditions that come
> before them, so does poetry. Again it is a matter of breaking the
> old rules to form new boundaries...
I have answered this elsewhere. Have you considered the chess analogy?
Besides, there are no old rules and no new boundaries. Nothing
fundamentally new has been invented on poetic form for centuries.
Surely you aren't calling Whitman a formal innovator, are you?
> --
> Christopher L. Lott
> poet and pauper "And now what shall become of
> fn...@aurora.alaska.edu us without any barbarians?
> Those people were a kind of
> solution."
>
Philip Nikolayev
nik...@husc.harvard.edu
Corwin D. Shackelford
>>presupposes something being grown toward. Forms are followed, or they are
>>resisted, but they do not grow, nor are they broken.
Maturity does connote the same kind of growth, and I think it is important not
to get caught up in any meliorist myth regarding poetry; that we are wiser and
smarter these days, and thus form just seems to have lost its appeal. We
aren't better poets, we are different poets. No longer is society and science
ordered under the hieracrhical "Great Chain of Being," no longer do Plato's
forms dictate our absolutes. I think that this is much more the reason for the
denigration of poetic form. We cop the same attitude towards it as the prior
ideas. It is separate though, and this is the base of contention. Rome wasn't
destroyed by a greater civilization, but a barbarian horder, thus our ideas of
progress are too easily applied. Technology is one thing, the arts is another.
Literary theory/criticism is only so much a combination of the two.
>>
>>CAA (Criticism As Avoidance)
>
>
>I disagree about your idea that evolution pressupposes something being
>grown toward. Perhaps 'growth' or 'maturation' would. A child will grow
>towards an end form of an adult. Its genes hold the pattern for the form.
>But evolution - C,H,O,N do not start out to grow into a Form, human or
>otherwise. It is a matter of what survives long enough to propogate.
>
>evolution metaphor, on the other hand:
>Using evolution as a metaphor for poetical forms just makes me confused.
>And I guess the idea of a form to be grown toward is part of the confusion.
>even though evolution does not pressupose this idea, its use in the metaphor
>might (because people think it does).
>
I think free verse is not the same branch as formed verse, so the former is not
a betterment of the latter, unless you want to say that the environment is the
philosophical environment of the society, and in that case extinction might be
an appropriate phrase, as long as 'fittest' doesn't imply anything having to do
with aesthetics or 'goodness' as the discussion of the "golden age" implied at
one point. Back to my first sentence this pgrph, the two intersect, and one
embroidered with the other often makes a superior product than one alone.
Indeed, any of the old hardcore 'form' poets made their work sparkle exactly by
departure from the form as befitted content. We tend to lapse into form to
prove a point, they did the reverse, and much hinged on their differing world
views.
>I have trouble interpreting your sentence: "Forms are followed, or they are
>resisted, but they do not grow, nor are they broken."
>Please elaborate, if you feel so inclined.
ditto....
Corwin
Sherri
>agate.berkeley.edu> mave...@fir.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Vance Maverick) writes:
> <1993Mar11.1...@wam.umd.edu>, sf...@wam.umd.edu (Sherri) writes:
>
>>|> I also find the wholesale adherence of many r.a.p.pers to relativist
>>|> thought disturbing and alien to common sense. Come on, standards of
>>|> quality exist whether or not we have found, argued, and proved them.
>>
>>
>>I think you anti-relativists are afraid because you think
>>people's "mere" likes and dislikes are completely random. They
>>aren't: people learn from what's around them.
>>
me again
I may go back and answer the original post, but in case I
don't let me point out here that I'm not cowering from the implications
of relativism. In fact, relativism naturally appeals to me, I think
a lot has been learned from the exploration of it, particularly the
recognition that not every culture or group shares the same values
or modes of thinking. But it's just too damn easy to say 'there's no
God' therefore, 'there's no one to set up standards' therefore, 'no
standard is better than any other standard and any statement to
the contrary is just your arbitrary personal opinion'. And I really
have been hearing such arguments on r.a.p.
And one thing I certainly am not afraid of is that 'people's
"mere" likes and dislikes are completely random'. In fact, I am claiming
that people's likes and dislikes are not completely random, and that
they should quit going around saying 'that's just one person's opinion'
when they really don't mean it for a second. This does not mean that
one person's preference for Whitman over Shakespeare means that Whitman
is 'better' than Shakespeare. Of course, there's a lot more to be asked,
such as "You think Whitman is a better 'What' than Shakespeare" (one
thing I've been doing a lot is separating the various reasons that certain
poets appeal to me. H.D., for example, is a personal favorite of mine, but
many of the reasons have little or nothing to do with poetry, exactly).
Someone who takes personal likes and dislikes at all seriously will also
understand the importance of the cultivation of public taste that Philip
also talks about.
>
>As for morals, I am not sure that they exist like jupiter does. So I guess
>that makes me a relativist for now.
>
Don't worry, my beliefs about murder and the rape of three year olds have
very little to do with Jupiter. Refusing extreme relativism does not
constrain me to take simplistic views of morality. Ethics has always
been and continues to be complex. As I believe Marek said, sort of, many
rules operate locally (he may have said all). It's really the relativists
who've been going around demanding the 'universal' standards and
dismissing everything short of that.
>(aside: let me warn you, when I am first thinking about something, my position
>is very apt to change because I am constantly rethinking everything. So don't
>argue with me and expect me to be consistant. I might start throwing in
>arguments for the opposite side, if you don't think them up. if I do.)
>>
Me, too.
I have perhaps been thinking about relativism for a bit longer, but I
am still constantly rethinking everything. Some of the arguments with
my post on this thread are against what people are assuming I mean by
relativism, some arose from the lack of clarity in this prose of mine
that often sucks. I would hope that we can all remain free to refine
our way of thinking.
>>You have that right, but you can't claim the backing of
>>God, or whoever it is that implements universal standards.
>
Hmm, if I had a .sig perhaps I would need a disclaimer that I speak only
for myself and not for the implementer of standards. The mere
existence of something does not imply that someone made a decision that
it should exist.
>Morals exist because we make them up.
>An objective standard is, history of morals. This is probably what you get
>when you are socialized.
>
That's way to simple unless you mean much more by 'make them up' than I
think you do.
>
>Other standards are what I have to work on. The first postulates would be
>very arbitrary - no, I think the first postulates would be that you want
>to survive, since this is sort of built in. so you make morals based on
>gathering resources, finding shelter, procreating. This is very basic.
>Later on you become sentient. It is benificial to us to exist socially,
>this facilitates survival. Therefore, one has to create morals to allow
>harmony with other individuals. Other individuals will not like it if you
>take their resources.
>
Sounds like Social Contract Theory based on the society that dwells in
the Pyramids of Maslow. email me if you want to read some similar, but
more fully developed, ideas.kk.
>
>she...@wam.umd.edu
Vance Maverick
|>
|> right to slam PN:]
|> > You have that right, but you can't claim the backing of God, or
|> > whoever it is that implements universal standards.
|>
|> If you agree that you exist
I think so.
|> that logic is a feature of the universe,
Don't know what this means.
|> that humans are a race of rational beings sharing a common fundamental
|> nature
Ditto.
|> and that the survival of the human race is desirable
Well, *I* desire the survival and happiness of the humans
who exist. Does this imply your phrase here? Maybe.
|> then the
|> possibility of universal standards is mere commentary. God or any
|> other personified authority has nothing to do with this.
Well, not having agreed to your premises, I don't think I
have to accept this conclusion, even though I don't see how
it follows.
I do think we would need a central authority, personified or
not, to ground universal *aesthetic* standards. (Moral
standards are another matter.) From my point of view, poems
are for people to read, thus their value resides in all the
individual readings; we would need a designated reader, or
reading, to establish a universal standard. (This remains
true for the parody argument, since parodies are artworks,
and their success depends on their readings.)
Vance
Vance Maverick
|> [I]t's just too damn easy to say 'there's no
|> God' therefore, 'there's no one to set up standards' therefore, 'no
|> standard is better than any other standard and any statement to
|> the contrary is just your arbitrary personal opinion'.
OK, it's easy. Is it wrong? Arguing from standards was
always a poor substitute for communicating taste.
|> |> You have that right, but you can't claim the backing of
|> |> God, or whoever it is that implements universal standards.
|>
|> Hmm, if I had a .sig perhaps I would need a disclaimer that I speak only
|> for myself and not for the implementer of standards. The mere
|> existence of something does not imply that someone made a decision that
|> it should exist.
I was being a little flippant, but I do think, to speak figuratively,
that the existence of something implies a place for it, that a
universal version of what I take to be personal (taste) implies
a Universal Person.
Vance
Ariel S
> sf...@wam.umd.edu (Sherri) writes:
>
> >I also find the wholesale adherence of many r.a.p.pers to relativist
> >thought disturbing and alien to common sense. Come on, standards of
> >quality exist whether or not we have found, argued, and proved them.
> >I'm not saying we shouldn't contemplate why we find one thing better or
> >more beautiful than another, but to use a 'nothing is better than anything
> >else except in some person's personal opinion' statement as a starting
> >point is silly. By what objective universal standard is Philip Nikolayev's
> >opus "Response to Kent Dorsey--volumes 1-5" a work of lesser beauty or
> >value than the greatest poetry ever typed or penned? I personally want
> >to reserve the right to slam it even if it means I'll be labelled intolerant
> >for life.
>
>
> Sherri, what leads you to equate relativism with absence of standards of
> quality? In physics, relativism does not imply absence of local order,
> merely a lack of preferred frame of reference.
Exactly -- "lack of preferred frame of reference".
Thus it is in cultural anthropology as well.
Relativism, cultural relativism, asks that we supspend our own
frame of reference for a moment and look through the eyes of another,
through a different frame of reference.... To pick up a new set of rules
(or values) and understand the event (or work of art) within that frame
of reference, within taht set of rules.
Would you judge a basketball game by the rules of football?
'What're those idiots doing? That play was stupid -- it made no sense!
I hate these guys -- they're ruining the game."
It is fine to say, "I do not like this." It is another matter
to say "This is bad." The latter implies some fixed, objective frame of
reference. And there are only subjective ones: our own set of values,
those of our teachers...those of various literary traditions...
a.
Philip Nikolayev
sf...@wam.umd.edu (Sherri) writes:
[...]
> I agree with you that Philip hasn't made an argument worthy of his
> claim about the parasitism of free verse on the recognition given
> fixed forms.
Not true. I posted a few pages about that. You may disagree with it,
or you may have skipped it without reading, but please don't insinuate
irresponsibly that I haven't made the argument. Stupid as it may seem, I
sometimes get touchy about such things, especially when I've spent a
good deal of time thinking about the issue at hand.
Incidentally, I don't think I ever mentioned 'fixed forms'.
> nor has he discussed the purpose rhyme and meter serve
> in poetry other than providing poets with a net to serve their balls
> over. Perhaps we are too polite to get his attention and should
> either discuss it among ourselves or come up with some good names to
> call him.
This is precisely the tool that never fails seemingly to destroy any
argument that falls short of at least a sizeable volume of deathless
academic prose, complete with footnotes and bibliography. Please don't
expect the unexpectable. The Net has its limitations as a medium of
communication, and my tasks are limited too. For the purpose of my
discussion, I assume the value of rhyme and metre to be abundantly
demonstrated by the history of European poetry. I admit that some
people here may not find this ultimately convincing; but then I am not
interested in convincing anyone who is too lazy to do his own reading
and thinking. There's only so much time and energy that I have for
this whole enterprise, and although it is hard to avoid arguments about
trivial things, I can't argue about *all* trivial things.
> I have found the poems that K.A. Rice has been posting to present a
> far better case than the current flames. The rhymes in poems like
> "Eye Contact" and "After Cutting" are not strained or predictable,
> and they are certainly a part of these poems' success, for example,
> neither of these poems would have the same intensity if they'd been
> written in free verse.
I fully agree. But you will be told by Bing H. Bang that this is just
your personal, inconsequential opinion.
> I also find the wholesale adherence of many r.a.p.pers to relativist
> thought disturbing and alien to common sense. Come on, standards of
> quality exist whether or not we have found, argued, and proved them.
> I'm not saying we shouldn't contemplate why we find one thing better
> or more beautiful than another, but to use a 'nothing is better than
> anything else except in some person's personal opinion' statement as
> a starting point is silly. By what objective universal standard is
> Philip Nikolayev's opus "Response to Kent Dorsey--volumes 1-5" a
> work of lesser beauty or value than the greatest poetry ever typed
> or penned? I personally want to reserve the right to slam it even
> if it means I'll be labelled intolerant for life.
I take it that you are making a purely theoretical statement here,
right? Otherwise, please note that my 5-volume monstrosity had a narrow
and clearly stated purpose, and contained warnings at the beginning of
every article advising the reader to proceed at own risk. I believe it
was as good as a work of that genre can ever be. Personally, I've got
tired as hell of the interminable discussion of my method, which
people always foist at me. Be it reiterated that I seek no
credibility, and that I my manners are gross because I prefer being
ignored to being misunderstood. I do wish to be labelled intolerant
for life, and have no respect whatsoever for ideological tolerance. I
am not nice.
(I know that some find my style and 'cascading' tedious into the bargain.
Well, one person's tedium is another's Socratic dialogue. To each his
own. Parenthetically, I disagree with Tom Wachtel that tedium corrupts. It
is in the eye of the beholder, and simply leads to being ignored.
Nothing wrong with that. Many have told me in private email that they
find my stuff amusing. Not what I seek, either. But I have enough
evidence that I occasionally succeed in my real purpose.)
Voila, I hope now that I'll be able for a while to avoid discussing my
own supposed inadequacies as a poster to this group. Strange that I
still give a damn about all that.
