Glass Heart C & C
Chuck Lysaght
Paper bags on your feet
You sit
On a seatless chair
And stare through the stained glass heart
You hold in your quiet hands
You move slowly
To the sooty window of despair
And the faint rustle of hope behind you
Is heard by one ear.
Time floats above you.
Your dusty ceiling moves
To the music of lost dreams
The future is caught in dangling cobwebs
That hang high above the unquenchable darkness
Of your songless nights, and so
You sit
Your glass heart weeps a crystal tear, and
Your leaden laughter cracks the silence
--
No one I think is in my tree...
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
glen
in, made me think cold or nasty laughter, cool, cheers
peace
glen
p.s. i don't dissect poems for betterment because a writer, i think, is
born a writer, one that finds his way to the public in terms of a
"profession" so to speak, i reckon doesn't need training, but then i'm into
weird stuff that usually just has cult followings, independent cinema and
conceptual modernist art etc., i think.........i might change my mind
though. (i am, however, prone to some cheese occasionaly).
i write to stir feelings in the hope someone might want to understand them
feelings, or rather, in these type o'places where people respond to the
poetry with words, i hope they might observe these feelings they've worded,
and in expressing how the feeling got woken up the reader might actually
start understanding them feelings, thus understanding themself by
criticising others. and i class boredom a feeling, sometimes a very
skillfully used one, though i don't like it when it's abused, then it's
"just" boring instead of "amazingly" boring, toodlepip....
Chuck Lysaght wrote in message <8kfdsq$mq8$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
glen
>p.s. i don't dissect poems for betterment because a writer, i think, is
>born a writer, one that finds his way to the public in terms of a
>"profession" so to speak,
.....i won't doubt some people become good artists by going to schools and
stuff and i often enjoy their work, but i, personally, aren't into the idea
of manufactured or artificially enhanced artists, which isn't to be confused
with the artists that enhance themself by themself by learning about
themself through themself, themself.
i am not putting artists down who go to schools to learn from others and not
themselves, i am simply explaining why i do not give bettermentationisms of
others work, i express what the art (here poems) automatically springs to
mind, so the artist might be able to take note of these and come to an
understanding of what provokes what and learn themself how to then provoke
whatever they want to provoke in the reader.
if artists are not bothered about provoking things, like many artists i know
aren't, (some people i know just want to shut the observer up and empty
their mind, of which you'd have to talk to them about these methods coz i
ain't got a clue how they would try to do this, i've had discussions and got
lost by intellectualisms and kantian mechanics etc.) that is fine by me, i
am explaining me again.....
Chuck Lysaght
In article <8kg5t8$l0r$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk>,
"glen" <h...@notic.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
> yeah man, this was cool, i was suprised by the ending, bringing the laughter
> in, made me think cold or nasty laughter, cool, cheers
>
> peace
>
> glen
>
> p.s. i don't dissect poems for betterment because a writer, i think, is
> born a writer, one that finds his way to the public in terms of a
Chuck Lysaght
poet. As long as you can read the writing on the wall. 8 )
In article <8kg6fo$lci$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk>,
"glen" <h...@notic.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> >p.s. i don't dissect poems for betterment because a writer, i think, is
> >born a writer, one that finds his way to the public in terms of a
> >"profession" so to speak,
>
> .....i won't doubt some people become good artists by going to schools and
> stuff and i often enjoy their work, but i, personally, aren't into the idea
> of manufactured or artificially enhanced artists, which isn't to be confused
> with the artists that enhance themself by themself by learning about
> themself through themself, themself.
> i am not putting artists down who go to schools to learn from others and not
> themselves, i am simply explaining why i do not give bettermentationisms of
> others work, i express what the art (here poems) automatically springs to
> mind, so the artist might be able to take note of these and come to an
> understanding of what provokes what and learn themself how to then provoke
> whatever they want to provoke in the reader.
> if artists are not bothered about provoking things, like many artists i know
> aren't, (some people i know just want to shut the observer up and empty
> their mind, of which you'd have to talk to them about these methods coz i
> ain't got a clue how they would try to do this, i've had discussions and got
> lost by intellectualisms and kantian mechanics etc.) that is fine by me, i
> am explaining me again.....
>
>
--
glen
Chuck Lysaght wrote in message <8khovq$e8a$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>Hey Glen, you don't have to go to a fine learning institution to be a great
>poet. As long as you can read the writing on the wall. 8 )
my sentiments precisely
glen
graffiti
voice of the peasants upon the hierachical regime
or something
peace
glen
Chuck Lysaght
Silence" written by Paul Simon of Simon & Garfunkel. Always been a powerful
line, and a powerful song to me personally. I was living in NYC, West Village
at the time. Oh, those were the days.8 ) In article
--
nic ollivère
remarked as such:
>>
>>p.s. i don't dissect poems for betterment because a writer, i think, is
>>born a writer, one that finds his way to the public in terms of a
>>"profession" so to speak,
>
>... but i, personally, aren't into the idea
>of manufactured or artificially enhanced artists,
What does this mean? How do you artificially enhance an aritst? What
is manufactured and what is real? What difference does it make to a
poem where (or how) the poet got his/her knowledge from?
nic.
Chuck Lysaght
discussion is between Glen and myself.
In article <396caa8d...@news.demon.co.uk>,
--
Aidan Tynan
glen wrote in message <8kg6fo$lci$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk>...
>>
>>p.s. i don't dissect poems for betterment because a writer, i think, is
>>born a writer, one that finds his way to the public in terms of a
>>"profession" so to speak,
>
Does this mean my brother in law was born a plumber?
Just wondering ...
-Aidan
Chuck Lysaght
people post a poem, than there is banter back and forth which creates a long
thread of bullshit, which doesn't even have the poem in mind. Glen and I were
discussing something, then we get little childish remarks from Aidan and Nic.
The poem please? Jeez.
In article <kW2b5.6412$r4....@news.indigo.ie>,
--
http://homepages.go.com/~chucklysaght/DiaryofaMadman
Danielle
>of manufactured or artificially enhanced artists,
Hey- if there are steriods for artists out there, why haven't I
heard about it?
And a comment about the poem, I found this line distracting:
>You sit
>On a seatless chair
All I could think for the rest of the poem was "ouch, a seatless
chair". No kidding.
Danielle Wright
I WILL find a good quote to put here!
http://www.wsw-web.com/Danielle
Here comes the annoying spam from RemarQ:
-----------------------------------------------------------
Got questions? Get answers over the phone at Keen.com.
Up to 100 minutes free!
http://www.keen.com
nic ollivère
<chuckl...@my-deja.com> remarked as such:
>I am trying to get some C & C on this poem. Is that too much to ask? It seems
>people post a poem, than there is banter back and forth which creates a long
>thread of bullshit, which doesn't even have the poem in mind.
I was asking glen about poetry, is that wrong? Show me where in the
FAQ it says that every single post in a thread has to talk directly to
the author and the poem of the original post.
I do not have to address you, or your poem when talking in this
thread.
>Glen and I were
>discussing something, then we get little childish remarks from Aidan and Nic.
>The poem please? Jeez.
My remarks were not childish; if you think talking about poetry is
childish then you shouldn't be here.
Once again, there is no obligation for me to address you or your poem
in this thread.
nic.
nic ollivère
<chuckl...@my-deja.com> remarked as such:
>Who asked you Nic?
Who asked you Chuck? I was asking glen a question, which I know you're
incapable of answering.
>Either read and comment on my poem, or leave.
Why should I Chuck? Why do I have to comment on your poem?
>This
>discussion is between Glen and myself.
No it isn't, it's on a public newsgroup. If it was between you two
you'd do it privately. Glen said something that I disagreed with,
there is nothing wrong with me questioning him..
nic.
>In article <396caa8d...@news.demon.co.uk>,
> n...@olliv.demon.co.uk wrote:
>> On Tue, 11 Jul 2000 23:00:18 +0100, "glen" <h...@notic.fsnet.co.uk>
>> remarked as such:
>>
>> >>
>> >>p.s. i don't dissect poems for betterment because a writer, i think, is
>> >>born a writer, one that finds his way to the public in terms of a
>> >>"profession" so to speak,
>> >
>> >... but i, personally, aren't into the idea
>> >of manufactured or artificially enhanced artists,
>>
>> What does this mean? How do you artificially enhance an aritst? What
>> is manufactured and what is real? What difference does it make to a
>> poem where (or how) the poet got his/her knowledge from?
>>
>> nic.
>>
>>
>
>--
>No one I think is in my tree...
>
>
Joy Yourcenar
ollivčre) wrote:
>On Tue, 11 Jul 2000 23:00:18 +0100, "glen" <h...@notic.fsnet.co.uk>
>remarked as such:
>
>>>
>>>p.s. i don't dissect poems for betterment because a writer, i think, is
>>>born a writer, one that finds his way to the public in terms of a
>>>"profession" so to speak,
>>
>>... but i, personally, aren't into the idea
>>of manufactured or artificially enhanced artists,
>
>What does this mean? How do you artificially enhance an aritst? What
>is manufactured and what is real? What difference does it make to a
>poem where (or how) the poet got his/her knowledge from?
>
>nic.
>
>
Nic,
It doesn't mean anything. Glen just likes the sound of his own voice.
Joy
Joy Yourcenar, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Mythologies http://ebb.ns.ca/myth
icon/graphy http://ebb.ns.ca/icon
"We began with myths and later included actual events."
-- Michael Ondaatje
Aidan Tynan
Glen said people are born being writers. I asked if the same applied for
plumbers. Why is that a childish remark?
-Aidan
>I am trying to get some C & C on this poem. Is that too much to ask? It
seems
>people post a poem, than there is banter back and forth which creates a
long
>thread of bullshit, which doesn't even have the poem in mind. Glen and I
were
>discussing something, then we get little childish remarks from Aidan and
Nic.
>The poem please? Jeez.
>
>In article <kW2b5.6412$r4....@news.indigo.ie>,
> "Aidan Tynan" <aty...@iname.com> wrote:
>>
>> glen wrote in message <8kg6fo$lci$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk>...
>> >>
>> >>p.s. i don't dissect poems for betterment because a writer, i think,
is
>> >>born a writer, one that finds his way to the public in terms of a
>> >>"profession" so to speak,
>> >
>>
>> Does this mean my brother in law was born a plumber?
>>
>> Just wondering ...
>>
>> -Aidan
>>
>>
>
>--
>http://homepages.go.com/~chucklysaght/DiaryofaMadman
>
>
Mike Billard
Chuck Lysaght <chuckl...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:8kibnc$sd5$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> Who asked you Nic? Either read and comment on my poem, or leave. This
> discussion is between Glen and myself.