> Sherri
Philip Nikolayev
nik...@husc.harvard.edu
Philip Nikolayev
mave...@acacia.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Vance Maverick) writes:
> In article <NIKOLAY.93...@husc11.harvard.edu>,
nik...@husc11.harvard.edu (Philip Nikolayev) writes:
VM
>|> [I wrote, after Sherri expressed the hope that she had the right
>|> to slam PN:] > You have that right, but you can't claim the
>|> backing of God, or > whoever it is that implements universal
>|> standards.
PN
>|> If you agree that you exist;
VM
> I think so.
PN
>|> that logic is a feature of the universe;
VM
> Don't know what this means.
It means a necessary connection between cause and effect. The same
causes produce the same effects. (Newton, _Principia_.)
PN
>|> that humans are a race of rational beings sharing a common
>|> fundamental nature
VM
> Ditto.
If your 'ditto' stands for 'don't know what this means either', what
I'm saying here is that human rationality is capable of adequately
understanding the logic inherent in the world; and that members of the
human race belong to the same species, distinguished from others by
the faculty of reason.
PN
>|> and that the survival of the human race is desirable
VM
> Well, *I* desire the survival and happiness of the humans who exist.
> Does this imply your phrase here? Maybe.
Why not?
Note that I don't mention free will, because I think it's really
superfluous.
PN
>|> then the possibility of universal standards is mere commentary.
>|> God or any other personified authority has nothing to do with
>|> this.
VM
> Well, not having agreed to your premises, I don't think I have to
> accept this conclusion, even though I don't see how it follows.
Well, you haven't explicitly stated any disagreement with my premises
either, so perhaps there's still hope we might get at something
mutually acceptable. My conclusion follows because a common
fundamental human nature implied common fundamental values, and
rationality implies that such values can be arrived at.
PN
> I do think we would need a central authority, personified or not, to
> ground universal *aesthetic* standards. (Moral standards are
> another matter.)
I don't think one can draw a meaningful line of distinction between
moral and aesthetic values, or you end up inevitably with values that
are bound to be irreconcilable at least in some instances. Can you
conceive of something morally disgusting yet aesthetically
exhilarating? Are you willing to posit the primacy of ethical values
of aesthetic ones, and if yes, on what grounds? Methinks the duality
you propose leads to irresolvable difficulties.
VM
> From my point of view, poems are for people to
> read, thus their value resides in all the individual readings; we
> would need a designated reader, or reading, to establish a universal
> standard. (This remains true for the parody argument, since
> parodies are artworks, and their success depends on their readings.)
Oh, come on, how do you define an artwork? Do you think that the value
of, say, a medical text is also a matter of individual reading? That
if I, knowing nothing about medicine, decide nevertheless to scribble
a medical treatise, there might be a meaningful frame of reference in
which my text would be as good as anyone else's? And if you answer in
the affirmative, would you care to accept my services as a doctor?
> Vance
Philip Nikolayev
nik...@husc.harvard.edu
Philip Nikolayev
In article <1nnviq$p...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
mave...@fir.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Vance Maverick) writes:
> In article <1993Mar11.1...@wam.umd.edu>,
sf...@wam.umd.edu (Sherri) writes:
>|> I also find the wholesale adherence of many r.a.p.pers to
>|> relativist thought disturbing and alien to common sense. Come on,
>|> standards of quality exist whether or not we have found, argued,
>|> and proved them.
> This requires demonstration, to say the least.
It is funny how relativists always insist on some sort of objective
demonstration required to support notions. Isn't *any* statement
relatively true within the relativist conceptual framework? This is
precisely the irony: relativism inevitably creates paradoxes by giving
rise to absolutes, which follow from it as a matter of elementary
logical derivation.
Philip Nikolayev
nik...@husc.harvard.edu
Kateri/Mary Anne
You recently asked whether one could conceive of something that was
morally disgusting but aesthetically exhilarating. I think I can.
I've been researching alternate sexualities for my thesis, and among
them, the s/m culture. One aspect of the literature is that people
constantly create erotic fantasies, occasionally quite well-written,
which they find aesthetically exhilarating. Nonetheless, they often
attach disclaimers saying that this behavior (non-consensual sex,
pedophilia, etc.) is stuff only of fantasy, and something they find
morally disgusting. Do these examples answer your question?
I think that you make a jump from the postulate that we are all human
beings, and we all have values, and we believe in logic to the claim
that there exists a set of universal human values.
- Mary Anne
--
we're anything brighter than even the sun
we're anything greater than books might mean
(with a shout leap / alive! we're alive)
we're wonderful one times one. - e.e. cummings
Administrator
> > far better case than the current flames. The rhymes in poems like
> > "Eye Contact" and "After Cutting" are not strained or predictable,
> > and they are certainly a part of these poems' success, for example,
> > neither of these poems would have the same intensity if they'd been
> > written in free verse.
>
> I fully agree. But you will be told by Bing H. Bang that this is just
> your personal, inconsequential opinion.
Not quite. First, I never ever used the word inconsequential, nor did I
ever imply that anyone's opinions were inconsequential. I may view some
people's opinions to be personally inconsequential, but unless your life
revolves around my personal views, this should not bother you. I would
say that it was their personal opinion, yes. Unfortunately there are
very few things in this world that are truly inconsequential.
And while I'm at it, let me say that I have nothing against poems that are
formally structured nor with the poets who write them. I well enjoy
reading some such poets and have great appreciation for their art. I just
have a problem with people who view free verse poets as being secondary
based soley on the form of their art. Why must we restrict the definition
of a poem to demand formal structure?
> Philip Nikolayev
> nik...@husc.harvard.edu
Philip Nikolayev
mo...@quads.uchicago.edu (Kateri/Mary Anne) writes:
> Philip,
> You recently asked whether one could conceive of something that was
> morally disgusting but aesthetically exhilarating. I think I can.
> I've been researching alternate sexualities for my thesis, and among
> them, the s/m culture. One aspect of the literature is that people
> constantly create erotic fantasies, occasionally quite well-written,
> which they find aesthetically exhilarating. Nonetheless, they often
> attach disclaimers saying that this behavior (non-consensual sex,
> pedophilia, etc.) is stuff only of fantasy, and something they find
> morally disgusting. Do these examples answer your question?
I am slightly sorry to say, Mary Anne, but I can't sympathise with the
poor darlings who must make an enormous, superhuman effort to overcome
their profound, almost painful, almost insurmountable moral disgust,
so that they can enjoy the overpowering attraction of the shining
aesthetic beauties of their occasionally quite well-written randy
fantasies. I see absolutely no reason to equate aesthetics with what's
known as, ahem, the prurient side of human nature. This funny equation
grows out of the fairly recent liberalism about sexual behaviours - a
liberalism which I don't accept. I propose an alternative explanation
of what you describe: people simply get off on such fantasies, but out
of prudence they don't act them out in non-consensual or illegal
settings; fantasy is a surrogate reality. They attach disclaimers
because they don't want to get flamed or sued, or simply because
that's the done thing. This sounds much more plausible to me, and does
not involve aesthetics.
I must say, while we are at it, that I am really quite fed up with all
this liberal cant about the eternally whining sexual minorities. The
very term 'alternative sexuality' somehow implies 'as good as the
normal thing'. Why call consensual sado-masochism an 'alternative
sexuality'? 'Kinky' ain't a good enough value-free word? I have no
rooted objection to that ultimate bourgeois ideal of all time, the
consensual rape-scene (never mind the contradiction in terms), but its
aesthetics are of no interest to me, nor are the 'equally good'
semi-alternative family values of homosexuals, nor the special
insights of Christian pedophiles into the nature of true love. Fuck
all that diversity.
> I think that you make a jump from the postulate that we are all
> human beings, and we all have values, and we believe in logic to the
> claim that there exists a set of universal human values.
It is enough for my purposes to point out that such a set of universal
human values is both possible and desirable.
> - Mary Anne
> --
> we're anything brighter than even the sun
> we're anything greater than books might mean
> (with a shout leap / alive! we're alive)
> we're wonderful one times one. - e.e. cummings
Philip Nikolayev
nik...@husc.harvard.edu
Philip Nikolayev
> In article <1993Mar11.1...@wam.umd.edu>,
sf...@wam.umd.edu (Sherri) writes:
>> In article <1993Mar10...@acad3.alaska.edu>
fn...@acad3.alaska.edu (Da Poet Knowit) writes:
>>>In article <NIKOLAY.93...@husc11.harvard.edu>,
nik...@husc11.harvard.edu (Philip Nikolayev) writes:
>>>> In article <1993Mar7.0...@bing.atl.ga.us>,
>>>> ro...@bing.atl.ga.us (Administrator) writes:
[...]
Sherri
>> I don't agree with this claim. I would say rather that the more distinctive
>> a particular style, the easier it is to parody. It would be harder to
>> parody the work of a good sonnet writer, for example, because it would
>> be hard to decide which good writer of sonnets was being parodied. Certain
>> types of free verse would be much easier to parody, Pope was able to parody
>> bad rhymed poetry in general... I think Philip short answer is correct,
>> but not particularly interesting. I, too, would much prefer the long
>> answer.
>>
Chris
> More distinctive style obviously makes the parody more recognizable,
> just as being a widely read poem or well known author does. But I
> still think, judging from the number of parodies I have seen, that
> rhyme lends itself to parody more in a general sense than free
> verse...
Objection. You can't parody rhyme as such, or style as such, without
the content (anyone feel free to attempt).
Besides, funny imitations of style have nothing to do with what I
suggest. I repeat once again: _convincing hostile parody_.
[...]
Chris
> I have a problem with someone (anyone) wanting that "discipline" or
> "aesthetic" imposed on the writer from the outside in any other way
> than through the writer's exposure to poetry and the world he lives
> in.
As opposed to things that are not of the world he lives in?
Do you agree that it's a good idea to write well?
> Regardless of the metaphor used, poetry is always changing, and
> it is moving away from fixed forms into free forms, and the way we
> approach poetry will change accordingly. Doesn't mean other forms
> will disappear, and doesn't mean that we can not use these other
> poems as a means of understanding whichever we are interested in at
> the moment.
I would put it in the folloing manner: speaking of the best in the
poetry of any period, Amrican poetry, in it's ever-changing manner, is
evolving from good to bad. There is no reason not to try to stop this.
I have posted about the reasons which I think have caused this general
'evolution'. What do you think?
Note also that while you and others claim in various ways that there
are no objective standards, with the possible exception of the one
revolving whether the poem 'works' for the desired reader, everyone
would be well advised to consider the fact that hardly anyone in the
United States of America reads poetry today, with the exception of
those who write it, are paid for reading it, or expect to be paid for
reading it at some future date. (The Indian readers of this group will
appreciate the difference with their own culture.) _Merde libre_ might
just be the cause of this lack of public interest. And perhaps poets
who insist that there are no standards except whether their poems
'work' should in fact expect their poetry not to work.
Sherii
>> I have found the poems that K.A. Rice has been posting to present a
>> far better case than the current flames. The rhymes in poems like
>> "Eye Contact" and "After Cutting" are not strained or predictable,
>> and they are certainly a part of these poems' success, for example,
>> neither of these poems would have the same intensity if they'd been
>> written in free verse.
Chris
> Haven't seen her poem so I can't comment, but by far the most moving
> and intense poems I have read have almost all been free verse. And I
> have read a lot of poetry, and admire authors who work in many
> different forms. Again, this is my approach. Just as there is much
> to be said for good rhyming poetry, I think there is much to be said
> for good free verse.
Perhaps you should doubt the validity of your taste somewhat more,
rather than cite it as some sort of authority. Note that I am not
saying that your taste is necessarily bad, but I suspect that while
you are aware of the fact that you are a product of a certain literary
culture, you somehow take if for granted that there is nothing wrong
with this culture - something that needn't be the case.
Sherri
>> I also find the wholesale adherence of many r.a.p.pers to
>> relativist thought disturbing and alien to common sense. Come on,
>> standards of quality exist whether or not we have found, argued,
>> and proved them. I'm not saying we shouldn't contemplate why we
>> find one thing better or more beautiful than another, but to use a
>> 'nothing is better than anything else except in some person's
>> personal opinion' statement as a starting point is silly. By what
>> objective universal standard is Philip Nikolayev's opus "Response
>> to Kent Dorsey--volumes 1-5" a work of lesser beauty or value than
>> the greatest poetry ever typed or penned? I personally want to
>> reserve the right to slam it even if it means I'll be labelled
>> intolerant for life.
Chris
> Then where do these standards come form if we have not found, argued
> or "proved" them?
Is something stopping you from finding, arguing and proving them?
> It sounds like standards of quality are just
> floating around out there waiting for us to become enlightened
> enough to notice them.
Of course they do, silly. Compare Bing's translation of Shakespeare's
sonnet with the original.
[...]
>>
>>>>
>>>> Philip Nikolayev
>>>> nik...@husc.harvard.edu
>>>
>>>--
>>> Christopher L. Lott poet and pauper "And now what shall become of
>>> fn...@aurora.alaska.edu us without any barbarians?
>>> Those people were a kind of
>>>
>> Sherri
> chris
> poet and pauper
I'm not going to give up on this one. Have you ever seen a real
pauper? I highly recommend Calcutta: it drastically reduces the
bourgeois urge to romanticise oneself.
Philip Nikolayev
nik...@husc.harvard.edu
Kateri/Mary Anne
>In article <1993Mar14.1...@midway.uchicago.edu>,
>mo...@quads.uchicago.edu (Kateri/Mary Anne) writes:
>> You recently asked whether one could conceive of something that was
>> morally disgusting but aesthetically exhilarating.
Let's try another example, leaving sex out of it, since I think we
have a fundamental disagreement there (I do believe that there is
often aesthetic value in what you termed 'prurient', but that's a
subject for another debate entirely.)
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by aesthetically exhilarating
(I am assuming some notion of 'truth' or 'beauty' or 'glory', etc.?)
May I suggest war poetry? There is a wealth of poetry written after
WWII that I find aesthetically exciting, structurally interesting,
emotionally invigorating (the call to arms, the moments of glory, the
comradeship, staring death in the eye, the exhilaration of
destruction)...
...and yet, morally repugnant. While war may be a necessity at times
(I don't think we should tangent to that argument here), the
glorification of it is morally questionable at best.
Is this a sufficient counterexample?
>> I think that you make a jump from the postulate that we are all
>> human beings, and we all have values, and we believe in logic to the
>> claim that there exists a set of universal human values.
>
>It is enough for my purposes to point out that such a set of universal
>human values is both possible and desirable.
Possible, perhaps, if one accepts your earlier postulates of logical
analysis. On what are you basing the claim that such universal values
are desirable? Is it even possible for us to determine such
desirability from within the system?
>> - Mary Anne
>Philip Nikolayev
Da Poet Knowit
>
> Chris
>> More distinctive style obviously makes the parody more recognizable,
>> just as being a widely read poem or well known author does. But I
>> still think, judging from the number of parodies I have seen, that
>> rhyme lends itself to parody more in a general sense than free
>> verse...
>
> Objection. You can't parody rhyme as such, or style as such, without
> the content (anyone feel free to attempt).
>
> Besides, funny imitations of style have nothing to do with what I
> suggest. I repeat once again: _convincing hostile parody_.
Exactly. And the content of poems has not really changed much during the
change from fixed forms to free verse. I think that style can be easily
parodied: just look at Whitman since he is such a popular example, but it is
is the content not the form or lack thereof that is necessary for parody.
Again, this seems like a feeble criterion for judging poetry.
>
> [...]
>
> Chris
>> I have a problem with someone (anyone) wanting that "discipline" or
>> "aesthetic" imposed on the writer from the outside in any other way
>> than through the writer's exposure to poetry and the world he lives
>> in.
>
> As opposed to things that are not of the world he lives in?
> Do you agree that it's a good idea to write well?
>
It's a good idea to write about what moves us.
It's a good idea to continually write so that we fell better about our
product.
Trying to put forth an objective standard for poetry that is based ultimately
on personal opinion, which necessarily comes from experience, is fine for
conversation, but is still just an opinion. The writer himself is the one that
determines his own aesthetic, which is derived from his world, and by
extension his poetry.
>> Regardless of the metaphor used, poetry is always changing, and
>> it is moving away from fixed forms into free forms, and the way we
>> approach poetry will change accordingly. Doesn't mean other forms
>> will disappear, and doesn't mean that we can not use these other
>> poems as a means of understanding whichever we are interested in at
>> the moment.
>
> I would put it in the folloing manner: speaking of the best in the
> poetry of any period, Amrican poetry, in it's ever-changing manner, is
> evolving from good to bad. There is no reason not to try to stop this.
> I have posted about the reasons which I think have caused this general
> 'evolution'. What do you think?
I f I agreed with you that the trend was from good to bad, I would go with
that, but I don't. Rhyme comes, at least in part, from the fact that in the
oral tradition there was a need for memorization, and rhyme is an aid for
that. Trying to write a catchy jingle/tune for an advertisement is much easier
with some kind of rhyme (unless very short). Eventually, through exposure,
rhyme in poetry became one of the devices used to enhance meaning in a
compressed form.
But what is the true importance? Aren't there other devices that can be used
for poetry (the line break, imagistic language, compression, the unexplainable
"rightness" of certain words in a certain order) that can be used to make
poetry without the device of rhyme and meter? I think so. I think this is what
free verse does.
There is definitely more bad writing now than ever before, but this does seem
to be the Writer's Digest, I want to be a writer not write, generation. This
should not obscure the good poetry being written.
I personally find some of Keats' odes very stimulating and thought provoking.
But the form is only a part of it-- a small part in fact. What the form does
is push me into thinking about the highly compressed concepts of time or death
or what have you. In some instances rhythm (or a break in it)
is used to illlustrate a point, or a rhyme is employed that triggers a strange
association, etc. But good free verse has these elements as well. As a matter
of fact, I would say that most good free verse is not as "free" as a casual
reading might imply. I can not isolate what it is that the older poets whom
you admire have that good free verse doesn't.
I'm rambling though.
>
> Note also that while you and others claim in various ways that there
> are no objective standards, with the possible exception of the one
> revolving whether the poem 'works' for the desired reader, everyone
> would be well advised to consider the fact that hardly anyone in the
> United States of America reads poetry today, with the exception of
> those who write it, are paid for reading it, or expect to be paid for
> reading it at some future date. (The Indian readers of this group will
> appreciate the difference with their own culture.) _Merde libre_ might
> just be the cause of this lack of public interest. And perhaps poets
> who insist that there are no standards except whether their poems
> 'work' should in fact expect their poetry not to work.
If only it were so. The lack of interest in poetry comes from the laziness and
lack of attention span that is inherent in most Americans today. Influencing
that are things such as television and the global media. I really don't care
to envision the world of poetry reverting to fixed forms, etc. but if it did,
and even iof it were all of the highest quality according to your ethics or
mine, there would be no more
attention paid to it than there is now.
>
> Sherii
>>> I have found the poems that K.A. Rice has been posting to present a
>>> far better case than the current flames. The rhymes in poems like
>>> "Eye Contact" and "After Cutting" are not strained or predictable,
>>> and they are certainly a part of these poems' success, for example,
>>> neither of these poems would have the same intensity if they'd been
>>> written in free verse.
>
> Chris
>> Haven't seen her poem so I can't comment, but by far the most moving
>> and intense poems I have read have almost all been free verse. And I
>> have read a lot of poetry, and admire authors who work in many
>> different forms. Again, this is my approach. Just as there is much
>> to be said for good rhyming poetry, I think there is much to be said
>> for good free verse.
>
> Perhaps you should doubt the validity of your taste somewhat more,
> rather than cite it as some sort of authority. Note that I am not
> saying that your taste is necessarily bad, but I suspect that while
> you are aware of the fact that you are a product of a certain literary
> culture, you somehow take if for granted that there is nothing wrong
> with this culture - something that needn't be the case.
I wouldn't be involved in this discussion if I were completely sure of my own
taste. I am no authority nor do I pretend to be one. I have read a lot though,
and write a lot, and am interested in the reasons behind my personal
aesthetic as well as those that are different than mine. Perhaps you should
question your own taste somewhat more in not appreciating the qualities that
I see in good free verse.
What, after all, is the end of poetry? The reader's response? Some kind of
purification of language? I have no idea what you look for really, other than
some vague intimations of some people you admire and some you don't. I look
for something that moves me and makes me want to read it again. Something that
changes each time, that I can find more meaning in each time. This may be
simple but it is still the primary motivation for me. This is probably why I
am a bad critic and perhaps not your equal in this discussion, but I am here
for the learning more than anything else.
>
> Sherri
>>> I also find the wholesale adherence of many r.a.p.pers to
>>> relativist thought disturbing and alien to common sense. Come on,
>>> standards of quality exist whether or not we have found, argued,
>>> and proved them. I'm not saying we shouldn't contemplate why we
>>> find one thing better or more beautiful than another, but to use a
>>> 'nothing is better than anything else except in some person's
>>> personal opinion' statement as a starting point is silly. By what
>>> objective universal standard is Philip Nikolayev's opus "Response
>>> to Kent Dorsey--volumes 1-5" a work of lesser beauty or value than
>>> the greatest poetry ever typed or penned? I personally want to
>>> reserve the right to slam it even if it means I'll be labelled
>>> intolerant for life.
>
> Chris
>> Then where do these standards come form if we have not found, argued
>> or "proved" them?
>
> Is something stopping you from finding, arguing and proving them?
My point was that we are all creating the standards, Phillip. You, I, everyone
else. I have not yet proved anything, and doubt my capacity to. You, on
the other hand, have not yet proved anything but think you are able to. We are
all currently arguing about said standards. My point is that standards are not
formed by God or the like and then left waiting for the enlightened to stumble
upon.
>
>> It sounds like standards of quality are just
>> floating around out there waiting for us to become enlightened
>> enough to notice them.
>
> Of course they do, silly. Compare Bing's translation of Shakespeare's
> sonnet with the original.
???
>
> [...]
>
>
>>>>> Philip Nikolayev
>>>>> nik...@husc.harvard.edu
>> chris
>> poet and pauper
>
> I'm not going to give up on this one. Have you ever seen a real
> pauper? I highly recommend Calcutta: it drastically reduces the
> bourgeois urge to romanticise oneself.
Yes I've seen a real pauper.
I am a pauper through the death of my child and because I suffer from a severe
chemical tendency that makes it hard to reconcile my feelings with what I
objectively see. If you don't like this "bourgeois urge" then you can either
ignore it, or fuck yourself, whichever you find most fascinating and
intellectual.
>
> Philip Nikolayev
> nik...@husc.harvard.edu
--
Christopher L. Lott "And now what shall become of
fn...@aurora.alaska.edu us without any barbarians?
Those people were a kind of
solution."
Da Poet Knowit
I have thought about it and am not sure how to answer completely. I think that
it depends on what level you are equating the rules of chess with the rules of
poetry.
Free verse to me is a game that is using the pieces that have been used to
play the poetry game and making a new game with them. Some people don't like
this game and don't want to play. You seem to feel cheated because you thought
you were sitting down to play one game and the rules seem to have changed. But
free verse poets don't pretend to be giving you the exact same thing that you
have been getting. But they do intend to provoke the same response in a
different manner. I think this is fun and good. You seem to think this is bad.
You say that the possibilities are still great for the old game. I agree. They
are also great for the new one. There is great beauty in the moves and
techniques that have been worked on for centuries, and I can't find fault with
that. But this new games has great possibilities too, and in time I think it
will be validated in the same way the old has been.
We are not the language poets who throw the pieces on the board and say "voila,
how neat" nor are we the writer's Digest poets who see a great move in the
book and transpose it one square left and say "voila, how neat"
Changing the rules mid-game is obviously no good. But free verse poetry
appears to me to be the same game with say a 10x10 board. All the same pieces,
all the old strategies are still possible, but so is a whole lot more.
M.Abalovich
|>
|> |>
|> |> [I wrote, after Sherri expressed the hope that she had the
|> |> right to slam PN:]
|> |> > You have that right, but you can't claim the backing of God, or
|> |> > whoever it is that implements universal standards.
|> |>
|> |> If you agree that you exist
|> I think so.
|>
Suppose you, he, I don't agree? Does it mean you no longer exist?
And, consequently, you are not to be punished if you have broken those standards? Old puzzle, one might say, still a problem with Philip's set of postulates. The other problem here is that these postulates are not, I'm afraid, mutually independent.
|>
|> |> that logic is a feature of the universe,
|>
|> Don't know what this means.
|>
I believe, P_N hasn't come up with "logic as a feature" simply because
he likes it that way. Perhaps, there's been something in his personal
experience that has led him to believe that some part of the universe is
susceptible of logical analysis and the rest needs to be that way, too.
(Sets of axioms that prove to be *useful* are hardly ever derived from mere
penchant for the beatiful; see Poincaret (misspelled?) on that, interesting).
Now, without resorting to some kind of "central authority", I see no reason
for the universe to be endowed with a built-in logic. It is not very plausible,
whereas an *acceptable* set of axioms should come across as plausible, I think.
The other problem is, what kind of logic has P_N in mind? Let's assume that
what he means comes down to *common sense* in conjunction with Aristotle. My point would be that that kind of logic will be insufficient to cover a good
many phenomena that P_N might want the universe to keep. To start with,
how would he go about certain poems that sound so sweet and, generally, are
*good*, maybe great, poems and yet any rational meaning one might try to
detect in them would be very vague? Therefore, we would have to dismiss the
authors as irrational beings not sharing ...
|> |> that humans are a race of rational beings sharing a common fundamental
|> |> nature
|>
|> Ditto.
|>
|> |> and that the survival of the human race is desirable
|>
|> Well, *I* desire the survival and happiness of the humans
|> who exist. Does this imply your phrase here? Maybe.
|>
|> |> then the
|> |> possibility of universal standards is mere commentary. God or any
|> |> other personified authority has nothing to do with this.
|>
|> Well, not having agreed to your premises, I don't think I
|> have to accept this conclusion, even though I don't see how
|> it follows.
|>
|> I do think we would need a central authority, personified or
|> not, to ground universal *aesthetic* standards. (Moral
|> standards are another matter.) From my point of view, poems
|> are for people to read, thus their value resides in all the
|> individual readings; we would need a designated reader, or
|> reading, to establish a universal standard. (This remains
|> true for the parody argument, since parodies are artworks,
|> and their success depends on their readings.)
|>
|> Vance
|>
Sorry, I have to go. More on that later.
M_A
Tom Wachtel
> Objection. You can't parody rhyme as such, or style as such, without
> the content (anyone feel free to attempt).
of course you can. i feel free to attempt. please post a short piece
where you feel the rhyme is awful but the content is not, and i promise
to try to parody the rhyme without parodying the content.
its a game.
--
Tom Wachtel (wac...@canon.co.uk)
Administrator
Errr... Yes, well, if you want to poke at my poetry, please use one that
was intended to be a serious post. That way, we may both benefit.
Danny-Boy
>
>Objection. You can't parody rhyme as such, or style as such, without
>the content (anyone feel free to attempt).
>
>nik...@husc.harvard.edu
I disagree. However, I am on vacation at the moment. and can't be relied upon
to follow up my arguments.