Imagine that. Chuckie, who feels the need to defend the rights of certain
others (and himself) to spew racial epithets, make threats of physical
violence, and engage in any old vulgar or abusive rhetoric, sees nothing
hypocritical in telling someone else to shut up whenever he sees fit. It's
not bad enough you're a bigot and a hypocrite, Chuckie, but do you have to
be a blatantly stupid one, too? Oh, but you're an imposing fellow and you
can take anyone on this newsgroup so logically your behavior is okay. I'm
sure Cheryl is swooning over your sudden display of masculinity run amok.
glen
nic ollivčre wrote in message <396caa8d...@news.demon.co.uk>...
>>>born a writer, one that finds his way to the public in terms of a
>>>"profession" so to speak,
>>
>>of manufactured or artificially enhanced artists,
>
>What does this mean? How do you artificially enhance an aritst? What
>is manufactured and what is real? What difference does it make to a
>poem where (or how) the poet got his/her knowledge from?
i don't reckon it makes a difference to the poem, i was talking about
artists though.
and i thought what is manufactured is real, and i don't doubt any artists as
not being real, but was just saying what i liked in what is real.
by artificially enhance i was referring to artificial intervention in terms
of a system made to 'perfect' as opposed to art in the free-association
sense, again, just what i prefer.
cheers
peace
glen
>
>nic.
>
>
>
glen
Chuck Lysaght wrote in message <8kibnc$sd5$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>Who asked you Nic? Either read and comment on my poem, or leave. This
>discussion is between Glen and myself.
i disagree, this is an ng, a public forum, if you wanted to keep the
conversation betwen us i think we should post to our email addresses.
i'm not cussing or anything, just disagreeing
peace
glen
>
>In article <396caa8d...@news.demon.co.uk>,
> n...@olliv.demon.co.uk wrote:
>> On Tue, 11 Jul 2000 23:00:18 +0100, "glen" <h...@notic.fsnet.co.uk>
>> remarked as such:
>>
>> >>
>> >>p.s. i don't dissect poems for betterment because a writer, i think,
is
>> >>born a writer, one that finds his way to the public in terms of a
>> >>"profession" so to speak,
>> >
>> >... but i, personally, aren't into the idea
>> >of manufactured or artificially enhanced artists,
>>
>> What does this mean? How do you artificially enhance an aritst? What
>> is manufactured and what is real? What difference does it make to a
>> poem where (or how) the poet got his/her knowledge from?
>>
>> nic.
>>
>>
>
>--
>No one I think is in my tree...
>
>
glen
Joy Yourcenar wrote in message
<1lkpmsslr229gg221...@4ax.com>...
>
>>On Tue, 11 Jul 2000 23:00:18 +0100, "glen" <h...@notic.fsnet.co.uk>
>>remarked as such:
>>
>>>>
>>>>p.s. i don't dissect poems for betterment because a writer, i think, is
>>>>born a writer, one that finds his way to the public in terms of a
>>>>"profession" so to speak,
>>>
>>>... but i, personally, aren't into the idea
>>>of manufactured or artificially enhanced artists,
>>
>>What does this mean? How do you artificially enhance an aritst? What
>>is manufactured and what is real? What difference does it make to a
>>poem where (or how) the poet got his/her knowledge from?
>>
>>nic.
>>
>>
>
>
>It doesn't mean anything. Glen just likes the sound of his own voice.
if i did this solely for my own voice (which i can't hear anyway) i wouldn't
post to it to a public forum joy, i'd send it to myself...
peace
glen
glen
Aidan Tynan wrote in message ...
>>>born a writer, one that finds his way to the public in terms of a
>>>"profession" so to speak,
>>
>
may well have been, i guess a fateist would say so, but i don't know.
plumbing serves a productive physiological purpose in life though so i guess
it's different, art just lifts spirits, and anything spiritual i prefer
devoid of conscious intervention (not to say a plumber isn't spiritual about
his/her job, but it's purpose in this world actually serves a purpose),
again, i like art free-association style, so flows through consciousness
into the poem/picture etc. with as little enhancment by the person doing it
as possible, so giving a clearer picture of whatever it is inside us that
compels us to do anything.
this is obviously highly debatable as some will argue that everything that
goes through consciousness is affected by consciousness, but i suppose it an
easternish sort of idea that we can let things come straight through from
the unconscious/inner self or whatever, with 'me' sitting aside and just
giving my hand over to what it is inside me that wants to speak, like a
hose, the water goes straight through and we can either restrict the amount
of water or let it flow straight through, i guess...
peace
glen
>
>Just wondering ...
>
>
>
>-Aidan
>
>
glen
Chuck Lysaght wrote in message <8kifb9$vfb$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>I am trying to get some C & C on this poem. Is that too much to ask? It
seems
>people post a poem, than there is banter back and forth which creates a
long
>thread of bullshit, which doesn't even have the poem in mind.
i don't know, although the poem itself is not in mind the conversations seem
to deal with the poet themself and how they function in terms of their art,
so for me i learn about me as much as my art through such questions, which i
love
Glen and I were
>discussing something, then we get little childish remarks from Aidan and
Nic.
i don't know about childish either. these people asking about how we think
aren't you or i, so i don't think we can ask them to automatically know how
you or i 'tick'. i'm personally flattered as they must want to know more
about me by asking questions about why or how i make such statements, they
must be interested, which i respect...
>The poem please? Jeez.
like before, i'm not putting you down chuck, just questioning you, the
artist, and by answering these questions we're searching our own soul to
find out why we would do something, and i love this.
i question myself a lot, but i miss certain things out which others pick up,
in psychology this is called the shadow, the thing we can't see but those
around us are quick to point out, the tricky part is knowing when someone is
projecting their own shadow onto us, which i don't 'know' how to do, but i'm
experimenting with.....take care
peace
glen
>
>In article <kW2b5.6412$r4....@news.indigo.ie>,
> "Aidan Tynan" <aty...@iname.com> wrote:
>>
>> glen wrote in message <8kg6fo$lci$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk>...
>> >>
>> >>p.s. i don't dissect poems for betterment because a writer, i think,
is
>> >>born a writer, one that finds his way to the public in terms of a
>> >>"profession" so to speak,
>> >
>>
>> Does this mean my brother in law was born a plumber?
>>
>> Just wondering ...
>>
>> -Aidan
>>
>>
>
>--
>http://homepages.go.com/~chucklysaght/DiaryofaMadman
>
>
glen
Danielle wrote in message <022e4314...@usw-ex0105-037.remarq.com>...
>>... but i, personally, aren't into the idea
>>of manufactured or artificially enhanced artists,
>
>heard about it?
this would be chemical enhancement, which is artificial but only one type of
it, i meant whenever any process is artificially made to enhance art, to
make it better than what the creative spirit spat it out as.
enhancement in practical terms is obviously no problem as it often means
better means of survival, but art isn't anything to do with practical
survival, it's psychological survival maybe if we can't find happiness in
the surroundings we are born into.
art is a means of happiness etc., not a means of how to keep alive.........
cheers
peace
glen
nic ollivère
remarked as such:
>by artificially enhance i was referring to artificial intervention
Intervention in what? Give examples and details, your argument is
abstract.
>in terms
>of a system made to 'perfect'
What system? What artists do you believe follow this system?
>as opposed to art in the free-association
>sense,
What does this mean, 'free-association'? Relate your argument to
something concrete and you'll convince me easier.
>again, just what i prefer.
Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but without evidence and support
it's just hot air.
nic.
nic ollivère
remarked as such:
>>>... but i, personally, aren't into the idea
>>>of manufactured or artificially enhanced artists,
>>
>>What does this mean? How do you artificially enhance an aritst? What
>>is manufactured and what is real? What difference does it make to a
>>poem where (or how) the poet got his/her knowledge from?
>>
>
>Nic,
>
>It doesn't mean anything. Glen just likes the sound of his own voice.
>Joy
That's possible. I've been trying to give myself a break from this
group, but I keep reading it and finding things to say. I wrote out
about 10 replies to different threads, and this was the only one that
made it through my usefulness filter. I guess it wasn't worth it after
all; I had a sense I should have gone for the 'expressive poetry and
personalized gifts' thread as soon as I posted it.
nic.
Mike Billard
glen <h...@notic.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:8kio1e$uo5$1...@news7.svr.pol.co.uk...
>
> Aidan Tynan wrote in message ...
> >
> >>>
> >>>p.s. i don't dissect poems for betterment because a writer, i think,
is
> >>>born a writer, one that finds his way to the public in terms of a
> >>>"profession" so to speak,
> >>
> >
> >Does this mean my brother in law was born a plumber?
>
> plumbing serves a productive physiological purpose in life though so i
guess
> it's different, art just lifts spirits,
You haven't the first clue what art does. Here is a link I've posted before:
http://infoeagle.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/art/19th/painting/monet_death.j
pg
Go look at it (it's the painting Monet made of his wife's death), then come
back and tell me how high your spirits were lifted. Or read Donald Hall's
book "Without" and see just how lifted your spirits become. Or read this,
Dreamsong #384, and tell me if it lifts your spirits:
The marker slants, flowerless, day's almost done,
I stand above my father's grave with rage,
often, often before
I've made this awful pilgrimage to one
who cannot visit me, who tore his page
out: I come back for more,
I spit upon this dreadful banker's grave
who shot his heart out in a Florida dawn
O ho alas alas
When will indifference come, I moan & rave
I'd like to scrabble till I got right down
away down under the grass
and ax the casket open ha to see
just how he's taking it, which he sought so hard
we'll tear apart
the mouldering grave clothes ha & then Henry
will heft the ax once more, his final card,
and fell it on the start.
--John Berryman
Now, I admit, nothing lifts my spirits quite like a good old poem about a
guy digging up the corpse of his father (who committed suicide no less) so
he can bury an ax in the decomposed remains. Right, Glen?
Aidan Tynan
>may well have been, i guess a fateist would say so, but i don't know.
>plumbing serves a productive physiological purpose in life though so i
guess
>it's different, art just lifts spirits, and anything spiritual i prefer
>devoid of conscious intervention (not to say a plumber isn't spiritual
about
>his/her job, but it's purpose in this world actually serves a purpose),
>again, i like art free-association style, so flows through consciousness
>into the poem/picture etc. with as little enhancment by the person doing it
>as possible,
Poetry doesn't just happen any more than plumbing just happens. Apart from
the modalities of their end products, there is no difference between poetry
and plumbing. We make it happen. There is not, as you seem to think, a
poetry writing ghost in the machine. You've already admitted that plumbing
needs conscious effort for it to happen, why is poetry any different?
so giving a clearer picture of whatever it is inside us that
>compels us to do anything.
Dualism as a means to explain consciousness has been shown to be highly
dubious. Dualism as an means to explain poetry reeks of laziness. Get off
the Cartesian stage.
>this is obviously highly debatable as some will argue that everything that
>goes through consciousness is affected by consciousness, but i suppose it
an
>easternish sort of idea that we can let things come straight through from
>the unconscious/inner self or whatever, with 'me' sitting aside and just
>giving my hand over to what it is inside me that wants to speak, like a
>hose, the water goes straight through and we can either restrict the amount
>of water or let it flow straight through, i guess...
>
You guess wrong.
-Aidan
glen
nic ollivčre wrote in message <396cf86d...@news.demon.co.uk>...
>On Wed, 12 Jul 2000 22:00:37 +0100, "glen" <h...@notic.fsnet.co.uk>
>remarked as such:
>
>
>>by artificially enhance i was referring to artificial intervention
>
>Intervention in what?
intervention of conscious decision making into perfecting a poem, when you
consciously take the initiative to go "i don't like that so i'll change it",
this is a system in that the conscious functions through some sort of
logical process, so when the logic intervenes it changes the poem to what
the house of this logic (the readers personality) likes....
Give examples and details, your argument is
>abstract.
sorry, but these terms are understood by many i come across,
they are abstract to you but not objectively so, see below for more.....
>
>>in terms
>>of a system made to 'perfect'
>
>What system? What artists do you believe follow this system?
i didn't mention a specific system, it would be a system unique to that
artist, but a system is something that works through a process of things
happening, in this case decision making where we take stuff out and put
stuff in. the process of perfection is where we put something into the
system (decision maker/logic), the system then churns the poem out the other
end (into words and criticism) as a 'perfected' product, which isn't to say
it is absolutely perfect, it's just been modified through the system of
logical decision making where we say "this bit's good so i'll keep it, this
bit's bad so i'll get rid of it", so each time tweeking it to make it
better....
....to fully explain i need questions as i don't know what you know, so ask
away and i'll answer, but patience is required with all new things, which
i'm not putting you down for, i'm just explaining why it seems abstract. if
i said this on say a psychology group for example i'd be slagged off for
being patronising, and i often forget where i am in terms of humans, as to
me words are words, humans are humans......
>
>>as opposed to art in the free-association
>>sense,
>
>What does this mean, 'free-association'? Relate your argument to
>something concrete and you'll convince me easier.
again i'm sorry, but free-association is understood by most people i talk
to, which is my problem, i talk to so many often completely opposite groups
and opinions i have trouble knowing what each group knows or doesn't know.
i hope i'm not being patronising, sorry if i am, i don't mean to be.....
....free-association is where we just empty our head and write directly onto
paper, where we don't put our thoughts through the system of decision making
and we let the thoughts come straight from the unconscious (or wherever you
believe creativity comes from) onto paper, or when we write the first things
that come into our head straight away without thinking whether we like or
agree with them. it's called free-association as it is free from any
conscious association, where as decision making has to compare/associate,
often unconsciously, with other things in order to say whether it is good or
not, as the decision that something is good requires a knowledge of what is
bad in order for it to be good, it has to compare/associate with its
opposite to know what it is, when we decide something to be good or
bad/right or wrong that is. in terms of perfected poetry, the logic
(reader) associates the poem to itself - its own experience and knolwedge of
poetry and what it likes - so when the reader puts the poem through it's
associative machine of decision making it is enclosed - not free - to the
machine that it is being fed through. in free association it is completely
free from this logic as the words come straight through without being
consciously thought about or judged, and this is the fundamental basis of
conceptual art, like the jackson pollocks etc.. the artist sometimes then
looks into the finished product for some sort of meaning beyond conscious
logic, but this obviously pre-supposes a belief that there is meaning beyond
what us humans talk about, which i don't think can be prooved, just
experienced through inquiry, and which has no relevance to the explanation
of this system, it's just the next step most people are led to.
first of all what comes out through free-association is complete
non-sense (usually), just random words that mean nothing, but after a while,
for me it took months, things start being created, sometimes characters talk
to you or worlds are created (nothincia in my case), sometimes poems (my
jester and canyon poems), but the characters and stories etc. are like
personifications of a complex we aren't aware of as it's unconscious
(unconscious meaning something beyond conscious awareness, so the characters
reflect inner conflicts we aren't aware of). it's done in the same way
people would have conversations with god and stuff years ago (or still do),
but now, instead of seeing them as divine beings from another world, we can
see them as personifications from the world of our unconscious, and so we
can begin to understand why we make the decisions we do......
>
>>again, just what i prefer.
>
>Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but without evidence and support
>it's just hot air.
absolutely, but like i said, i don't know what you do or don't know, so
until all the questions have been asked and answered we can't decide whether
it's hot air or not, and often what someone doesn't understand millions of
others do, the process of the human mind (psychology) being one of these
things. i'm not saying me or psychology's right, but like i said before,
psychology is very young, so i just sort of play with it to see if it works,
and it seems to work for me, as lots of childhood memories or
poems/paintings/stories i've done, after being analysed and their meaning
has been made consciously aware to me, they have brought about amazing
sensations within me, like the "clicking" experience where another piece of
the puzzle goes into place, and it's this finding and placing of the jigsaw
in life that i now live for, to understand myself through putting my jigsaw
together rather than going through my life projecting my complexes onto
others as my opinion and putting the world around me down as shit, which i
won't doubt i'm often prone to still doing, but i do it less than i did and
i'm happier for it, i am a completely different person than i was 3 years
ago, i used to think poetry was for saps and would regularly go out looking
for fights as weekend entertainment, needless to say i have now changed.....
anything you still don't get then ask about, i'll try a bit harder to
explain, but it's hard considering i'm no expert, i'm just interested in the
subject for my own knowledge of self...
cheers...
peace
glen.
"Nothing influences our conduct less than do intellectual ideas"
carl jung - (CW Vol. 16).
glen
Aidan Tynan wrote in message ...
>
>
>>may well have been, i guess a fateist would say so, but i don't know.
>>plumbing serves a productive physiological purpose in life though so i
>guess
>>it's different, art just lifts spirits, and anything spiritual i prefer
>>devoid of conscious intervention (not to say a plumber isn't spiritual
>about
>>his/her job, but it's purpose in this world actually serves a purpose),
>>again, i like art free-association style, so flows through consciousness
>>into the poem/picture etc. with as little enhancment by the person doing
it
>>as possible,
>
>Poetry doesn't just happen any more than plumbing just happens. Apart from
>the modalities of their end products, there is no difference between poetry
>and plumbing.
i agree that there is no difference in "the end product", the
processes/means can be infinitely different though. poetry can just
happen if you just write it without thinking about it, (see my other post
about free-association, it might be clearer) if you did this with plumbing
we might get awfully wet though as it requires awareness of what it's doing
and what it's fixing, artists have the choice of spitting out often random,
consciously incomprehensible nonsensities, but through practice with
free-association it gets more understandable to the free-associater,and
sometimes the public, as is the case with jackson pollocks popularity among
others......
We make it happen.
yes, but what i'm saying is that in poetry you have the choice of making
your pen move across a piece of paper writing whatever comes into your head,
or you have the choice to do it slowly and think about what sounds good or
bad to you....
There is not, as you seem to think, a
>poetry writing ghost in the machine.
prove it, psychology says otherwise. another example is the holy ghost in
the christian trinity, but i don't suppose that means much to you..
i'm not taking sides, i'm simply saying what other sciences have discovered
without denying them because my belief system doesn't like the smell of
it....
You've already admitted that plumbing
>needs conscious effort for it to happen, why is poetry any different?
like i said, you can think about it and make poetry that resonates with
conscious likes and dislikes, or let the pen just go across the page
spurting out whatever it spurts out, and not actually thinking about what
you just wrote till you've stopped writing, in art we have a choice of
random or processed art....
>
>
>so giving a clearer picture of whatever it is inside us that
>>compels us to do anything.
>
>Dualism as a means to explain consciousness has been shown to be highly
>dubious. Dualism as an means to explain poetry reeks of laziness. Get off
>the Cartesian stage.
well you'd have to explain dualism as i don't know what it is (but will look
into it). and it may well have been shown to be dubious, but all you shown
is that you agree with it, not the reasonn for why it has been shown to be
highly dubious, which i would appreciate if you would show why, please...
>
>>this is obviously highly debatable as some will argue that everything that
>>goes through consciousness is affected by consciousness, but i suppose it
>an
>>easternish sort of idea that we can let things come straight through from
>>the unconscious/inner self or whatever, with 'me' sitting aside and just
>>giving my hand over to what it is inside me that wants to speak, like a
>>hose, the water goes straight through and we can either restrict the
amount
>>of water or let it flow straight through, i guess...
>>
>
>
>You guess wrong.
why?
i don't want your opinion, i want your reasons for your opinions, but if you
don't want to give them that's fine, carry on making yourself feel good by
saying i'm wrong, i don't mind....
peace
glen
nic ollivère
remarked as such:
>>Intervention in what?
>
>intervention of conscious decision making into perfecting a poem, when you
>consciously take the initiative to go "i don't like that so i'll change it",
>this is a system in that the conscious functions through some sort of
>logical process, so when the logic intervenes it changes the poem to what
>the house of this logic (the readers personality) likes....
So seeing as almost every poet in the canon for the last say 2000
years went through that process every time they wrote you don't like
them?
> it's just been modified through the system of
>logical decision making where we say "this bit's good so i'll keep it, this
>bit's bad so i'll get rid of it", so each time tweeking it to make it
>better....
So again this is what every poet does; besides from maybe the beats.
Are you saying you don't like poetry here?
> but patience is required with all new things, which
>i'm not putting you down for, i'm just explaining why it seems abstract.
I understand perfectly what you're trying to say now; I'd just never
heard these terms you're using. The concepts are old and tired out;
you need some new ones.
>....free-association is where we just empty our head and write directly onto
>paper, where we don't put our thoughts through the system of decision making
>and we let the thoughts come straight from the unconscious (or wherever you
>believe creativity comes from) onto paper, or when we write the first things
>that come into our head straight away without thinking whether we like or
>agree with them.
So when we just spew crap onto some paper it's called 'free
association'? That's a fancy name for what nine times out of ten is
going to be useless.
>it's called free-association as it is free from any
>conscious association,
It's not really free at all though is it? In fact it's more
constricted than conscious thought; it comes straight out of
subconscious associations.
> first of all what comes out through free-association is complete
>non-sense (usually), just random words that mean nothing,
And that is all they'll be to a reader unless you take conscious
action to change them and form them; i.e. perform the craft of poetry
that has been in use for several thousand years.