I suspect that I have observed literature before poking at the concepts
of form. Or maybe it was just me. In that case, I have not been canonized
yet, and don't count as an example.
well, paradying *all* rhyme, - you could be right about content. Since
I have not been exposing myself to rigorous self debate on form = content?
discussion, I should stop now.
A question is, does all rhyming verse have a sort of content in common,
and could a person see this theme and parady it? I guess that was what
I was thinking about. If this is true, then Philip is correct, because
the person is paradying the alleged universal content of rhyme and not
the rhyme itself. their is a reason to all this rhyme.
Pardon incoherent discussion. I am in a poor mood.
--
she...@wam.umd.edu
jjw...@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us
PN> .... everyone would be well advised to consider the fact that
PN> hardly anyone in the United States of America reads poetry today,
PN> with the exception of those who write it, are paid for reading it,
PN> or expect to be paid for reading it at some future date.
You have no way of proving this grandiose statement. You have a
suspicion of this, so you state it as fact. That makes it so?
Horseshit! Science Center huh? "Well sir, my general impression is
that the earth is at the center of the universe. That's how I came to
this conclusion. Why?"
My general impression is that there are more people exposed to poetry
in America today than a hundred years ago, or two hundred years ago.
More poetry groups, 'poetry slams', newspapers with feature stories
on poets (from 'cowboy' poets to 'lesbian' poets and beyond), Sunday
morning brunch restaurants featuring poetry readings and readings
with jazz, campus groups presenting poetry presentations and
seminars (from avant-garde poets to Bly criticism), and RAP-like
'sub-cultures' with lots of lurkers, than there ever were. Why is it
that the "Poet's Market" book keeps getting bigger? Shouldn't it have
dwindled to just a couple pages by now? Thirty years ago the poetry
sections of most book stores were very much smaller than they are today.
Those rack-jobbers just filling up shelf space for those deluded souls
that think they can write poetry?
But this is just my general impression of poetry's state, and that don't
make it so. Care to try citing some kind of reference for your claim?
JJWebb
--
>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<
jjw...@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us :-) "You mean .. there are lines?"
copyright (c) 1993 -- Beau Blue
>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<
Philip Nikolayev
>Article-I.D.: acad3.1993Mar15.155039.1
> In article <NIKOLAY.93...@husc11.harvard.edu>, nik...@husc11.harvard.edu (Philip Nikolayev) writes:
>> Chris
>>> More distinctive style obviously makes the parody more
>>> recognizable, just as being a widely read poem or well known
>>> author does. But I still think, judging from the number of
>>> parodies I have seen, that rhyme lends itself to parody more in a
>>> general sense than free
>>> verse...
PN
>> Objection. You can't parody rhyme as such, or style as such, without
>> the content (anyone feel free to attempt).
>>
>> Besides, funny imitations of style have nothing to do with what I
>> suggest. I repeat once again: _convincing hostile parody_.
Chris
> Exactly. And the content of poems has not really changed much during
>the change from fixed forms to free verse.
However, even speaking in these crude terms, since form has changed,
the relationship of content to form has also changed. And precisely
that relationship, rather than 'form' as such, or 'content' as such,
that needs to be parodied.
PN
> I think that style can be
>easily parodied: just look at Whitman since he is such a popular
>example, but it is is the content not the form or lack thereof that
>is necessary for parody. Again, this seems like a feeble criterion
>for judging poetry.
Perhaps not. More on Whitman one of these days. Incidentally, it is
impossible to define style without invoking both content and form.
Philip Nikolayev
nik...@husc.harvard.edu
Philip Nikolayev
mo...@quads.uchicago.edu (Kateri/Mary Anne) writes:
> In article <NIKOLAY.93...@husc11.harvard.edu>
> nik...@husc11.harvard.edu (Philip Nikolayev) writes:
>>In article <1993Mar14.1...@midway.uchicago.edu>,
>>mo...@quads.uchicago.edu (Kateri/Mary Anne) writes:
MA
>>> You recently asked whether one could conceive of something that
>>> was morally disgusting but aesthetically exhilarating.
[...]
MA
> Let's try another example, leaving sex out of it, since I think we
> have a fundamental disagreement there (I do believe that there is
> often aesthetic value in what you termed 'prurient', but that's a
> subject for another debate entirely.)
I don't want to be misunderstood here. I'm not saying that 'prurience'
and aesthetics are incompatible. But there is no inherent relationship
between them either.
> I'm not sure I understand what you mean by aesthetically
> exhilarating (I am assuming some notion of 'truth' or 'beauty' or
> 'glory', etc.?)
> May I suggest war poetry? There is a wealth of poetry written after
> WWII that I find aesthetically exciting, structurally interesting,
> emotionally invigorating (the call to arms, the moments of glory,
> the comradeship, staring death in the eye, the exhilaration of
> destruction)...
> ...and yet, morally repugnant. While war may be a necessity at
> times (I don't think we should tangent to that argument here), the
> glorification of it is morally questionable at best.
> Is this a sufficient counterexample?
I think a general answer will do here. I see it all as a false dilemma
that hinges on the extent to which one is able to isolate the various
value-laden elements (aspects) of a poem, person, thing, etc. My point
is that it is impossible to be simultaneously delighted and disgusted
by the same element or aspect. More technically speaking, since in
poetry form somehow merges into content and vice versa, these elements
or aspects are usually hard to isolate.
MA
>>> I think that you make a jump from the postulate that we are all
>>> human beings, and we all have values, and we believe in logic to
>>> the claim that there exists a set of universal human values.
PN
>>It is enough for my purposes to point out that such a set of universal
>>human values is both possible and desirable.
MA
> Possible, perhaps, if one accepts your earlier postulates of logical
> analysis. On what are you basing the claim that such universal
> values are desirable? Is it even possible for us to determine such
> desirability from within the system?
I am not basing the claim that universal values are desirable on
anything whatsoeve. I can't prove that the survival of humankind is
good, except by suggestion that it's a part of the definition of human
to think that it is. Anyone is free to reject this assumption.
Nietzsche dnied a common nature, and universal values, and thought
that universal values (including rationality) limited the sphere of
man's freedom. I can raise no solid objection to this.
Yet not everyone is a Nietzsche. The inevitable logical consequence of
the rejection of my assumption, however, is the justifiability of
*any* behaviour. That is why I always press relativists to articulate
*personally* the point that there is nothing inherently wrong with
destroying innocent human life, rather than go on spouting the old
whining lie that relativism does not imply cynicism or an absense of
values.
Sherri
content, I think it would be impossible to write such a poem. What do
you mean by bad rhyme? I see two likely possibilities--cliched rhymes
and rhymes that don't really.
Interesting games could be had with each. Writing a poem with all the
cliched rhymes that is still good would be quite a test. Write a poem
rhyming 'love' 'dove' and 'above' that is a good poem content wise. A good
rhyme should not be expected long before it arrives. Throw in trees and
breeze for good measure.
Bad rhymes are usually distracting, but they are usually found, of course,
in poems where the author is lax about sound. For this game you would
probably have to mix true rhymes and off-rhymes in order to claim that
they rhymes are truly 'awful'. If you count all off-rhymes as awful,
then you can use 'Fern Hill' (Dylan Thomas) for your parody game. Remember
it has to be convincing and hostile.
Sherri
Zita Marie Evensen
Poor Kent Dorsey (3), he has been responsed to death !
z.
--
Marek Lugowski
>Poor Kent Dorsey (3), he has been responsed to death !
Shed no tears lest you become a dessicated shell of your lovely self. Ken
Dorsey (n) is a multiple citizen and can get along on a small subset of his
redundant aggregate beings, no matter what the pungent Dragon of
Probability invading our moor deigns or feigns...
Ref.: The Star Diaries, Stanislaw Lem. Cyberiad, Stanislaw Lem.
-- Marek
marek aristotle 39: webster moor
DEFINITION 0
1moor \'mu.(e)r\ n
[ME mor, fr. OE mo^-r; akin to OHG meri sea -- more at MARINE]
(bef. 12c)
1 chiefly Brit: an expanse of open rolling infertile land
^^^^^^^^^
Tom Wachtel
> >of course you can. i feel free to attempt. please post a short piece
> >where you feel the rhyme is awful but the content is not, and i promise
> >to try to parody the rhyme without parodying the content.
>
> content, I think it would be impossible to write such a poem. What do
> you mean by bad rhyme? I see two likely possibilities--cliched rhymes
> and rhymes that don't really.
also unimaginative rhyme, tortuous rhyme, bombastic rhyme, obvious
rhyme, pedestrian rhyme, distracting rhyme or any rhyme which fails in
a given piece. in contrast to delicate rhyme, surprising rhyme,
stretching rhyme, exhilirating rhyme, imperceptible rhyme, kissing
rhyme, dancing rhyme, etc.
> they rhymes are truly 'awful'. If you count all off-rhymes as awful,
> then you can use 'Fern Hill' (Dylan Thomas) for your parody game. Remember
> it has to be convincing and hostile.
i think off-rhymes are wonderful. :)
--
Tom Wachtel (wac...@canon.co.uk)
j-
It's only sex
----------------------------------------------
this perilous dance of desire
and loneliness only
animal teeth closing in-
human,
cutting skin
instead of remarks
flushed in primitive
fire, flesh
that burns away
emotions into cinder
my heart into dinner
a strong warrior beaten
genitals eaten
spitting out the reason
ing, tasteless speech
for a rhythmic beat
of ecstasy
we are feeding each
other meat
before an animal godhead
saliva dripping in heat
ed holiness where we meet.
j-
--
"Ha! Mere flesh and blood desires mean *nothing* to Destructo-Kitty!"
Marie Coffin
writes:
>
> Relativism, cultural relativism, asks that we supspend our own
> frame of reference for a moment and look through the eyes of another,
> through a different frame of reference.... To pick up a new set of rules
> (or values) and understand the event (or work of art) within that frame
> of reference, within taht set of rules.
> Would you judge a basketball game by the rules of football?
> 'What're those idiots doing? That play was stupid -- it made no sense!
> I hate these guys -- they're ruining the game."
>
> It is fine to say, "I do not like this." It is another matter
> to say "This is bad." The latter implies some fixed, objective frame of
> reference. And there are only subjective ones: our own set of values,
> those of our teachers...those of various literary traditions...
I don't think this last statement is true. There is a difference between
relative and subjective. Go back to your sports analogy: of course it is
stupid to criticize a basketball game for not being a football game. But,
realizing that it *is* a basketball game, one can still say "this is a lousy
basketball game". No?
Marie Coffin
Philip Nikolayev
jjw...@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us writes:
>PN> .... everyone would be well advised to consider the fact that PN>
>hardly anyone in the United States of America reads poetry today, PN>
>with the exception of those who write it, are paid for reading it,
>PN> or expect to be paid for reading it at some future date.
> You have no way of proving this grandiose statement. You have a
> suspicion of this, so you state it as fact. That makes it so?
> Horseshit! Science Center huh? "Well sir, my general impression is
> that the earth is at the center of the universe. That's how I came
> to this conclusion. Why?"
Oh, I have a very easy way of proving my grandiose statement. The
average edition of a book by a living poet in the US seldom exceeds a
few hundred copies if the book is not required reading on high school
or college curricula. Where I come from, five thousand was considered
humiliatingly low even in the republican capitals (editions of a few
hundred copies simply did not exist) - that is, a few years ago,
before the publishing houses ran out of paper and went generally
bankrupt. Twenty thousand was normal. Mind you that I'm talking about
first editions. Famous poets were sold their books in hundreds of
thousands, sometimes millions of copies. This does not indicate a
refined public taste, but shows that poetry matters. It is the Russian
intellectual's opium, just as tea is the Englishman's. And it's for
the most part traditional, unevolved, full of archaic rhythms and
rhymes that supposedly hamper communication and reduce spontaneity.
You ain't seen nothing, JJ.
> My general impression is that there are more people exposed to
> poetry in America today than a hundred years ago, or two hundred
> years ago. More poetry groups, 'poetry slams', newspapers with
> feature stories on poets (from 'cowboy' poets to 'lesbian' poets and
> beyond), Sunday morning brunch restaurants featuring poetry readings
> and readings with jazz, campus groups presenting poetry
> presentations and seminars (from avant-garde poets to Bly
> criticism), and RAP-like 'sub-cultures' with lots of lurkers, than
> there ever were. Why is it that the "Poet's Market" book keeps
> getting bigger? Shouldn't it have dwindled to just a couple pages by
> now? Thirty years ago the poetry sections of most book stores were
> very much smaller than they are today. Those rack-jobbers just
> filling up shelf space for those deluded souls that think they can
> write poetry?
Note than in few of the things you mention poetry plays an autonomous
part. And you forgot Clinton's inauguration.
> But this is just my general impression of poetry's state, and that
> don't make it so. Care to try citing some kind of reference for your
> claim?
I have a reference. Once, a few years ago, I visited a small
steel-producing plant outside Calcutta, Called Titagarth Steels
Limited. A friend of mine worked there; he introduced me to a few of
his friends who also worked there, and mentioned that among other
things I was, ahem, a poet. In about half an hour there were about
thirty people around me all of a sudden, putting flower garlands all
over my person. For the next two hours we talked about poetry, and
they made me recite stuff in a language they didn't understand a word
of, and then recited their favourite poems in their own. And they had
their boss's permission to interrupt work for that sort of thing. I
both hated and loved the experience (not the only one of that kind I
had in India). Go try that at US Steel.
> JJWebb
> --
>>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><>
> jjw...@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us :-) "You mean .. there are lines?"
> copyright (c) 1993 -- Beau Blue
>>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><>
Philip Nikolayev
nik...@husc.harvard.edu
Philip Nikolayev
wac...@canon.co.uk (Tom Wachtel) writes:
> sf...@wam.umd.edu (Sherri) writes:
>> >of course you can. i feel free to attempt. please post a short
>> piece >where you feel the rhyme is awful but the content is not,
>> and i promise >to try to parody the rhyme without parodying the
>> content.