>but after a while,
>for me it took months, things start being created, sometimes characters talk
>to you or worlds are created
You sound delusional.
>absolutely, but like i said, i don't know what you do or don't know, so
>until all the questions have been asked and answered we can't decide whether
>it's hot air or not, and often what someone doesn't understand millions of
>others do, the process of the human mind (psychology) being one of these
>things.
A lot more people would understand if you gave examples. It is not
just me, it is general practice when discussing or arguing.
> anything you still don't get then ask about, i'll try a bit harder to
>explain, but it's hard considering i'm no expert, i'm just interested in the
>subject for my own knowledge of self...
I understand perfectly what you're trying to say; you're basically
advocating art without conscious thought; which is pretty much what
Cheryl and Chuck go for and the rest of the intelligent poetry world
don't.
nic.
glen
Mike Billard wrote in message <8kj71r$96h$1...@bob.news.rcn.net>...
>
>glen <h...@notic.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:8kio1e$uo5$1...@news7.svr.pol.co.uk...
>>
>> Aidan Tynan wrote in message ...
>> >
>> >glen wrote in message <8kg6fo$lci$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk>...
>> >>>
>> >>>p.s. i don't dissect poems for betterment because a writer, i think,
>is
>> >>>born a writer, one that finds his way to the public in terms of a
>> >>>"profession" so to speak,
>> >>
>> >
>> >Does this mean my brother in law was born a plumber?
>>
>> may well have been, i guess a fateist would say so, but i don't know.
>> plumbing serves a productive physiological purpose in life though so i
>guess
>> it's different, art just lifts spirits,
>
>You haven't the first clue what art does.
you have? you must to say who hasn't,and......
Here is a link I've posted before:
>
>http://infoeagle.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/art/19th/painting/monet_death.
j
>pg
>
.....sorry, the page was not found, i'll try it later but the links not
working at the moment, i will definetly try again....
thankyou for pointing this out, i should have said "moved" the spirit, and
be it moved higher or lower i enjoy the experience. i am sometimes
depressed so much by the experience of art that afterwards life seems a
wonderful place again, so still enjoy the whole process from art world to
real world.
so you're right, i used the wrong word, it should have been moved not
lifted, cheers
peace
glen
>
>
nic ollivère
remarked as such:
> You've already admitted that plumbing
>>needs conscious effort for it to happen, why is poetry any different?
>
>like i said, you can think about it and make poetry that resonates with
>conscious likes and dislikes, or let the pen just go across the page
>spurting out whatever it spurts out, and not actually thinking about what
>you just wrote till you've stopped writing, in art we have a choice of
>random or processed art....
And nearly everything single poet processes his art; because that is
what poetry is. Their may be other forms of art that are random (like
bad poetry), but not good poetry.
nic.
glen
nic ollivčre wrote in message <396d9f33...@news.demon.co.uk>...
>On Thu, 13 Jul 2000 02:30:56 +0100, "glen" <h...@notic.fsnet.co.uk>
>remarked as such:
>
>
>>>Intervention in what?
>>
>>intervention of conscious decision making into perfecting a poem, when you
>>consciously take the initiative to go "i don't like that so i'll change
it",
>>this is a system in that the conscious functions through some sort of
>>logical process, so when the logic intervenes it changes the poem to what
>>the house of this logic (the readers personality) likes....
>
>So seeing as almost every poet in the canon for the last say 2000
>years went through that process every time they wrote you don't like
>them?
in terms of self-understanding worth i suppose i don't, the great poets i
find are good for aesthetic value, but i did get ahead of myself
when i said what i liked, it's what i'm more into at the moment i guess
(conceptual
stuff), next week i might read from my mums book of poetry she was given at
school (poets such as shakespeare, wordsworth etc.), but for now i prefer
the more modern approach as it's helping me understand myself more.
when i said liked, i meant it's not something that i enjoy as much as say
reading one of michauxs abstract stories or poems, i said it in the same way
as saying "i am like that", so i can relate to it when i say i like
something, and right now i prefer underdstanding my unconscious and inner
soul to understanding contemporary opinion, which may change next week, i
don't know yet, i go from one side of the fence to other regularly which i'm
happy for doing, it makes me feel i have a wider scope of those who have
built the fence and keep themself in, and those who have been kicked out.
michaux wrote about worlds that weren't there in a strange sort of way
which can be confusing, i could never explain his style, he is like no other
i've ever read, ginsberg seemed to think the same as did many other writers,
he was said to be the writers writer by a contemporary of his as most
writers of his day appreciated his work. an example: he would write letters
between 2 characters that he invented, in a world he had invented, they
would discuss philosophies and religions he had invented, and all the while
he was aware that they were just worlds he invented, it was like he gave
scientific, often boring explanations of this world, so leaving the reader
free from eloquent rhetorical words and free for the reader to decide,
beyond michauxs style, whether they liked his made up worlds or not, as the
worlds and not his style of writing was what he was trying to put across it
seems, the lands in the unconscious as opposed to how pretty we can make
them sound. and all this is one infinitesimally small part of what michaux
did, i ask you not judge him untill you have approached his works, he's just
a good example for me at the moment because i've been reading him a bit
lately.
i love the process of working out what someones art means to me, which
i can do with all the great poets etc., but i "generally" get less out of it
as the're often easy to see, it's all their in well versed poetry and
explicit imagery so makes me happy or sad etc., but i get less out of it in
terms of understanding, which i'm aware is one small part of art, as small
as the enjoyment in it, which doesn't reflect the human perception of art, i
know, as most do it to enjoy it, but there was a time when most people
thought god was a bloke sitting in heaven on a cloud telling us what to do
through priests, and some still do, who i'm not cussing, it's an example of
how perception changes is all. my perception of art isn't weighted down in
either aesthetic value of self-knowledgable worth all the time, i don't
decide to have one sided opinions where i make others wrong and stick to
them, i go from one to the other...
>
>> it's just been modified through the system of
>>logical decision making where we say "this bit's good so i'll keep it,
this
>>bit's bad so i'll get rid of it", so each time tweeking it to make it
>>better....
>
>So again this is what every poet does; besides from maybe the beats.
beats to you maybe, modern conceptual geniuses to millions of others...
>Are you saying you don't like poetry here?
i'm saying the poetry i prefer in terms of self-understanding, again i chose
the wrong words, i just prefer free-poetry as it confuses me more, and i
like unravelling confusion to see it laid out in front of me (better me
projecting my need to understand onto dissecting my words and art than
projecting it into to the senseless torture of the creatures on earth, or my
fellow humans), and even this i only prefer at the moment, like i say i
might change my mind next week, and change is life, without change we
wouldn't evolve.....
>
>> but patience is required with all new things, which
>>i'm not putting you down for, i'm just explaining why it seems abstract.
>
>I understand perfectly what you're trying to say now; I'd just never
>heard these terms you're using. The concepts are old and tired out;
>you need some new ones.
old and tired out maybe, but old and tired out denotes wisdom, and you may
think them tired out because you haven't been able to relate them to your
own process maybe, but they relate and express in the best way, for me and
millions of others, the process i go through, sorry if in your mind they do
not relate, i can't help that i'm afraid. if you want to hear new terms and
ideas i'd recommend inquirying into modern theory, most of it seems a bit
far fetched to me though, like trying to rid consciousness of subjectivity
altogether so one word can relate directly to the unconscious meaning of it,
like opening portals between this world and the world of the unknown, which
even if it works i don't like the sound of. or there's terms that denote
psychological types like ex-think and in-feel and whatnot, which i haven't
looked into as i don't want to understand what type of person everyone is,
but my discussion here was just explaining the terms i use, sorry if the're
not pretty enough....
>
>>....free-association is where we just empty our head and write directly
onto
>>paper, where we don't put our thoughts through the system of decision
making
>>and we let the thoughts come straight from the unconscious (or wherever
you
>>believe creativity comes from) onto paper, or when we write the first
things
>>that come into our head straight away without thinking whether we like or
>>agree with them.
>
>So when we just spew crap onto some paper it's called 'free
>association'?
not always, some writers are consciously aware of spewing out crap just to
piss people off or confuse people, so this wouldn't be free, but i get your
point i think, and yes it would be free-association....
That's a fancy name for what nine times out of ten is
>going to be useless.
it's not really a fancy name, not for me anyway, it seems quite
simple....free..association.....and the phrase was invented by the early
psychologists, it was originally a psychological test used by psychiatrists
to understand their patients, but the process says best how i, and others,
do art, as it often engenders a process of understanding oneself through the
art in the same way psychiatrists tryed to understand their patients, and
conceptual artsits have often taken a big interest in psychology, they grew
up together from the beginning of last century.
and again what 9 out of 10 of the people you know might think it useless,
but conceptual/modern art, in all it's forms, is hugely, astronimacally
popular all over europe, so in terms of artists here it would be more than 1
in 10 who likes the free-art, but still a minority i think, i'm not sure
though, it depends where you ask i suppose. besides, conceptualism has
still got a healthy american family, they just seem to be more underground
and away from the public eye, as utopiologists don't generally like them....
>
>>it's called free-association as it is free from any
>>conscious association,
>
>It's not really free at all though is it? In fact it's more
>constricted than conscious thought; it comes straight out of
>subconscious associations.
exactly, and why would you not think it free in terms of consciousness?
conscious intervention being the thing that this way of art chooses to be
free from. subconscious associations are associations that although might
happen, we are unaware of as they are subconscious associations, and
subconscious meaning unaware to consciousness, so free-art gives freedom to
the associations we don't know about in order to try and understand them
instead handing the art over to the decision making ones we all do
consciously and daily.
in terms of the whole psyche unconscious art is as enclosed as conscious
art, as it is enslaved to unconscious complexes which is the point, to bring
the complexes to consciousness and thus having something we can actually see
and deal with, as they personify and make real something we weren't aware
was real previously, but in terms of consciousness and what we understand
and 'know' of good and bad unconscious-art is much freer as it is freeing
itself from decision making and giving itself to direct communication with
the unconscious, and unconscious by its very meaning states that it is
beyond conscious awareness, so unconscious type art gives a better
understanding to the primodrial roots we sprung from.
if someone went around living free-association they would be enslaved to
their complexes and might turn into serial killers, paedophiles, go to
school with a machine gun etc., which acts as a good example of american
culture "in general", it is so obsessed with its conscious opinion of
building this righteous utopia, so those who don't fit are unconsciously
enslaved to the inner conflicts this creates in those who don't fit, so they
take it out on their surroundings in an extreme way, the less extreme case
being those who come on the net and call everyone fools or idiots. but in
art, from the psychological sense, art is a release of inner conflict, which
is why i do and watch it, so when i'm an artist (making art) i'm enslaved to
all i don't know about myself, which acts as a great thing to learn
from......
>
>> first of all what comes out through free-association is complete
>>non-sense (usually), just random words that mean nothing,
>
>And that is all they'll be to a reader
some readers maybe, but many conceptual artists have made good careers and
helped people understand themself out of this nonsense, regardless if some
don't recognise them. it seems more popular in europe, has done since the
days the avant-garde jazz musicians had to come to japan and europe to get
appreciative audiences as america was warped in "cool-jazz" at the time.
you walk around london and nearly every back street has at least one modern
abstract expressionist gallery down it, with this being the case i'd say it
must be very popular, even if you don't understand or like it, and the same
goes with writers and publishers, there's loads of em....
unless you take conscious
>action to change them and form them; i.e. perform the craft of poetry
>that has been in use for several thousand years.
so yes, if you wish to contuinue the same process of art going on for
thousands of years, carry on perfecting, i don't hold it against anyone for
doing so as it simply a different method of art that doesn't affect my life
in the slightest, but this newer way can help me understand myself instead
of just having people say i'm good or bad, which is only giving me their
opinion and not a constructive knowledge i can learn from, not to say i
don't enjoy acknowledgment from the rest of the herd, but i do prefer
acknowledgment in terms of what we're doing here, understanding each other
(or myself at least) through intellectual discussion/criticism....
>
>>but after a while,
>>for me it took months, things start being created, sometimes characters
talk
>>to you or worlds are created
>
>You sound delusional.
to quote yourself "Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but without
evidence and support
it's just hot air. "
i may 'sound' delusional to you, but to others i do not, are you saying
you're right and those who think i'm good are wrong? if so it's a pointless
argument, and i'm just asking here.
i'm not saying i am good because people say i am, i'm saying that just like
your eyes see dilussion, some have seen intelligence, some have gone to
lengths of calling me a genius, but i pay no heed in terms of judgment of
myself to either personally, these opinions give me a better understanding
of how i am seen in the human world, a very small world in terms of the
history of this planet and the life on it. ultimately, like the rest of
you, i am but another soul dragging around this shell of a human body on the
watery planet.....
>
>
>>absolutely, but like i said, i don't know what you do or don't know, so
>>until all the questions have been asked and answered we can't decide
whether
>>it's hot air or not, and often what someone doesn't understand millions of
>>others do, the process of the human mind (psychology) being one of these
>>things.
>
>A lot more people would understand if you gave examples. It is not
>just me, it is general practice when discussing or arguing.
i know, but then if i gave an example everytime i used the word 'conscious'
for example, which in other groups you often have to do as they wouldn't
know what it is, and it would be silly me putting even more excess baggage
on what is already a lenghty subject.
but ultimately you're right.....a so called fact, statement, or opinion is
nothing without the proof of experience that created it, again i apologise,
but am not sure what people will find repetitive of their own knowledge or
not, i need questions for this, and asking questions is good for us, it's
how socrates taught his students, through questions, and good questions can
often form the basis of good comapanionships. i will try to use more
examples in the future, please point me out if i forget, which goes for all
you out there...
>
>
>> anything you still don't get then ask about, i'll try a bit harder to
>>explain, but it's hard considering i'm no expert, i'm just interested in
the
>>subject for my own knowledge of self...
>
>I understand perfectly what you're trying to say; you're basically
>advocating art without conscious thought;
i'm not advocating anything, i'm explaining the process and difference
between consciously thought out art and free-art. just because i do this
method doesn't mean i say others must do it and are wrong if they don't,
other people read it and make their own decision, which i'm aware of. by
talking about it i don't advocate it, i talk about paedophiles and racists
and serial killers, none of which i advocate, i just talk about them, often
in other groups with the hope of understabnding them so they don't keep
cropping up....
which is pretty much what
>Cheryl and Chuck go for and the rest of the intelligent poetry world
>don't.
i'm afraid, and i don't say this too often, you're wrong. there are
millions of people, more so it seems in europe (which may have something to
do with it's age, it is much older than the new rome -america), who follow
conceptual art, examples are the turner prize, the tate gallery has opened a
whole new gallery dedicated to modern art, with huge collections of abstract
expressionist art, there are artists (including writers) who've sprung up
and are still springing up who have produced this new art, and even more
people spend money to see or read it.
call them all mad or whatever if you like, all i'm doing is speaking of how
this art is often perceived by those who take part in it, in this case me.
this new art has come about parallel to the invention of analytical
psychology, so it can now be a case of doing the art and then expalin it
afterwards into logical terms for the decision maker, so scientific value of
the art is decided as opposed to the aesthetic worth of it, which for me is
striking a nice balance between art and science.
again i'm not taking a particular side really, i say i prefer one to the
other but then go through stages where i might read nothing but blake or
shakespear for months, at the moment i'm having a self understanding phase
so what i said about what i like was my automatic, unconscious reaction,
which having a group as honest as this is great for, you're making my job of
finding my insecurities a lot easier, and hopefully it won't happen again
thanks to you lot, but if it does i've got the safety net of someone here
reminding me of how silly i am before that sillyness makes its way back into
my unconscious by me justifying my ignorance, cheers
peace
glen
"A fact in itself is nothing. It is valuable
only for the idea attached to it, or for the
proof which it furnishes."
- Claude Bernard
glen
-----Original Message-----
From: nic ollivère <junk...@olliv.demon.co.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.arts.poetry.comments
Date: 13 July 2000 12:13
Subject: Re: Glass Heart C & C
>On Thu, 13 Jul 2000 02:48:46 +0100, "glen" <h...@notic.fsnet.co.uk>
>remarked as such:
>
>
>> You've already admitted that plumbing
>>>needs conscious effort for it to happen, why is poetry any different?
>>
>>like i said, you can think about it and make poetry that resonates with
>>conscious likes and dislikes, or let the pen just go across the page
>>spurting out whatever it spurts out, and not actually thinking about what
>>you just wrote till you've stopped writing, in art we have a choice of
>>random or processed art....
>
>And nearly everything single poet processes his art; because that is
>what poetry is. Their may be other forms of art that are random (like
>bad poetry), but not good poetry.
this seems pointless, i'm saying there is unconsciously/inner/unaware of
processed art, and conscious/outer/aware of the process art, you seem to be
having trouble seeing these 2 different processes with the same ends as
having different means........
"he who looks too hard at the outside becomes clumsy on the inside"
-chuang tzu -glens note "and vice versa"
your projections are strong i think, as good and bad are projections, so you
maybe strong in self-opination maybe, again which i'm not saying is bad, but
it is usually the case in such situations.....and by the way, when i do
think something is bad or wrong i will specifically say so.......
there is black and white art if you will, yin art and yang art, inner art
and outer art, unconscious and conscious art, you can call these bad and
good art if you want, but it is much healthier mentally to see them as in
and out, introverted and extraverted art, as it gives an unattatched
logical/rational outlook of the situation rather than becoming emotionally
attatched, either consciously or unconsciously, and then saying.....
....."glenny is a poopy face, glenny is a poopy face" constantly...
....anyone can say something is bad without proof, you are contradicting
what you told me about hot air...
peace
glen
Chuck Lysaght
In article <8kga2k$di6$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
Chuck Lysaght <chuckl...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> Thank you for your comments Glen.
>
> In article <8kg5t8$l0r$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk>,
> "glen" <h...@notic.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
> > yeah man, this was cool, i was suprised by the ending, bringing the laughter
> > in, made me think cold or nasty laughter, cool, cheers
> >
> > peace
> >
> > glen
> >
> > p.s. i don't dissect poems for betterment because a writer, i think, is
> > born a writer, one that finds his way to the public in terms of a
> > "profession" so to speak, i reckon doesn't need training, but then i'm into
> > weird stuff that usually just has cult followings, independent cinema and
> > conceptual modernist art etc., i think.........i might change my mind
> > though. (i am, however, prone to some cheese occasionaly).
> > i write to stir feelings in the hope someone might want to understand them
> > feelings, or rather, in these type o'places where people respond to the
> > poetry with words, i hope they might observe these feelings they've worded,
> > and in expressing how the feeling got woken up the reader might actually
> > start understanding them feelings, thus understanding themself by
> > criticising others. and i class boredom a feeling, sometimes a very
> > skillfully used one, though i don't like it when it's abused, then it's
> > "just" boring instead of "amazingly" boring, toodlepip....
> >
> > Chuck Lysaght wrote in message <8kfdsq$mq8$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
> > >Blue Lady in cotton dress
> > >Paper bags on your feet
> > >You sit
> > >On a seatless chair
> > >And stare through the stained glass heart
> > >You hold in your quiet hands
> > >
> > >You move slowly
> > >To the sooty window of despair
> > >And the faint rustle of hope behind you
> > >Is heard by one ear.
> > >
> > >Time floats above you.
> > >Your dusty ceiling moves
> > >To the music of lost dreams
> > >The future is caught in dangling cobwebs
> > >That hang high above the unquenchable darkness
> > >Of your songless nights, and so
> > >You sit
> > >Your glass heart weeps a crystal tear, and
> > >Your leaden laughter cracks the silence
> > >
> > >
> > >--
> > >No one I think is in my tree...
> > >
> > >
> > >Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> > >Before you buy.
> >
> >
>
> --
> No one I think is in my tree...
>
glen
i think it worth explaining my poopy face remarks. i don't say them as
what nic is doing, i say them as what has happened a lot, i don't want to
say it as if it is happening here, but it still happens elsewhere, i did not
offer it as an example of you nic. you do, however, seem to keep repeating
the "you're wrong" thing, which we've already agreed as being pointless
without reasons, or are you now bored of listening to the infinite amount of
reasons for any outside/physical/end product of art phemomena?
and of means, they can never be right or wrong as the ends, what the
means produced, is all there is to judge it, which is what huxley said about
the ends justifying the means, but this is justification for you, the human
judicary system is proof of how justice doesn't work, so the ends justifies
the means, but history is proof that justification in itself does no favours
to the human race...."virtue debases itself by justifying itself" -some
french dude. so the need to justify things by what we see (an end) seems
pointless as it is just saying what we see is everything we need to know,
which is denying any possible knowledge or learning from previous experience
by analysing a process, (a process being that which isn't seen but the means
we went through previously to reach an end) so we might not make repetitive
mistakes again, which in art doesn't matter as the more we repeat something
the more it is being enforced upon us to understand, and once understood
disappears letting the person move on, to evolve...
take care
peace
glen
glen wrote in message <8kkgmr$p7l$1...@news7.svr.pol.co.uk>...
nic ollivère
remarked as such:
>>And nearly everything single poet processes his art; because that is
>>what poetry is. Their may be other forms of art that are random (like
>>bad poetry), but not good poetry.