>>
>> content, I think it would be impossible to write such a poem. What do
>> you mean by bad rhyme? I see two likely possibilities--cliched rhymes
>> and rhymes that don't really.
> also unimaginative rhyme, tortuous rhyme, bombastic rhyme, obvious
> rhyme, pedestrian rhyme, distracting rhyme or any rhyme which fails
> in a given piece. in contrast to delicate rhyme, surprising rhyme,
> stretching rhyme, exhilirating rhyme, imperceptible rhyme, kissing
> rhyme, dancing rhyme, etc.
Yes, of course. But you can't parody any of these. You see, I can't
accept your challenge, because by giving you a piece of actual poetry
I would supply you also with a context, with meanings. But if you
insist, you might as well parody 'love/dove' - but you can't rely on
meanings, nor can you use nonsensical nonce-words to fill in a metre.
See what I'm driving at?
....
> Tom Wachtel (wac...@canon.co.uk)
Philip Nikolayev
nik...@husc.harvard.edu
Philip Nikolayev
Will you, for once, explain what exactly is new about free verse? I
have been reading it about as long as I have been reading any other
kind of poetry, and it has been around for as long, too. At best, it
may have been a transitional form from ordinary speech to more
structured verse. And will you explain what those new rules are? I am
not aware of any special techniques that free verse relies on that
'traditional' verse doesn't. Please, please enlighten me.
Now, it is possible that writers of free verse are indeed deluded
into believing that they are doing something astonishingly new, and in
that case the historical truth about their chosen genre is irrelevant.
But the fact that they call it 'verse', as opposed to
'prose-with-lines-broken-up-so-as-to-use-white-space', makes me think
that these writers want to attach to their stuff the special status of
what is traditionally referred to as poetry, claiming a special kind
of attention. While a rap musician has no claim to the audience of
Mozart, the free-versifier pins his hopes on the readers of Shelley
and Frost.
I have said this many times, and no one objects. We seem to be talking
past each other, without any hope of getting somewhere. It is, of
course, possible, that I am completely out of my mind, and fail to
grasp something that stands to reason. But isn't it strange that,
while people still respond to what I post here, and register their
disagreement, no one is responding to the fairly specific things that
I say.
> -
> Christopher L. Lott "And now what shall become of
> fn...@aurora.alaska.edu us without any barbarians?
> Those people were a kind of
> solution."
>
Philip Nikolayev
nik...@husc.harvard.edu
Sherri
My part of this thread was not clear. My point in issuing the challenge
to the original poster who asked for a poem where the rhyme is awful but
the content is not so that he could parody the rhyme but not the
content is that form and content are not that separable. What I hope
anyone answering my challenge would realize is that a good poem will
make the so-called 'bad rhymes' good ones. In other words, there's
more to a bad rhyme than the choice of the two or more words, and much
of this 'more' has a lot to do with the poem's 'content'.
I also suggested this challenge because I think one can learn from using
cliched rhymes in original ways. I already received a good sonnet using
love and dove in email.
Well, I'm way too tired to be posting and am probably not making myself
any better understood.
Sherri
Mike Gadberry
[. . .]
> Interesting games could be had with each. Writing a poem with all the
> cliched rhymes that is still good would be quite a test. Write a poem
> rhyming 'love' 'dove' and 'above' that is a good poem content wise. A good
> rhyme should not be expected long before it arrives. Throw in trees and
> breeze for good measure.
Sorry, couldn't get trees and breeze, but I got some other cliches, and
some bad slant rhymes in as well :^> ('cry', 'boy', and 'aisle' for heaven's
sake! What an awful stretch!)
>
> Bad rhymes are usually distracting, but they are usually found, of course,
> in poems where the author is lax about sound. For this game you would
^-----------------------------------------^
(am I missing something or is this an oxymoron?) -mg
> probably have to mix true rhymes and off-rhymes in order to claim that
> they rhymes are truly 'awful'. If you count all off-rhymes as awful,
> then you can use 'Fern Hill' (Dylan Thomas) for your parody game. Remember
> it has to be convincing and hostile.
>
> Sherri
This sounded like a fun game, and since it was on the net, I
figured it was fair game. This isn't a parody, Sherri, but it's a
pretty good metaphor for the doctrine of trinitarian god, (a fairly
standard topic for poetry with 'heavy content'). At least,
it's the best rhyme I could come up with this evening. Hope you enjoy it.
-----------------------------------------------
at the supermarket
copyright 1993 by Michael R. Gadberry
I felt the spirit of love I was smelling the coffee,
devolve upon me tonight. and I had moved from his sight.
No, not in the shape of Leaving him far too free
the Americhristian dove, to shop about as he pleased.
but in the hesitant cry His smile was a bit too wan
and pit-patter of flight Yes, his wet eyes were too bright.
of a six year old boy "Daddy," he said. "You were gone."
lost in the cereal aisle. "Never," I said, "my son."
Chris Lott
> fn...@acad3.alaska.edu (Da Poet Knowit) writes:
>
>> As for the chess metaphor. . .
>
>
> Will you, for once, explain what exactly is new about free verse? I
> have been reading it about as long as I have been reading any other
> kind of poetry, and it has been around for as long, too. At best, it
> may have been a transitional form from ordinary speech to more
> structured verse. And will you explain what those new rules are? I am
> not aware of any special techniques that free verse relies on that
> 'traditional' verse doesn't. Please, please enlighten me.
>
> Now, it is possible that writers of free verse are indeed deluded
> into believing that they are doing something astonishingly new, and in
> that case the historical truth about their chosen genre is irrelevant.
> But the fact that they call it 'verse', as opposed to
> 'prose-with-lines-broken-up-so-as-to-use-white-space', makes me think
> that these writers want to attach to their stuff the special status of
> what is traditionally referred to as poetry, claiming a special kind
> of attention. While a rap musician has no claim to the audience of
> Mozart, the free-versifier pins his hopes on the readers of Shelley
> and Frost.
>
> I have said this many times, and no one objects. We seem to be talking
> past each other, without any hope of getting somewhere. It is, of
> course, possible, that I am completely out of my mind, and fail to
> grasp something that stands to reason. But isn't it strange that,
> while people still respond to what I post here, and register their
> disagreement, no one is responding to the fairly specific things that
> I say.
>
>
> Philip Nikolayev
> nik...@husc.harvard.edu
I will try to get specific:
In a word I don't think there is much "new" about it. A large body of the
world's greatest literature and poetry is in free verse-- the Psalms of the
Old Testament for example. At the same time free verse is not as "free" as the
uninitiated readers and poor writers of the same may think.
So there is nothing truly "new" about free verse. What is new is the fact that
it has now become an intentional act to write this way. Most of the early
literature that appears to be so-called free verse was shaped that way
naturally. The words were manipulated until they sounded and worked together
"right."
With this intentionality come different ways of using the same techniques that
formal/traditional verse have used. Free verse uses the line break in a way
which is much more central to the meaning of the poem than in formal poetry.
There is no outside formula which is adhered to. Free verse utilizes rhythm in
a way which is the opposite of formal poetry: where formal verse uses breaks
and changes in a regular rhythm to reinforce content, free verse lets the
occasional use of specific rhythmic patterns in an otherwise free form serve
the same function.
The most important distinction is the fact that free verse allows each poem to
define its own set of rules which, to be succesful, it will adhere to. Just as
one could say that Shakespeare mastered the sonnet form or Basho the haiku,
the mastery of free verse means being aware of what is constituting the
"rightness" in certain words in a certain order and building on it-- within
each poem. Eliot stated it succinctly when he said (I am approximating from
memory) "The poem comes before the form, in the sense that the form grows out
of the attempt of the poet attempting to say something, just as a system of
prosody is only a formulation of the rhythms of a succession of poets which
influence each other."
With regards to the parasitic nature of free verse to formal poetry, I still
do not see this as a real objection. Poetry gained its special nature through
the use of (among other things) rhythm and rhyme-- these are what
differentiated poetry from natural speech or prose. Free verse achieves the
same ends through different means: it uses the techniques I have mentioned,
and the inner unity of the poem to dictate a form which is unique to every
poem rather than a typical outer unity of formal structure.
Free verse replaces the unnecessary obstacles which formal poetry utilizes
(the regular rhythm, rhyme, syllabic counts, etc.) with another kind of
unnecessary obstacle, and one that can be just as difficult as any imposed by
formal structures because it is variable and self-imposed. Robert Frost said
that writing free verse was like playing tennis with the net down. What he
overlooked is that simple fact that were two people to undertake playing
tennis in this way, they would immediately invent another rule or obstacle to
take its place. Just as formal poetry comes from the imposed obstacles that
are a result of the oral tradition, free verse comes from a different set of
obstacles.
Of course Frost was correctly pointing out one of the reasons for writing in
rhyme, which is that it poses an interesting challenge for the writer. Meter
also poses a challenge, while also distancing the reader from the poem by
distancing him from the poem. Meter is an outward sign of art, and yet another
way of granting the piece using it some kind of special consideration by the
reader. Free verse does the same thing with its own self imposed obstacles
thus granting it a special consideration which is not a parasitic force on the
recognition earned by formal poetry, just a different one.
I am rambling and getting tired, but I am sure you at least see the point I am
trying to make, valid to you or not...
--
Tim Love
>Will you, for once, explain what exactly is new about free verse?
I can only assume that this is a rhetorical question, since even
my 1980 copy of `The Rhetoric of the Contemporary Lyric' (J Holden)
provides if not exact answers, then at least some suggestions.
>Now, it is possible that writers of free verse are indeed deluded
>into believing that they are doing something astonishingly new,
Possible, yes, (arrogance abounds) but more likely they will accept
that their techniques, even if new in `poetry', are long-established
in other fields.
>I have said this many times, and no one objects.
Boredom?
>... no one is responding to the fairly specific things that I say.
Lead us, oh PN, to the cyanide soup.
Tom Wachtel
> Tom Wachtel writes:
>
> > also unimaginative rhyme, tortuous rhyme, bombastic rhyme, obvious
> > rhyme, pedestrian rhyme, distracting rhyme or any rhyme which fails
> > in a given piece. in contrast to delicate rhyme, surprising rhyme,
> > stretching rhyme, exhilirating rhyme, imperceptible rhyme, kissing
> > rhyme, dancing rhyme, etc.
>
> Yes, of course. But you can't parody any of these. You see, I can't
> accept your challenge, because by giving you a piece of actual poetry
> I would supply you also with a context, with meanings. But if you
> insist, you might as well parody 'love/dove' - but you can't rely on
> meanings, nor can you use nonsensical nonce-words to fill in a metre.
> See what I'm driving at?
yes. and indeed it would be far easier to effect a parody using the
interaction of the form with the content. for it is all about the
interaction of the two. however, what i would try to do to match what
you outline is to overload the poor rhyme while preserving the meaning
as far as possible. if the rhyme was distracting, i would try to
distract more, if pompous, to add more pomp. depending upon the
circumstances. so no reliance on meanings or on nonce words.
so you could supply a piece of actual poetry with meanings, and i would
try to parody the bad rhyme without changing those intended meanings,
but added an overlay of parody for the intended meanings to be seen
through.
maybe i would fail. :) it was just an idea which sounded interesting
to attempt.
--
Tom Wachtel (wac...@canon.co.uk)
Philip Nikolayev
mco...@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin) writes:
Consider the implications for free verse. By what standards would you
judge basketball game whose players insist that they are playing
football?
> Marie Coffin
Philip Nikolayev
nik...@husc.harvard.edu
Corwin D. Shackelford
>PN> .... everyone would be well advised to consider the fact that
>PN> hardly anyone in the United States of America reads poetry today,
>PN> with the exception of those who write it, are paid for reading it,
>PN> or expect to be paid for reading it at some future date.
>
JW>suspicion of this, so you state it as fact. That makes it so?
JW>Horseshit! Science Center huh? "Well sir, my general impression is
JW>that the earth is at the center of the universe. That's how I came to
JW>this conclusion. Why?"
JW continues:
>My general impression is that there are more people exposed to poetry
>in America today than a hundred years ago, or two hundred years ago.
>More poetry groups, 'poetry slams', newspapers with feature stories
>on poets (from 'cowboy' poets to 'lesbian' poets and beyond), Sunday
>morning brunch restaurants featuring poetry readings and readings
>with jazz, campus groups presenting poetry presentations and
>seminars (from avant-garde poets to Bly criticism), and RAP-like
>'sub-cultures' with lots of lurkers, than there ever were. Why is it
>that the "Poet's Market" book keeps getting bigger? Shouldn't it have
>dwindled to just a couple pages by now? Thirty years ago the poetry
>sections of most book stores were very much smaller than they are today.
>Those rack-jobbers just filling up shelf space for those deluded souls
>that think they can write poetry?
>
>But this is just my general impression of poetry's state, and that don't
>make it so. Care to try citing some kind of reference for your claim?
> JJWebb
Not true, this about poetry being more present. In the culture at large it was
much more present before the WWI, when every family had Wordsworth next to the
family Bible, when Song of Hiawatha and Idylls of the King were read after
dinner and such. It is in the statistics that of all the wars America and
Britain have been in in the last 150 yrs, literacy was at its height then,
along with a much greater general awareness of the literature being written.
That was before pluralism was introduced to a greater extent, and the classics
were much more wellknown by the middle class. That was also before the
obscurantism of artists and writers began to alienate the majority of the
reading public with the entrance of the moderns. I know this is just so much
generalization, but I read "The Great War and Modern Memory" and a few other
works that brought me to my present understanding of literature's place today.
-Corwin
Chris Lott
> nik...@husc.harvard.edu
ha... I have to admit that you do have a sense of humor...