>
>this seems pointless, i'm saying there is unconsciously/inner/unaware of
>processed art, and conscious/outer/aware of the process art, you seem to be
>having trouble seeing these 2 different processes with the same ends as
>having different means........
I can see the difference. You can't see the fact that all poetry is
both unconsciously processed then consciously processed. It is not a
question of preference, that is just how it is.
>....anyone can say something is bad without proof, you are contradicting
>what you told me about hot air...
Wordsworth, Tennyson, Milton, Keats, T. S. Eliot.
My proof is several thousand years of poetry, what's yours?
nic.
Chuck Lysaght
this bullshit, e-mail each other. Christ.
In article <396dd041...@news.demon.co.uk>,
--
Danielle
>The poem? Hello? Christ! What a bunch. Plumbers are over-paid.
I support glen and nic's right to post whatever they want, even
if it has nothing to do with your poem. If it bothers you so
much, just post your poem in a new thread and we'll change this
topic to "artificially enhanced poetry" or something.
Once upon a time, you wrote:
"WOOHA has the right to write anything he wants. Good or bad.
That's my point. I defend his right to do so. I have fought for
his right to do so. And I am free."
Well, just substitute glen's name or nic's name or whomever, and
there you have it. Don't they have the same right as WOOHA to
post anything they want?
shamima khan
> Blue Lady in cotton dress
> Paper bags on your feet
> You sit
> On a seatless chair
> And stare through the stained glass heart
> You hold in your quiet hands
> You move slowly
> To the sooty window of despair
> And the faint rustle of hope behind you
> Is heard by one ear.
> Time floats above you.
> Your dusty ceiling moves
> To the music of lost dreams
> The future is caught in dangling cobwebs
> That hang high above the unquenchable darkness
> Of your songless nights, and so
> You sit
> Your glass heart weeps a crystal tear, and
> Your leaden laughter cracks the silence
actually, this is quite nice, right from blue to one ear. the last verse
seems a bit vauge and doesn't have the specifity of detail of the earlier
part of the poem, except for the last three lines of course. for example,
'music of lost dreams', while a pretty phrase, doesn't say much to me. but
i can see the glass heart weeping a crystal tear.
seatless seat bothered me too. i know what you're trying to describe, but
i think it would be better if it was worded differently.
regards,
sk
--
"All in all, I want poetry (both in the writing and the reading)
to make me marvel, not to make me nod my head solemnly and
commiserate with the poet on how fucked up the world is."
(Aidan T.)
Randall Wright
<h...@notic.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
- i agree that there is no difference in "the end product", the
- processes/means can be infinitely different though. poetry can just
- happen if you just write it without thinking about it, (see my other post
- about free-association, it might be clearer) if you did this with plumbing
- we might get awfully wet though as it requires awareness of what it's doing
- and what it's fixing, artists have the choice of spitting out often random,
- consciously incomprehensible nonsensities, but through practice with
- free-association it gets more understandable to the free-associater,and
- sometimes the public, as is the case with jackson pollocks popularity among
- others......
If poetry is a product of our pure soul then would a newborn infant be able
to write? Of course not. He/she hasn't learned the language yet. Most of us
spend many years learning language before writing poetry, time enough to
develop lots of habits. So we have language habits we don't have to think
about and we can pretend it comes from our soul or subconscious. If someone
practiced plumbing as much as language, the mechanics of it could become
automatic enough to allow him to free-associate a working plumbing system.
Of course in free-association poetry you'd try not to spew habits, but to
let the habits spew thought into words. I'm not very good at spewing, maybe
just a phrase at a time, and a lot of that is nonsense. So I have to work
at it, editing all the free-associated stuff into something that looks like
what I'd like to claim as mine.
Kudos to you if you spew is a tolerable read!
Randy
glen
-----Original Message-----
From: nic ollivère <junk...@olliv.demon.co.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.arts.poetry.comments
Date: 13 July 2000 15:23
Subject: Re: Glass Heart C & C
>On Thu, 13 Jul 2000 14:19:10 +0100, "glen" <h...@notic.fsnet.co.uk>
>remarked as such:
>
>
>>>And nearly everything single poet processes his art; because that is
>>>what poetry is. Their may be other forms of art that are random (like
>>>bad poetry), but not good poetry.
>>
>>this seems pointless, i'm saying there is unconsciously/inner/unaware of
>>processed art, and conscious/outer/aware of the process art, you seem to
be
>>having trouble seeing these 2 different processes with the same ends as
>>having different means........
>
>I can see the difference. You can't see the fact that all poetry is
>both unconsciously processed then consciously processed. It is not
again more hot air, where's your proof? you're talking about psychological
process so need to give psychological facts, which if you're either
unwilling to or unable to do so your opinion has no more validity than that,
your subjective opinion. you are denying years of psychological study done
by thousands of people all over the world while it seems you have little
knowledge of psychology, which isn't to say i have lots or any, but your
argument is based on psychology so needs to understand it before disprooving
it, it's like saying water is dry because you didn't get wet when glancing a
look at it, without jumping in it you don't know what it is...
a
>question of preference, that is just how it is.
>
indeed, but if preference is saying "this is wrong i am right" it's turning
a personal opinion into an objective reality that is different from the
other realities people perceive, so not objective, just a subjective
perception.
if you recognise that what you say is bad is bad only to your perception i
digress, but i would ask you state that this is the case rather than making
it as an objective statement, like mentioning "i think from my own
perception that this is wrong/bad because...." for example...
>
>>....anyone can say something is bad without proof, you are contradicting
>>what you told me about hot air...
>
>Wordsworth, Tennyson, Milton, Keats, T. S. Eliot.
>My proof is several thousand years of poetry, what's yours?
this isn't proof of any sort of artistic process, this is proof of what
humans collectively prefer out of poetry and nothing else, you've offered
proof of public opinion on good art not how art is made.
what i'm saying really is that you can't proove good or bad/right or wrong
as anything more than a perception, they exist in the human mind as choices.
you are offering me art, something that
makes what isn't real - imagination - real, as proof of objective reality,
something that although can be imagined, exists before all of us as the same
thing, the same planet etc. beyond our imagination and rooted in our
everyday physical life it is the same thing, regardless of how our
perception of this world differs, and i'm not saying what this objective
world is or how it works, i'm saying reality in its true sense exists beyond
the subjectivity of our opinion on good or bad, that everything we think is
bad is what our mind sees of it, not what actually exists, as good or bad
are human choices made in the mind and not made in the reality before us,
reality is just stuff in front of us...
you can't offer art as proof of anything besides the perception of art, and
what we're discussing is the process of how art gets to the stage where
other people perceive it, of how it became a painitng or poem, the science
of it (as the study of any process is its science), not the end products
such as those of the names you mention as this is just what this process
makes and not the process itself........names of which i won't doubt i've
enjoyed their poetry, but no more than saul williams or jessica care moore
(modern poets).
they validify yours and many others choice for good poetry, a majorities
probably, but some people say other writers are much better, so it's not an
absolute or objective proof of anything as some don't fit the bill of liking
the artists, so the opinion is collectively and opinionatively subjective,
but in no way objective, as lifes objectivity, i believe, exists beyond and
before any human came along and decided whether it's good or not, and art
being the first ever things we seemed to do, cave paintings etc., i like to
keep this primieval ritual as it is, natural (a word that relates to
neutral), and look at peoples
opinion of its good or badness as something to understand ourself by and
nothing else...
take it easy
peace
glen
>
>nic.
>
nic ollivère
remarked as such:
>again more hot air, where's your proof?
Stop using my terms to further your own argument. You haven't proved
yourself yet so don't start jumping down on me until you have.
>>Wordsworth, Tennyson, Milton, Keats, T. S. Eliot.
>>My proof is several thousand years of poetry, what's yours?
>
>this isn't proof of any sort of artistic process, this is proof of what
>humans collectively prefer out of poetry and nothing else, you've offered
>proof of public opinion on good art not how art is made.
No, I haven't. I've offered you some of our best known poets who
consciouly processed their art. I'm not offering you their art; but
the fact that these people processed their art.
>you can't offer art as proof of anything besides the perception of art, and
>what we're discussing is the process of how art gets to the stage where
>other people perceive it, of how it became a painitng or poem, the science
>of it (as the study of any process is its science), not the end products
>such as those of the names you mention as this is just what this process
>makes and not the process itself....
See above. I wasn't saying 'go read these people', I was saying 'these
poets used the process that my argument is supporting'.
>they validify yours and many others choice for good poetry, a majorities
>probably, but some people say other writers are much better, so it's not an
>absolute or objective proof of anything as some don't fit the bill of liking
>the artists, so the opinion is collectively and opinionatively subjective,
>but in no way objective, as lifes objectivity, i believe, exists beyond and
>before any human came along and decided whether it's good or not, and art
>being the first ever things we seemed to do, cave paintings etc., i like to
>keep this primieval ritual as it is, natural
Do you think the people painting in caves revised what they drew? I
think so. Sometimes perhaps they didn't get a leg right, or an arm, so
they revised because the first thing that came out wasn't saisfactory.
nic.
glen
-----Original Message-----
From: Randall Wright <NOrwri...@jlc.net>
Newsgroups: alt.arts.poetry.comments
Date: 13 July 2000 07:10
Subject: Re: Glass Heart C & C
>In article <8kj885$61i$1...@news7.svr.pol.co.uk>, "glen"
><h...@notic.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>
>- i agree that there is no difference in "the end product", the
>- processes/means can be infinitely different though. poetry can just
>- happen if you just write it without thinking about it, (see my other post
>- about free-association, it might be clearer) if you did this with
plumbing
>- we might get awfully wet though as it requires awareness of what it's
doing
>- and what it's fixing, artists have the choice of spitting out often
random,
>- consciously incomprehensible nonsensities, but through practice with
>- free-association it gets more understandable to the free-associater,and
>- sometimes the public, as is the case with jackson pollocks popularity
among
>- others......
>
>If poetry is a product of our pure soul
what pure soul is debatable, for me it is the traditional word for the human
psyche, i'm talking about the stuff that comes from the unconscious, which
for all we know could be infinite as it is, as the word denotes, "un" (non)
conscious...
then would a newborn infant be able
>to write?
goo goo
gaa gaa
-this poem has been said to be a work of true duchampian spirit, it has
rhymes, would provoke thoughts in those who might want to reflect on what
the language is and what it's saying, like hieroglyphs are a language
through symbols. but language isn't always important in art, if you don't
speak french, is french poetry not art because you don't understand it? i
don't speak french but just love the way the language rolls off the tongue,
it is eloquent in itself without meaning for me. i think what i'm saying is
that people are effected by both forms of art, so are both of some value,
but maybe a different type of value depending on the perceiver.
and if your argument is that it's not art, it's fine, i'm not emotionally
attatched to what words people put on it as such, but in that it effects the
readers the same way contrived poetry does, it holds just as much aesthetic
value.......
Of course not. He/she hasn't learned the language yet.
yes, the collective human language of the surroundings the child has been
plonked into, but art for me is about translation, translating what another
artist has written and translating that into some sort of my own
comprehension, the language of symbols for example is very different to
human worded language, but makes sense to many many people, more sense than
simple words sometimes, and the language of dreams etc.. worded language
is an easy obstacle to overcome in art or non-art....come to think of it,
this could be a good word for the conceptual type stuff, non-art, what do
all you lot think?
Most of us
>spend many years learning language before writing poetry, time enough to
>develop lots of habits.
i know, pain isn't it, language, and it's habits?
So we have language habits we don't have to think
>about and we can pretend it comes from our soul or subconscious.
pretend? by what you have just said, that it is subconscious, you are
stating that is away and unaware to the conscious, that we don't think about
it, so these habits/complexes come forth from the unconscious into the
conscious through the free-art style to be understood....
If someone
>practiced plumbing as much as language, the mechanics of it could become
>automatic enough to allow him to free-associate a working plumbing system.
indeed they could, and put themself at risk of messing up, like a train
driver pushes a lever that says faster and slower so eventually does it
without thinking, and then one day crashes the train killing loads of
people, in art, however, we kill no-one, we make for entertainment, we
destroy our inner demons/angels so to speak....
>
>Of course in free-association poetry you'd try not to spew habits,
you wouldn't try anything in free-association as trying is a conscious
interventon, you just move the pen across the paper without thinking about
what's coming out....
but to
>let the habits spew thought into words. I'm not very good at spewing, maybe
>just a phrase at a time, and a lot of that is nonsense.
non-sense to you maybe, but to those who take an interest in symbolism and
stuff it might mean a lot....
So I have to work
>at it, editing all the free-associated stuff into something that looks like
>what I'd like to claim as mine.
which is fine, you are perfecting your art to what you like, but free-art
doesn't do what it likes, it does what ever it does without judging it as a
like or dislike untill afterwards maybe, and even then it's not always seen
as liked or disliked but disinterestedly analysed for its meaning.....
>
>Kudos to you if you spew is a tolerable read!
>
i'm afraid i don't know what this means, is it randalish?
cheers
peace
glen
".....what an experience it will be when the time is ripe at last and,
having got into the habit of thinking in signs, we are able to exchange
secrets with a few natural strokes like a handful of twigs"
-henri michaux, from 'signes'
Aidan Tynan
>i agree that there is no difference in "the end product", the
>processes/means can be infinitely different though.
No, the means are the same. The plumber uses pipes and bolts, the poet uses
language. If 'free-association can produce good poetry, then
'free-association' should also produce good plumbing.
Simply because poetry may be a less utilitarian enterprise does not mean it
involves less craftsmanship.
poetry can just
>happen if you just write it without thinking about it,
Show a good poem that 'just happened' without any conscious effort.
>
>yes, but what i'm saying is that in poetry you have the choice of making
>your pen move across a piece of paper writing whatever comes into your
head,
>or you have the choice to do it slowly and think about what sounds good or
>bad to you....
Certainly, you have the choice, but one will result in an uncrafted sludge.
>
> There is not, as you seem to think, a
>>poetry writing ghost in the machine.
>
>prove it,
I can't *prove* that randomly banging pipes together will fix my sink, but I
think we'd both agree it'd be pretty futile.
>psychology says otherwise.
Show me where psychology says poetry can be created in the manner you say it
can.
>i'm not taking sides,
You're basically saying that good poetry can exist without craft, without
skill, without work. That's taking a side.
>like i said, you can think about it and make poetry that resonates with
>conscious likes and dislikes, or let the pen just go across the page
>spurting out whatever it spurts out, and not actually thinking about what
>you just wrote till you've stopped writing, in art we have a choice of
>random or processed art....
Again, show me a good poem where these procedures were used (where the poet
didn't think about poetry) to create a good poem and I may change my mind.
>
>well you'd have to explain dualism as i don't know what it is (but will
look
>into it). and it may well have been shown to be dubious, but all you shown
>is that you agree with it, not the reasonn for why it has been shown to be
>highly dubious, which i would appreciate if you would show why, please...
If you're really interested you'll do your own research. Surely that's not
beyond you.
>>You guess wrong.
>
>why?
>i don't want your opinion, i want your reasons for your opinions, but if
you
>don't want to give them that's fine, carry on making yourself feel good by
>saying i'm wrong, i don't mind....
Uh-huh.
-Aidan
glen
-----Original Message-----
From: nic ollivere <n...@olliv.demon.co.uk>
To: glen <notq...@homehear.fsnet.co.uk>
Date: 13 July 2000 18:27
Subject: Re: Glass Heart C & C
>hi glen,
>
>>hi nic
>>this is fine by me, but how about a new thread?
>>there might be some out there listening without talking, just a thought
>
>I doubt it, and I think we've more or less finished anyway, or at least I
>have. And besides I'm trying to stop myself from posting there for a while
>and concentrate on my reading.
yeah, me too actually, i'm re-reading the greek myths by robert graves.....
>
>I think we've been arguing on two different levels. We both agree that
>there are two ways to create art; through a subconscious freefall or (or
>and followed by*) a conscious perfection. You're saying you prefer the
>first and I'm saying the second is the only reasonable way of creating art.
sort of, but like i said, only at the moment, so objectively speaking i
prefer neither as i think both have their values; perfecting poetry helps
build self-discipline etc., but i've just broken a lot of disciplines that
were hindering me so am of the free-style at the moment, so once i've got
over this i'll need to build up some disciplines again, but in the new light
of "re-birth", in the egocide sense. my faustian journey with
mephistopheles has not quite ended though yet, i talk with the devil
regularly through the free-association i've spoken of (you read faust by
goethe?, i'd recommend it if you haven't, a work of semi-contrived genius, a
whole 2 books of a rhyming versed story, a modern myth)....
>
>When I say art here I mean poetry. I haven't been to the new tate yet (I
>live in London by the way) but I intend to go because I do enjoy that type
>of art but don't believe the process relates well to poetry. It even makes
>the poet lazy.
you're probably right, it is a form of laziness in a purely artistic sense,
but this is the point, as the real effort lies in finding its meaning and
not the perfection of the art.
i don't doubt that conceptual stuff is bone-idleness if the conceptualist
thinks it of as much "beauty" as a contrived piece, but the idea is to move
away from things like beauty and into the underworld sort of thing, to
discover ones demons etc., but in releasing this publicly it inspires people
to search for their own demons, so both arts work in highly important ways,
one for understanding ourself and one for forming the discipline to live in
our surroundings i think, they just work in different ways, like we seem to
agree on....
>
>*I'm beginning to realise, ever since I read some work by Robert Graves and
>D.H. Lawrence, that the first step in writing a poetry is often one that
>comes straight from the subconscious;
i'd agree, the first reason, like the greek myths were the first major
visions to spring from the human mind (my nothincia story is pretty mythy),
and which is what i am currently doing, rebuilding myself from scratch so to
speak, which you might not need to do or not i don't know, but is why i am
like i say a "freeist" at the moment.....
just letting the words flow out.
>However this process, I believe, must be supported by extensive reading
>beforehand and extensive revision afterwards.
don't get me wrong, i read a hell of a lot, from writers of non-fiction to
history and the study of mysticism to science and whatnot, but i don't let
it affect my free-art is all, it just affects my perception of life....
This is where we differ.
i wouldn't say differ as such, more a case of i'm standing behind you
tapping you on the shoulder and you're getting annoyed because you can't see
me properly, you're too busy going forward sort of thing, which i don't mean
to do as a pain in the arse sense really, like that python sketch "wink
wink, nudge nudge, say no more..", my intentions are to show others that
there is a shadow cast while facing the sun....
>
>Anyway once the poem is out there it doesn't really matter how the poet
>has constructed it. Time, that old dog, shall tell which process in poetry
>becomes more successful.
from the history so far both last, the heretics and the orthodox, from
shakespeare to maiers (famous alchemist), but they seem to have stayed in
the same places, one in the majorities and one in the minorities. now,
thankfully, people aren't burnt on the stake for reading the ones that
aren't orthodox, the're just slagged off in poetry groups (not meaning you,
but i'm sure you're aware of those who do)...
Certainly yours is easier, but will it produce in
>the long term?
it's easier in the art sense, but like i say, the effort goes into
explaining what it means at the moment. i'm not really bothered about its
recognition as such, it's a learning process for me, for me to understand
myself through it, with the added bonus of other peoples reception of it.
like i said before, ones good for moving our emotions about, ones good for
moving our understanding about, so both have their place, one in the tate
modern and one in the traditional tate so to speak, take care
peace
glen
p.s. to get a good idea of the conceptual writing i speak of check michaux
out, he did it best for me, joseph meyers is interesting too. i've found
this on the net but not much else. henri has an anthology called 'darkness
moves' by david ball which i found to be good too....
and one last note on michaux, although he sounds well written, he started
life studying at universities subjects like philology and literature (and
medicine for a short period), which he seemed to tire of and left this
school to create his style, but from what he says he didn't spend much time
on the grammar and presentation of his work, the seemingly well grammatised
presentation was implanted in him since his school days.....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Henri Michaux 1899-1984
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
biography
When in 1941 Andre Gide published the lecture he never delivered, Decouvrons
Henri Michaux, the poet was far from being unknown in France. It is true
that he had not reached a large public, but already by that time he was one
of the most highly esteemed poets, the one who has created in his work a
world totally different from the real world. Maurice Blanchot calls him, in
the few pages he devotes to Michaux in Faux Pas, "l'ange du bizarre," a most
apt title for one of the really authentic poetic talents of today who is
taking his place beside those writers who investigate the strange and the
unusual and who, therefore, more than others, transpose or even upset the
literary perspective. The relationship which Michaux has established between
the natural and the unbelievable has created a surreal world which has
become the familiar world of his poetry. More than any other contemporary
writer, far more than the authentic surrealists many say, he has willed the
invention of a new land, and unlike Swift, never uses it for any edifying or
didactic purpose. His is a gratuitous creation, one that invites no
comparison and no justification. it demands of the reader that they enter
this extravagant world without any hope of discovering its meaning, that
they enter it as if they were entering the void.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
excerpts from - i am writing to you from a far-off country
i.