Marie Coffin
I was considering the implications for free verse when I wrote this. It
seems obvious that writers of "free verse" are playing by different rules
than writers of sonnets. You seem to be implying that the writers claim
otherwise. This is disingeneous of you at best. There are many kinds
of verse, and the "rules" for each kind are different.
Marie Coffin
Vance Maverick
|>
|> > between relative and subjective. Go back to your sports analogy: of
|> > course it is stupid to criticize a basketball game for not being a
|> > football game. But, realizing that it *is* a basketball game, one
|> > can still say "this is a lousy basketball game". No?
|>
|> Consider the implications for free verse. By what standards would you
|> judge basketball game whose players insist that they are playing
|> football?
What makes it a basketball game? How about if the spectators
and the players agree that it's football?
Vance
Philip Nikolayev
> In article <NIKOLAY.93...@husc11.harvard.edu>,
> nik...@husc11.harvard.edu (Philip Nikolayev) writes:
>> In article <1993Mar1...@IASTATE.EDU>,
>>mco...@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin) writes:
>>> I don't think this last statement is true.
>>> There is a difference > between relative and subjective. Go back
>>> to your sports analogy: of > course it is stupid to criticize a
>>> basketball game for not being a > football game. But, realizing
>>> that it *is* a basketball game, one can still say "this is a lousy
>>> basketball game". No?
>> Consider the implications for free verse. By what standards would you
>> judge basketball game whose players insist that they are playing
>> football?
> I was considering the implications for free verse when I wrote this.
> It seems obvious that writers of "free verse" are playing by
> different rules than writers of sonnets. You seem to be implying
> that the writers claim otherwise. This is disingeneous of you at
> best. There are many kinds of verse, and the "rules" for each kind
> are different.
Oh, the rules may be different all they like. But 'poetry' isn't just
a name: it's a title, and it implies a certain value. By what
standards do you judge a loony vizier who thinks that he is Suleiman
the Magnificent?
Philip Nikolayev
unchallenging slogans coming up over and over again, and while I am
interested in articulating something new, I'm forced to reiterate the
same elementary things ad nauseam. I'm withdrawing from this thread
for a few days. I have a few ideas about all this crap which I'll post
when my spring break starts next week. I'll illustrate my points about
parody and Whitman more systematically, and will try to demonstrate
the general vampiristic nature of merde libre. I will also talk about
those kinds of free verse that I like personally, and will explain why
I think they are different from the mainstream of merde libre. Donzik,
I'll try to say something about Stevens as well.
Bye for now.
Fuck it, I've been nice for too long. Dorsey, are you there, pukehead?
Philip Nikolayev
nik...@husc.harvard.edu
Philip Nikolayev
In article <1od7v3$7...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
mave...@fir.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Vance Maverick) writes:
Oh, yes, of course, 'it's not a contradiction', as they say. Arbitrary
nature of the sign, and all that oom-pah-pah. But then 'rules of
basketball' should also be renamed 'rules of football.' Would you also
deem it advisable to agree that basketball, in its orginal sense, does
not exist, or at least is archaic and ridiculous? It seves no purpose
to have one name for two games.
> Vance
Philip Nikolayev
nik...@husc.harvard.edu
sayan bhattacharyya
> PN> .... everyone would be well advised to consider the fact that
> PN> hardly anyone in the United States of America reads poetry today,
> PN> with the exception of those who write it, are paid for reading it,
> PN> or expect to be paid for reading it at some future date.
>
>
>the audience for poetry has contracted to an Academic base, leading to
>the inevitable conclusion that a great deal of it is simply crap, and
>that we're (professional critics as well as "amateurs") all being too
>damned nice with each other in the name of maintaining our Cottage
>Industry.
>
Quite right. This is true not only of your country (USA), but generally
of all the industrialised western nations.
On the other hand, if you look at third world countries, you will
find that poetry is alive and well. The example of Latin America
is the one which comes most easily to mind. I could also give the
example of India. There is, for example, a wide and avid readership
of Bengali poetry (the Indian language I am most familiar with).
Similarly, witness the popularity of the poet in the Soviet Union.
Until a few years ago entire football stadiums used to be packed
with people when Yevtushenko gave a reading (maybe Philip Nikolayev
can say more about this).
Maybe there is something so barren about the hamburger-chomping,
television-blind industrialised West that enervates and decimates
the power of the word. Societies which are more impoverished (in a
material sense) hold on to the rich cultural legacy of the word
with much more tenacity.
>Ken Wolman
-Sayan Bhattacharyya.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Sayan Bhattacharyya Graduate Student Artificial Intelligence Lab
The University of Michigan
Corwin D. Shackelford
Dublin to hear a poet read at a poetry convention there. She got into a taxi
at the airport and couldn't remember where she was supposed to go. In her
frustration she mentioned the poet's name, and he said "Of course, you want to
go to such and such a place. Everybody knows that that is where so-and-so is
going to read." Webb, you also forgot to mention Frost's reading at Kennedy's
inaguaration(sp). I love poetry, but coming out of high school years ago I
don't think I had ever read a poet who was still living, and no one I knew ever
read any poetry that I know of. If a good number of lit students at
universities don't like to struggle over poetry and still think a poem =
sonnet, then what is the public supposed to think?
-Corwin
Sherri
>Will you, for once, explain what exactly is new about free verse? I
>have been reading it about as long as I have been reading any other
>kind of poetry, and it has been around for as long, too. At best, it
>may have been a transitional form from ordinary speech to more
>structured verse. And will you explain what those new rules are? I am
>not aware of any special techniques that free verse relies on that
>'traditional' verse doesn't. Please, please enlighten me.
>
I may be way off on this, but I think that earlier poetry was
often sung, and the type of singing influenced form. Chanting is
usually done in free verse, I don't think it's form would benefit
from rhyme. Very persistent consonance or alliteration would be
used in chants, perhaps, but rhyme doesn't serve the same purposes
as it does in a ballad. If I could sing over usenet, I actually do
believe I could demonstrate this pretty well, but I don't have the
musical terminology to explain it. Once you learn a chant well, you
can set any words to it that you want, though (so everyone is a potential
chanter or free verse poet, but some are much better than others).
Okay, so free verse isn't new, and it hasn't developed any
new 'special
'techniques' other than (perhaps) funny arrangements of paper and
white-space. Regarding techniques, it's difficult to say much about
free verse in general, but most good free verse poets do use some sort
of techniques, and many of them will help themselves to all techniques
used in traditional poetry except regular and consistent end-rhyme and
the consistent breaking of lines after a chosen number of metrical units.
Many of Dylan Thomas' poems are very structured, but are still considered
'free', much of T.S. Eliot as well.
>Now, it is possible that writers of free verse are indeed deluded
>into believing that they are doing something astonishingly new, and in
>that case the historical truth about their chosen genre is irrelevant.
>But the fact that they call it 'verse', as opposed to
>'prose-with-lines-broken-up-so-as-to-use-white-space',
Hmm, well, I don't believe the writers of psalms or chants ever called
their work 'prose-with lines-broken-up-so-as-to-use-white-space' either.
Also, it's history that leads us to call it poetry. Even if you call
Whitman a bastard, free verse does trace roots back through a tradition
that has always called itself poetry. You may consider it a regression,
you may claim that our poetic forefathers would have sliced off their
testicles if they'd seen the work of future generations, but I think free
verse poets have a decent claim to calling their work poetry. And, yes,
it's not properly called 'verse' but when the 'free' modifier is added,
at least we know what we're talking about. Well, I guess 'free verse' is
sort of analogous to the 'moral majority', in that it's neither, but the
fact that we can use 'free verse' and pretty well know what we mean
by it makes it a useful descriptive term.
makes me think
>that these writers want to attach to their stuff the special status of
>what is traditionally referred to as poetry, claiming a special kind
>of attention. While a rap musician has no claim to the audience of
>Mozart, the free-versifier pins his hopes on the readers of Shelley
>and Frost.
>
Oh, come on, you should have noticed by now that much of the
audience of modern poets does not consist of readers of Shelley and
Frost :)
>I have said this many times, and no one objects. We seem to be talking
>past each other, without any hope of getting somewhere. It is, of
>course, possible, that I am completely out of my mind, and fail to
>grasp something that stands to reason. But isn't it strange that,
>while people still respond to what I post here, and register their
>disagreement, no one is responding to the fairly specific things that
>I say.
We try sometimes, it's just that you say so many things :)
>
>> -
>> Christopher L. Lott "And now what shall become of
>> fn...@aurora.alaska.edu us without any barbarians?
>> Those people were a kind of
>> solution."
>>
>
>Philip Nikolayev
>nik...@husc.harvard.edu
Sherri
sayan bhattacharyya
>>
> I may be way off on this, but I think that earlier poetry was
>often sung, and the type of singing influenced form. Chanting is
>usually done in free verse, I don't think it's form would benefit
>from rhyme. Very persistent consonance or alliteration would be
>used in chants, perhaps, but rhyme doesn't serve the same purposes
>as it does in a ballad. If I could sing over usenet, I actually do
>believe I could demonstrate this pretty well, but I don't have the
>musical terminology to explain it. Once you learn a chant well, you
>can set any words to it that you want, though (so everyone is a potential
>chanter or free verse poet, but some are much better than others).
>
>
>
I think Sherri is right about this. Oral poetry meant to be sung
probably never rhymed. Homer's epics, for example, did not rhyme
(correct me if I am wrong), although they used alliteration liberally.
The same is true of ancient Sanskrit poetry. The Vedas did not rhyme,
and they were certainly sung or chanted. The Ramayana and Mahabharata,
or for that matter even as late as the poetry of Kalidasa, who lived
c. 200/300 A.D., there is no rhyme in Sanskrit poetry, although later
Sanskrit poetry, such as Joydeb's "Gitagobinda", does rhyme (correct
me again if wrong). By Joydeb's time Sanskrit poetry was at least as
much meant to be read as listened to, so the correlation between
the lack of rhyme and the tradition of chanting seems quite reasonable.
I would appreciate comments from the Sanskrit poetry buffs of
soc.culture.indian.
-Sayan Bhattacharyya.
_____________________________________________________________________
Sayan Bhattacharyya | Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.
Graduate student |
Thomas E. Davidson
In a previous article, jjw...@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us () says:
>My general impression is that there are more people exposed to poetry
>in America today than a hundred years ago, or two hundred years ago.
Yeah. Sadly, the poetry's worse, and the total percentage of actual
poets and enthusiasts has fallen. :(
Even worse, we're getting pop poets, the Andy Warhols of the poetry
slam set. God help us.
Tom
--
"Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, 'whores, pimps, gamblers, and
SOBs,' by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another
peephole he might have said 'saints, angels, martyrs, and holy men' and he
would have meant the same thing." --John Steinbeck, _Cannery Row_
Thomas E. Davidson
In a previous article, nik...@scws7.harvard.edu (Philip Nikolayev) says:
>However, even speaking in these crude terms, since form has changed,
>the relationship of content to form has also changed. And precisely
>that relationship, rather than 'form' as such, or 'content' as such,
>that needs to be parodied.
I disagree. Quite frankly, Phil, I think anyone can parody what
they damn well please. :) I mean, if I really am overcome by a driving
urge to parody only the content of _The Lord of the Rings_, I will. If
I feel like parodying only the style of Chaucer, I will. In fact, people
HAVE--and have been hugely successful.
There are VERY few parodies that capture both the form and the
style. While it's possible that these are somehow consummate, I wouldn't
call them NECESSARY.
>Incidentally, it is
>impossible to define style without invoking both content and form.
You believe this? What are you, a structuralist?
Thomas E. Davidson
In a previous article, nik...@husc11.harvard.edu (Philip Nikolayev) says:
>Consider the implications for free verse. By what standards would you
>judge basketball game whose players insist that they are playing
>football?
Are you somehow implying that free verse is not poetry, or that
those who write free verse expect it to be perceived as identical to
earlier rhyming works?
Tom Wachtel
> for life, and have no respect whatsoever for ideological tolerance. I
> am not nice.
i bet you are really. :)
> (I know that some find my style and 'cascading' tedious into the bargain.
> Well, one person's tedium is another's Socratic dialogue. To each his
> own.
exactly.
> Parenthetically, I disagree with Tom Wachtel that tedium corrupts. It
> is in the eye of the beholder, and simply leads to being ignored.
> Nothing wrong with that. Many have told me in private email that they
nothing wrong with being ignored, indeed. this stops the corruption.
but tedium corrupts those who fail to see that it is tedious and not
only do not ignore it, but may even emulate it. this is true of any
form of poor quality. it spreads.
tedium spreads like dullfire.
--
Tom Wachtel (wac...@canon.co.uk)
Boris J. Borcic
>
>> I do think we would need a central authority, personified or not, to
>> ground universal *aesthetic* standards. (Moral standards are
>> another matter.)
>
>I don't think one can draw a meaningful line of distinction between
>moral and aesthetic values, or you end up inevitably with values that
>are bound to be irreconcilable at least in some instances. Can you
>conceive of something morally disgusting yet aesthetically
>exhilarating? Are you willing to posit the primacy of ethical values
>of aesthetic ones, and if yes, on what grounds?
Simple: one can't abstain from writing down the letters
forming the word 'ethics' *in*the*right*order* when one writes
down the word 'aesthetics'.
This should neatly answer both question marks in one sweep.
(Note that in French - and probably other languages - this relation
between "ethique" and "esthetique" is also true of their phonetics)
- Boris Borcic
comic, cosmic, cosmetic : (10^3+1)/(10+1)=(10-3)(10+3)
Philip Nikolayev
wac...@canon.co.uk (Tom Wachtel) writes:
> nik...@husc11.harvard.edu (Philip Nikolayev) writes:
> exactly.
> tedium spreads like dullfire.
With all undue respect, surely you are not saying that in the several
months I have been on this group you have posted anything, ahem,
non-tedious? Or any poetry, for that matter? Now, Tom, perhaps you can
fool almost everyone else here into believing that you yourself
actually value what you post here, or find it at least marginally
interesting, witty or technically sophisticated, but it's fairly clear
to me that you are simply bored, that you have no illusions about your
lacking talent and wit, and that you are not taking the whole dung
thing seriously in the least. I'll grant you that it's all right to
fool the fools, as long as you are sufficiently blase', noncommittal
and cynical about it; I have no rooted objection to you whatsoever.
It's all right to be dull, too. But keep out of my way, and save what
little self-respect you have left for a better-advised cause.
> --
a.natarajan
>In article <1993Mar21.0...@wam.umd.edu> sf...@wam.umd.edu (Sherri) writes:
>>>
>> I may be way off on this, but I think that earlier poetry was
>>often sung, and the type of singing influenced form. Chanting is
>>usually done in free verse, I don't think it's form would benefit
>>from rhyme. Very persistent consonance or alliteration would be
>>used in chants, perhaps, but rhyme doesn't serve the same purposes
>>as it does in a ballad. If I could sing over usenet, I actually do
>>believe I could demonstrate this pretty well, but I don't have the
>>musical terminology to explain it. Once you learn a chant well, you
>>can set any words to it that you want, though (so everyone is a potential
>>chanter or free verse poet, but some are much better than others).
>>
>>Sherri
>>
>>
>
>
>I think Sherri is right about this. Oral poetry meant to be sung
>probably never rhymed. Homer's epics, for example, did not rhyme
>(correct me if I am wrong), although they used alliteration liberally.
>
>The same is true of ancient Sanskrit poetry. The Vedas did not rhyme,
MOSTLY TRUE.
>and they were certainly sung or chanted. The Ramayana and Mahabharata,
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>or for that matter even as late as the poetry of Kalidasa, who lived
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>c. 200/300 A.D., there is no rhyme in Sanskrit poetry, although later
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
UNTRUE.
>Sanskrit poetry, such as Joydeb's "Gitagobinda", does rhyme (correct
>me again if wrong). By Joydeb's time Sanskrit poetry was at least as
>much meant to be read as listened to, so the correlation between
>the lack of rhyme and the tradition of chanting seems quite reasonable.
>
>I would appreciate comments from the Sanskrit poetry buffs of
>soc.culture.indian.
>
>-Sayan Bhattacharyya.
>
>
>_____________________________________________________________________
>
>Sayan Bhattacharyya | Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.
>Graduate student |
>Artificial Intelligence Lab |
>The University of Michigan |
I am NOT well versed in Sanskrit. However, I have dabbled in Vaalmeeki,
Kaalidaasa, Vyaasa and a few other.
The poetry in these conform to rules of Sanskrit prosody, rhymes galore,
and poetic artifices galore!
Kaavyaadarsa of Dandin is considered a master-piece of poetic excellence!
Poet Maagha (of Sisupaala vadham fame) is a POET of some eminence!
Kaalidaas excels in rhume even in his non-poetry (prosaic) works.
Read his Syaamalaa Dandakam (a dantakam not a DANDAM!).
Simple poetry of Vaalmeeki (mostly aushtubh meter), read Sundarakaandam!
As hanumaan soars aloft, the poet conjures up in his imagination,
the view from "up there" and what poetry; what apt alliteration!
what rhymes! Vaalmeeki transports the reader to new heights of poetic
grandeur, far higher than Hanumaan soars as he crosses the ocean!
There is one "sargam" (chapter) in Sundara Kaandam of Vaalmeeki
where he describes the evening moon! The entire chapter is
a testimony to Vaalmeeki's masterly command of "rhymes" in Sanskrit poetry!
(This is not cross posted to SCT! I hope!)
Yours respectfully
A Sanskrit b(l)uff.
Tom Wachtel
>
> Tom Wachtel writes:
>
> > tedium spreads like dullfire.
>
> With all undue respect, surely you are not saying that in the several
> months I have been on this group you have posted anything, ahem,
> non-tedious? Or any poetry, for that matter? Now, Tom, perhaps you can
> fool almost everyone else here into believing that you yourself
> actually value what you post here, or find it at least marginally
> interesting, witty or technically sophisticated, but it's fairly clear
> to me that you are simply bored, that you have no illusions about your
> lacking talent and wit, and that you are not taking the whole dung
> thing seriously in the least. I'll grant you that it's all right to
> fool the fools, as long as you are sufficiently blase', noncommittal
> and cynical about it; I have no rooted objection to you whatsoever.
> It's all right to be dull, too. But keep out of my way, and save what
> little self-respect you have left for a better-advised cause.
(i dont think he likes me. and just as i thought we were going to get
along after all by having some fun with rhyme and parody. my, what a lot
of energy spend on berating me, for some reason...)
but but but, philip. you said: "one person's tedium is another's
Socratic dialogue. To each his own." so why are you so mad at me?
and i have no rooted objection to you either, philip. so what?
i think you are quite nice really.
am i really in your way, philip? in your way?
where are you going with that gun in your hand?
let me re-post something tedious from a long time ago, when people enjoyed themselves around here:
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: wac...@canon.co.uk (Tom Wachtel)
Subject: blah blah
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 91 11:31:30 GMT
blah blah blah
oh blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah
bloody blah blah blah blah blah
oh blah bloody blah bloody blah
oh blah blah
oh bloody blah
ob-la-di
and here is another old one, just because i feel like it, and there is too
much talktalktalk on rap to have a lot of fun. i should apologise for posting these, because reposting is itself a lame thing to do. but i like these.
they are not good; i just like them. so i apologise.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: wac...@canon.co.uk (Tom Wachtel)
Subject: I said, do you
Date: Thu, 7 Feb 91 12:10:54 GMT
I said, Do you dance with pleasure?
She said, No, I dance with friends.
She said, Do you speak good English?
I said, No, I just pretend.
So I put my arm around her
and she put her armour round me
and she I'd me and my motive
and eye held her own in mine.
Some tales are told in winter
and though summer unbelieved
they may spring out and bite you
so I took my autumn leave.
and another two, just to make it really tedious.
From wachtel Wed Dec 9 20:45:03 1992
From: wachtel
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: just breathe one
just breathe one low sigh
and listen to my fingers on your cheek
don't look; for looking's still to young...
and now you really do look like you've never looked before
you look; and darkly this now mirror sings its silver tale
just breathe into my whisper; don't inhale
until inhaling's time is due
and the dew on the grass
cools your feet; time will pass...
inhale
From wachtel Wed Aug 12 12:34:02 1992
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: testa bella
Summary: after ezra pound
(after Ezra Pound)
testa bella
she became her graceful light; it became her,
among the unseeing eyes where men like shadows form.
see this molten light boldly mold our song:
the breaking sun alights, the broken dawn adorns
her beautiful head; held high in awe
in prudent law, my heart a hand apart.
no woodland blade or gladed shade or foot fell
quite as still; this breath is light itself.
gossamer? it's a good word to spin with,
none is spun as she.
and the velvet jewels breathed away
in progress blade by blade
these adamant diamonds hardly soft
in the morning spreading of the sun
plucked greenly off each blade
the emerald herald, colour or shade
to meet her passing foot and wet it,
should she pass this way.
thanks. i feel better now. hope i didnt bother anyone.
--
Tom Wachtel (wac...@canon.co.uk)
Marek Lugowski
a little bothered, Tom, by this surprising sentiment of yours:
> because reposting is itself a lame thing to do
does this mean poets in wheelchairs, such as myself, are not welcome?
I have been reposting lots for the benefit of those who have not seen the
original posts, or even reposts :), so by now I have no legs underneath me
to speak of. Please try to forgive me for this shortcoming, if you can...
-- Marek
:)
Ajay Divakaran
the description of the flight across the oceans is beautiful. I am reminded
of it everytime I look out of an aeroplane window. I sometimes wonder if
Valmiki had actually been a "frequent flyer." His description of the
view from such heights is not just beautiful, it is quite accurate as well.
Maybe he got his ideas by looking down from the top of a hill or something.
I am probably underestimating the power of human imagination.
While on the subject of Sundara Kanda, my mother had a wonderful
English translation of the Valmiki Ramayana called "The Prince of
Ayodhya" by D.S. Sarma. I looked for it in Madras a few years ago but
drew a blank. My mother's copy is ancient and dilapidated! It is literally
falling to pieces like a lot of old books do. I would highly appreciate
any suggestions.
Another book that has a lot of (light) verse is the Panchatantra. Once
again I have read only the translation by Arthur W. Ryder. Is it still in
print? Ryder's translation is in rhyming verse. Is the original Panchatantra
Sanskrit verse in any metre/rhyme?
This gives me a chance to tell the only Sanskrit-related anecdote
I know. All credit goes to my Sanskrit teacher in High School. I dont know
if this anecdote is true or not, but it is definitely enjoyable. So here goes:
Bana Bhatt lay on his deathbed, while his "Kadambari" was yet
unfinished. So he wanted one of his two sons to finish it. He called the
elder one and asked him to describe the dry and dead tree right opposite
their home in one sentence. (I think the elder son's name was Vishakha Bhatt)
He said:
"Shushka-vriksha-tishtati-agray"
A dry tree sits opposite us (literally)
Bana said that Vishakha Bhatt's choice of words was most unmusical since
it emphasised very harsh (karkash) sounds. That made him unfit for the job.
So he invited the younger son, Pulinda Bhatt, and posed the same problem.
He said:
"Neerasa-taruvara-vilasati-puratah"
A dry tree lives in front. (literally)
Bana was delighted by the mellifluous choice of words to describe
so simple a thing, and chose Pulinda Bhatta for the task of finishing
the "Kadambari."
As I said earlier, whether or not the anecdote is true, it
illustrates the phonetic euphony of lyrical poetry. I suppose to convey
"Veer Rasa" you need a Vishakha Bhatt style, while to convey Shringar
Rasa you would need a Pulinda Bhatt style!
ajay
Akash R. Deshpande
>In article <1993Mar21....@zip.eecs.umich.edu> bhat...@quip.eecs.umich.edu (sayan bhattacharyya) writes:
>>I think Sherri is right about this. Oral poetry meant to be sung
>>probably never rhymed. Homer's epics, for example, did not rhyme
>
>and poetic artifices galore!
The other aspect is that Greek and Sanskrit poetry is quantitative,
ie, the rhythm is largely formed by the length of the syllables,
while English poetry is largely ictus or stress rhythm. My
opinion is that a poetical form giving importance to vowel sounds
is easier to memorise, chant and sing (especially classical Indian
singing).
-Akash
X67...@barilvm.bitnet
as a poetic device ? I recall that in one of my 'biblical' classes there was
a refutaion of certain antisemitical papers from the period ww2 where the form
of gennisis and the various stories within were said to be product of the
inferrior 'Jew' who could not apreciate the asthetical nature of poetical
devices such as rhyming. Our instructor amongst other thing said that the
method of rhyming is a much later poetical device belonging to the middle
ages.
Can this be correct, how old is the sunscipt verse mentioned in the previous
poems ?
-----
Sir I admit your general rule
That every Poet is a Fool
But you yourself may serve to show it
That every Fool is not a Poet
rendered from the french by Pope
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The name is Oren Bochman - King Of Kings ! x67...@barilvm.biu.ac.il
Look upon my work and soon you will despair ! is were to send your flame
=========================================================================
jjw...@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us
In a previous articles, nik...@scws7.harvard.edu writes and
te...@po.CWRU.Edu (Tom Davidson) replies:
PN> However, even speaking in these crude terms, since form has changed,
PN> the relationship of content to form has also changed. And precisely
PN> that relationship, rather than 'form' as such, or 'content' as such,
PN> that needs to be parodied.
TD> I disagree. Quite frankly, Phil, I think anyone can parody what
TD> they damn well please. :)
PN> [.....]
PN> Incidentally, it is impossible to define style without invoking both
PN> content and form.
TD> You believe this? What are you, a structuralist?
No Tom, most of the grownups suspect that Phil is a Skinner experiment,
gone dreadfully wrong ..
JJWebb
--
>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<
jjw...@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us :-) "You mean .. there are lines?"
copyright (c) 1993 -- Beau Blue
>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<>><><><<
Tushar Samant
>(sayan bhattacharyya) writes:
>
>>and they were certainly sung or chanted. The Ramayana and Mahabharata,
>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>or for that matter even as late as the poetry of Kalidasa, who lived
>>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> UNTRUE.
The question was whether rhyme was an indispensible part of their poetry,
in the sense that what didn't rhyme wasn't poetry. That certainly wasn't
true. Meter, on the other hand was indispensible, and that's true of the
vedas also. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that strict accordance
to meter distinguished poetry from prose.
I have always thought that prakrit sung poetry always rhymed. Certainly
the prakrit verses in Kalidas's plays rhyme. When translated into sanskrit
they cease to rhyme and take on a "classical" (instead of a "desi") sound
that the poet probably didn't intend. The other reason why I think rhyme
is not a "new" development is that it (along with meter) is indispensible
in all old marathi and hindi poetry (and almost certainly in other Indian
languages.)
Jayadev might have been inspired by prakrit, rhymed, songs. In any case,
he intends the gitagovinda to be sung. The "kavya" verses which occur
interspersed with the songs are, in contrast, all in strict "akshar" meter
and are unrhymed. They are intended only for recitation.
A couple of remarks: syaamala dantakam (never heard of it) could not have
been written by the same kalidas who wrote, say, the sakuntala. All kinds
of poems get attributed to kalidas. I have seen the following ridiculously
rhymed poem attributed to him:
namastestu gange tvadangaprasangaad bhujangaasturangaa kurangaa plavangaa
anangaariranga sagangaa shivaangaa bhujangaadhipaangikritaangabhavanti
namo janhukanye na manye tvadanyair nisangenduchinhaadibhirlokabhartuh
atoham natoham sato gauratoye vasishthaadibhirgeeyamaanaabhidheye
(it goes on for several lines like this ... I don't remember now).
The other thing is the story of Banabhatta, which shows how completely
wrong he was to choose the second son. "shushkam kaashtham tishthatyagre"
is so superior to "neerasa taruvar" etc that I cannot believe anyone
could make the perverse choice Bana makes in the story. We might chalk it
up to the degeneration of sanskrit in the time the story was invented.
Tushar
PS I can't see how this cannot have any bearing on Tamil at all. Surely
the classical sanskrit tradition has had some influence on Tamil?
Tushar Samant
>
>The other aspect is that Greek and Sanskrit poetry is quantitative,
>ie, the rhythm is largely formed by the length of the syllables,
>while English poetry is largely ictus or stress rhythm.
That's natural. Indian languages are syllable-timed, and length of
syllable will contribute more to the rhythm of a meter. English, in
contrast, is a stress-timed language. It's futile to view them as
different "techniques" of achieving rhythm.
Tushar
Kerry Shetline
Wachtel) wrote:
> thanks. i feel better now. hope i didnt bother anyone.
thanks i feel
better now hope
i didn't bother
anyone
i feel thanks
better now hope
anyone i didn't
bother
anyone hope i
feel thanks now
i didn't better
bother
anyone i feel
better not bother
hope didn't
thank anyone
-Kerry
Corwin D. Shackelford
> There are VERY few parodies that capture both the form and the
>style. While it's possible that these are somehow consummate, I wouldn't
>call them NECESSARY.
Would you call _Don Quixote_ one of these successful parodies? Or could it be
said, Philip, that it effectively parodies itself with 'hostility'?
Corwin
Akash R. Deshpande
>That's natural. Indian languages are syllable-timed, and length of
>syllable will contribute more to the rhythm of a meter. English, in
>contrast, is a stress-timed language. It's futile to view them as
>different "techniques" of achieving rhythm.
There exists quantitative poetry in English. Similarly, vedas,
(older) upanishads are stressed as well as quantitative. In fact,
the notation for them have vertical bars on top of stressed
syllables. Hence quantity and stress are techniques in poetry.
Of course, quantity is natural to Indian languages (and Greek)
while stress is natural to English.
-Akash
Vidhyanath K Rao
>In fact, the notation for them have vertical bars on top of stressed
>syllables.
Not quite. Vedic language is pitch accented. The accented syllable is
pronounced at a slightly higher pitch than non-accented syllables. (The
truth is a bit more complicated, there being three different pitches employed).
[Note: accent is accent is not quantity.] Classical Sanskrit is stress
accented [but unaccented syllables may be long; accented syllables must be
naturally long or prosodically long. All this makes the meters a bit more
complicated than in English]
This whole thread about rhyme in Sanskrit seems to have ignored a basic fact:
In inflected languages, the final syllable is determined by grammatical
requirements. Since rhyme means that the latter portions of the word have
similar sounds, rhyming in fully inflected languages would pose quite different
problems than in non-inflected languages. What one should do is look at the
use of rhyme in modern highly inflected languages (Lithuanian, for example).
--
Vidhyanath Rao It is the man, not the method, that solves
nath...@osu.edu the problem. - Henri Poincare
(614)-366-9341 [as paraphrased by E. T. Bell]
Sherri
Obviously, one of the best ways to elevate the level of postings on
rec.arts.poems is to crosspost to soc.culture.indian. Many thanks to
everyone who has responded to this thread so far. I hope it will
continue.
Sherri
Philip Nikolayev
wac...@canon.co.uk (Tom Wachtel) writes:
> Philip Nikolayev writes:
>>
>> Tom Wachtel writes:
>>
>> > tedium spreads like dullfire.
>>
>> With all undue respect, surely you are not saying that in the
>> several months I have been on this group you have posted anything,
>> ahem, non-tedious? Or any poetry, for that matter? Now, Tom,
>> perhaps you can fool almost everyone else here into believing that
>> you yourself actually value what you post here, or find it at least
>> marginally interesting, witty or technically sophisticated, but
>> it's fairly clear to me that you are simply bored, that you have no
>> illusions about your lacking talent and wit, and that you are not
>> taking the whole dung thing seriously in the least. I'll grant you
>> that it's all right to fool the fools, as long as you are
>> sufficiently blase', noncommittal and cynical about it; I have no
>> rooted objection to you whatsoever. It's all right to be dull,
>> too. But keep out of my way, and save what little self-respect you
>> have left for a better-advised cause.
> (i dont think he likes me. and just as i thought we were going to
> get along after all by having some fun with rhyme and parody. my,
> what a lot of energy spend on berating me, for some reason...)
Not a whole lot, I assure you.
> but but but, philip. you said: "one person's tedium is another's
> Socratic dialogue. To each his own." so why are you so mad at me?
> and i have no rooted objection to you either, philip. so what? i
> think you are quite nice really.
> am i really in your way, philip? in your way? where are you going
> with that gun in your hand?
There you go again, feigning a misunderstanding, an insulted niceness.
There's a method to certain kinds of madness and style. I have found a
couple of talented people in this group (pity they don't post much),
and I hope that perhaps I'll find a couple more. In the meantime, I
stick to insulting pernicious collective sensibilities. The main
purpose of that 'gun in my hand' is to make sure that I don't ever
become even remotely like you, Lugowski, Zita Marie Eversen and your
entire nice constructive creative tolerant fun-loving verse-dribbling
discombobulated sorority. A personal purpose, that is; call it
purification of the soul if you wish.
> let me re-post something tedious from a long time ago, when people
> enjoyed themselves around here:
[deletia]
I can't believe you archive that stuff.
Konstatin Kalikanzaros
> Just noticed something funny.
>
> In article <1nnviq$p...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
> mave...@fir.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Vance Maverick) writes:
>
> > In article <1993Mar11.1...@wam.umd.edu>,
> sf...@wam.umd.edu (Sherri) writes:
>
> >|> I also find the wholesale adherence of many r.a.p.pers to
> >|> relativist thought disturbing and alien to common sense. Come on,
> >|> standards of quality exist whether or not we have found, argued,
> >|> and proved them.
>
> > This requires demonstration, to say the least.
>
> It is funny how relativists always insist on some sort of objective
> demonstration required to support notions. Isn't *any* statement
> relatively true within the relativist conceptual framework? This is
> precisely the irony: relativism inevitably creates paradoxes by giving
> rise to absolutes, which follow from it as a matter of elementary
> logical derivation.
>
> Philip Nikolayev
> nik...@husc.harvard.edu
Gobldy gook. I expect no less from you Nikko. First you and your buddy
what's his name lable us perveyors of shit. Now you lable us
relativists. And when you're gobldy gook and high brow logic (and lack
thereof) fail to deter or annoy us, you sink to ad hominim (i can't
spell as nikko has flamed about before) attacks. This is the tactic of
a man with no purpose other than to boast of constant moral superiority
though not himself in posession of it. I have seen criminal profiles
that closely describe Nikko's position and that is not intended as an
insult it is merely the only psychological data to which I have had
access. In other words Nikko, GET A LIFE! This is the nineties, take
out a loan and buy a clue! (to quote Tiny Toons)
Conrad NOTE no smileys!
Counselors are standing by waiting to help YOU!
--- Law must retain useful ways to break with traditional forms because ---
--- nothing is more certain than that the forms of Law remain when all ---
--- justice is gone. ---
--- Gowachin Aphorism (Frank Herbert: _The Dosadi Experiment_) ---
Tom Wachtel
s'ok. :) actually, i dont mind -other- people reposting. (it is easy
to reskip, haha.) unless, of course, they repost a week or two after
the initial posting because no-one responded. :) i just feel bad about
reposting things i have posted before. even if they were posted years
ago. seems a less interesting thing to do than posting something new.
ruby tuesday.
not that i have posted anything new for a couple of months now. it is
a funny sort of time...
would you encourage others to repost?
--
Tom Wachtel (wac...@canon.co.uk)
Tom Wachtel
ahahaha. thanks, kerry. :)
--
Tom Wachtel (wac...@canon.co.uk)
Tom Wachtel
> Tom Wachtel writes:
> > Philip Nikolayev writes:
> >> Tom Wachtel writes:
god, here we go cascading again...
> > what a lot of energy spend on berating me, for some reason...)
>
> Not a whole lot, I assure you.
you mean all those words of yours just pour out with little or no
thought or effort? i see.
> There you go again, feigning a misunderstanding, an insulted niceness.
im not insulted. i have seen your pedestrian attempts at indiscriminate
insult, so i dont value your opinion when it is couched as an insult.
insult is a somewhat lame form of commentary.
> There's a method to certain kinds of madness and style. I have found a
you dont say? please do go on about yourself and the romantic view you
have of your style...
> couple of talented people in this group (pity they don't post much),
> and I hope that perhaps I'll find a couple more. In the meantime, I
> stick to insulting pernicious collective sensibilities. The main
> purpose of that 'gun in my hand' is to make sure that I don't ever
> become even remotely like you, Lugowski, Zita Marie Eversen and your
> entire nice constructive creative tolerant fun-loving verse-dribbling
> discombobulated sorority. A personal purpose, that is; call it
> purification of the soul if you wish.
call it what you will. its your soul. im not trying to make you a
creative tolerant fun-loving verse-dribbling discombobulated sister.
btw, is it working? is your technique of insulting pernicious
collective sensibilities helping you to purify your soul. i do hope
so. you will get better soon, dont worry. everything will be ok.
have you ever thought of trying to work on your insulting technique so
that it was more effective?
> > let me re-post something tedious from a long time ago, when people
> > enjoyed themselves around here:
>
> [deletia]
>
> I can't believe you archive that stuff.
i cant believe you bother to comment.
but i do wish you had wanted to play a bit, you know, about parody and
rhyme. it would have been fun. (oops, sorry, i forgot...)
--
Tom Wachtel (wac...@canon.co.uk)
Marie Coffin
writes:
>
> No Tom, most of the grownups suspect that Phil is a Skinner experiment,
> gone dreadfully wrong ..
>
> JJWebb
Oh sure, every time I try to be a grownup, you go and change the rules on
me. I myself suspect that Philip is an artificial stupidity program, gone
dreadfully right. Well, not all that dreadfully. Every once in a while,
Phil says something marvelously intelligent. But I'm sure it's just a
coincidence.
Marie Coffin
Marek Lugowski
>...i just feel bad about
>reposting things i have posted before. even if they were posted years
>ago. seems a less interesting thing to do than posting something new.
>ruby tuesday.
>
>not that i have posted anything new for a couple of months now. it is
>a funny sort of time...
>
>would you encourage others to repost?
Yes. I would. In fact, I personally do, and have, and will continue to.
Sharon Hopkins, Marie Coffin. Cameron Parish. Dawn Tasaka. Natalie
Prowse. Rebecca Lowell. Rae Stabosz. Barbara Hardy. Wlod Holsztynski.
[+ many others]
Many of my favorite poems have come and gone... and since I don't save
them, I would love to see them again, as I am sure, people who have not
seen these in the first place.
Why should posting to rap be a one-time spin? Sounds like a rule to me,
and you know what that means -- them fightin' words... :)
-- Marek
Marie Coffin
nik...@husc11.harvard.edu (Philip Nikolayev) writes:
>
> There you go again, feigning a misunderstanding, an insulted niceness.
> There's a method to certain kinds of madness and style. I have found a
> couple of talented people in this group (pity they don't post much),
> and I hope that perhaps I'll find a couple more. In the meantime, I
> stick to insulting pernicious collective sensibilities. The main
> purpose of that 'gun in my hand' is to make sure that I don't ever
> become even remotely like you, Lugowski, Zita Marie Eversen and your
> entire nice constructive creative tolerant fun-loving verse-dribbling
> discombobulated sorority. A personal purpose, that is; call it
> purification of the soul if you wish.
My goodness, Marek being accused of excessive niceness! Clearly, anything
is possible. Ah well, it makes a change.
secrets
---------------------------------
you see the most prosaic
most unromantic virtues in me.
i am patient, tidy, a good cook.
but if i opened the third drawer
and showed you
my secret stash
of filmy lacy pearly clothes --
what then?
is it too late for you
to see me in those?
Marie Coffin
August 17, 1992
Tom Wachtel
> Many of my favorite poems have come and gone... and since I don't save
> them, I would love to see them again, as I am sure, people who have not
> seen these in the first place.
i know. it is fine at times, especially when someone posts someone
else's work. :)
> Why should posting to rap be a one-time spin? Sounds like a rule to me,
> and you know what that means -- them fightin' words... :)
no, no rules. you know me better than that. :) it is interesting to
think about what should be a one-time spin. some things are better as a
one-time spin. i like ruby tuesday: yesterday dont matter now its
gone. sometimes. i like the feeling that there is a lot of chance on
rap. you see what you happen to see, you miss the rest. i like it. it
is an aspect of the precious anarchy of rap.
--
Tom Wachtel (wac...@canon.co.uk)
K. Esme
To Kent Dorsey, Marek, Sherri, and all the others embroiled in the debate
about relativism, etc.
This is not alt.whine.argue.about.philosophies.of.life.
Use your email accounts for things that are not relavant.
K. Esme
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @
I do not know if sex is an illusion @ They call me Esme
I do not know who I was when I did those things @ With Love and Squalor
or who I said I was...or whether I knew, even then @ They send my email to
that there was doubt about these things--Adrienne Rich @ cow...@scf.usc.edu