We have here, she said, only one sun in the month, and for only a little
while. We rub our eyes days ahead. But to no purpose. Inexorable weather.
Sunlight arrives only at its proper hour.
Then we have a world of things to do, so long as there is light, in fact we
hardly have time to look at one another a bit.
The trouble is that nighttime is when we must work, and we really must:
dwarfs are born constantly.
ii.
When you walk in the country, she further confided to him, you may chance to
meet with substantial mases on your road. These are mountains and sooner or
later you must bend the knee to them. resisting will do no good, you could
go no farther, even by hurting yourself.
I do not say this in order to wound. I could say other things if i really
wanted to wound.
iv.
I add one further word to you, a question rather. Does water flow in your
country too? (I do not remember whether you have told me so) and it gives
chills too, if it is the real thing.
Do I love it? I do not know. One feels so alone when it is cold. But quite
otherwise when it is warm. Well then? How can I decide? How do you others
decide, tell me, when you speak of it without disguise, with open heart?
v.
I am writing to you from the end of the world. You must realize this. The
trees often tremble. We collect the leaves. They have a ridiculous number of
veins. But what for? There is nothing between them and the tree any more,
and we go off troubled.
Could not life continue on earth without wind? Or must everything tremble,
always, always?
There are subterranean disturbances, too, in the house as well, like angers
which might come to face you, like stern beings who would like to wrest
confessions.
We see nothing, except what is so unimportant to see. Nothing, and yet we
tremble. why?
Nothing, and yet we tremble. Why?
xi.
She writes to him again:
You cannot imagine all that there is in the sky, you would have to see it to
believe it. So now, the... but I am not going to tell you their name at
once.
In spite of their air of weighing a great deal and of occupying almost all
the sky, they do not weigh, huge though they are, as much as a newborn baby.
We call them clouds.
It is true that water comes out of them, but not by compressing them, or by
pounding them. It would be useless, they have so little.
But, by reason of their occupying lengths and lengthsm widths and widths,
deeps also and deeps, and of puffing themselves up, they succeed in the long
run in making a few droplets of water fall, yes, of water. And we are good
and wet. We run off furious at having been trapped; for nobody knows the
moment when they are going to release their drops; sometimes they rest for
days without releasing them. And one would stay home waiting for them in
vain.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
glen
-----Original Message-----
From: nic ollivère <junk...@olliv.demon.co.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.arts.poetry.comments
Date: 13 July 2000 18:16
Subject: Re: Glass Heart C & C
>On Thu, 13 Jul 2000 16:15:07 +0100, "glen" <h...@notic.fsnet.co.uk>
>remarked as such:
>
>
>>again more hot air, where's your proof?
>
>Stop using my terms to further your own argument.
i'm not trying to further my argument as i haven't pre-supposed myself to be
right, if i thought i was right i wouldn't have the urge to talk with you to
test my opinions and ideas of life and art.
i use this term as it something you spoke of me and which you seeemd to have
overlooked yourself, by not offering proof.
i'm not trying to be patronising, just reminding you of what seems like
something you may have forgotten, sorry......
You haven't proved
>yourself yet so don't start jumping down on me until you have.
i didn't jump around, like i said, i'm not here to fight you with words, or
to "win" the argument, i'm here in the same way plato talked with socrates i
guess, to further my own ideas...ahaa!! i am your opposite maybe, i like
furthering my perception of life rather than my art, to perfect my knowledge
of my surroundings rather than stick to my own personally and subjectively
contrived opinion on life, my unconscious art tells me all it wants to by me
leaving it as it is....
>
>
>>>Wordsworth, Tennyson, Milton, Keats, T. S. Eliot.
>>>My proof is several thousand years of poetry, what's yours?
>>
>>this isn't proof of any sort of artistic process, this is proof of what
>>humans collectively prefer out of poetry and nothing else, you've offered
>>proof of public opinion on good art not how art is made.
>
>No, I haven't. I've offered you some of our best known poets who
>consciouly processed their art. I'm not offering you their art; but
>the fact that these people processed their art.
yes, but i already have said i know this form of art exists, i thought we
were discussing why one is no better than the other, and offering me
examples of those who use your prefered method would be no different from me
giving examples of those who use my method, which would be pointless......
>
>>you can't offer art as proof of anything besides the perception of art,
and
>>what we're discussing is the process of how art gets to the stage where
>>other people perceive it, of how it became a painitng or poem, the science
>>of it (as the study of any process is its science), not the end products
>>such as those of the names you mention as this is just what this process
>>makes and not the process itself....
>
>See above. I wasn't saying 'go read these people', I was saying 'these
>poets used the process that my argument is supporting'.
i think what i said above covered this, like the free method is explained by
nostradamus, michael angelo, leonardo da vinci, michael maiers, st. thomas
aquinas, francis bacon etc. (see other post on nostradamus method of
inquiry)....
>
>>they validify yours and many others choice for good poetry, a majorities
>>probably, but some people say other writers are much better, so it's not
an
>>absolute or objective proof of anything as some don't fit the bill of
liking
>>the artists, so the opinion is collectively and opinionatively subjective,
>>but in no way objective, as lifes objectivity, i believe, exists beyond
and
>>before any human came along and decided whether it's good or not, and art
>>being the first ever things we seemed to do, cave paintings etc., i like
to
>>keep this primieval ritual as it is, natural
>
>Do you think the people painting in caves revised what they drew?
i dunno, i'm not one of them, but if monkeys today are anything to go by,
they just made pictures....
I
>think so. Sometimes perhaps they didn't get a leg right, or an arm, so
>they revised because the first thing that came out wasn't saisfactory.
well if this was the case i think there would be drafts and then other
pictures next to them on the walls, which isn't the case, all we see today
is a set of images, and some of the pictures were scraped into stone so
couldn't have been rubbed out and perfected or anything.
the pictures what are there seem to say contrary to what you said, it seems
they just drew pictures for whatever reason, instinctually, (have you read
about primitive psychology? it's interesting, levy-bruhl is a good author,
but hard to find) but as with such discussions about the reasons for our
ancestors behaviour, the're not here to ask so we're just throwing stones
into the abyss, take care......
peace
glen
"when a man moves away from nature his heart becomes hard"
-lakota proverb
glen
i missed the stuff below on this email which i think you put in another,
but i'll reply all the same (i just read the thread recommendation bit)
-----Original Message-----
From: nic ollivere <n...@olliv.demon.co.uk>
To: glen <notq...@homehear.fsnet.co.uk>
Date: 13 July 2000 16:04
Subject: Re: Glass Heart C & C
...
>
>On Thu, 13 Jul 2000 13:55:33 +0100, "glen" <h...@notic.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>>>So seeing as almost every poet in the canon for the last say 2000
>>>years went through that process every time they wrote you don't like
>>>them?
>>
>>in terms of self-understanding worth i suppose i don't, the great poets i
>>find are good for aesthetic value, but i did get ahead of myself
>>when i said what i liked, it's what i'm more into at the moment i guess
>>(conceptual
>>stuff), next week i might read from my mums book of poetry she was given
at
>>school (poets such as shakespeare, wordsworth etc.), but for now i prefer
>>the more modern approach as it's helping me understand myself more.
>
>Okay, we're getting somewhere. I find the largest cause of arguments is
>when two contenders fail to define their own terms; thus they are arguing
>on different levels, never finding agreement. I believe this is what we
>were doing.
>
agreed,
>You're talking about a particular field of modern poetry
and thousands of years old at the same time, dating back to the ancients
means of divination (see below for further explanation)....
and art and I was
>talking about the processes in which poetry alone
i'm afraid i can't agree here, what of poets such as nostradamus and
leonardo da vinci?
nostradamus explains a way of writing prohetic poetry, which is poetry
nonetheless, where you put a bowl of water on a tripod with a candle behind
it, you then stare into the reflection of the flame on the water, he says,
and visions and thoughts will enter, which he says to put down directly
without intervening with this inner voice, to let this voice speak what it
must, so what he speaks of is a freeing from consciousness type of thing
where we become hypnotised (unconscious) by the flame thus leaving a
"portal" for the inner voice to come through, and this was similar to loads
of other methods alchemists have explained for "divination" (in this
discussion self understanding) ever since the greeks had communications with
egypt (the divine art was known as theurgy to the greeks), and which egypt
had been doing for centuries prior to that.
nostradamus was interested in the occult arts as well as the church, in
mystic/traditional arts as well as science, he tried to strike a balance and
was persecuted for it, but the methods he used were not ones of perfecting
the work, it was one of letting the unconscious speak for itself, and he is
a poet and scientist from antiquity who is just as valid as any other,
however, the only thing he seemed interested in perfecting were physical
things like the sciences, like trying to find better ways of dealing with
the plague and such...
has been performed for
>several thousand years.
orthodoxly yes...
>My other recent posts in the thread may be better ignored seeing as they're
>on that different level.
>
>You may be underestimating modern (non-concepual) poetry,
underestimating? i wouldn't say looking to art for the understanding we
need in life is underestimating, it's simply moving from purely aesthetic
reasons to ones of understanding...
but your opinions
>may change, as you said. I don't believe I'm right and you're wrong in any
>of this. Once the poem is out there it doesn't really matter how the poet
>has constructed it.
agreed
>
>The fact is that poetry without conscious thought and revision isn't what
>most of the regulars in this newsgroup would consider poetry.
agreed again, on most people who post here...
We may all be
>deluded and not living in the real world as you say,
i have never said this, if you feel i have then point it out and i will be
pleased to explain it further, but as it is, i believe all worlds are real,
it is simply a matter of understanding where the perceiver stands to know
what world is what....
or we may stand for
>the experienced majority of intellectual poetry readers and poets.
again, agreed, as you say of the majority of intellectual poets of old, but
there are many poets who used very different methods, i think it a case of
you pay heed to the majority of poets ideas, and me to the heretics as well
as the orthodox (although at this moment in time more the heretics, those
who sought inner knowledge rather than living by the old dictated rules of
the church), and i think both are valid methods but serve different
purposes, one of aesthetic value and one of intellectual understanding.....
stay cool
peace
glen
glen
Aidan Tynan wrote in message ...
>
>
>>i agree that there is no difference in "the end product", the
>>processes/means can be infinitely different though.
>
>No, the means are the same. The plumber uses pipes and bolts, the poet uses
>language. If 'free-association can produce good poetry, then
>'free-association' should also produce good plumbing.
you can see it both ways i guess. ...
either...
the ends of the means to the poet is a poem, and the ends of the means to a
plumber is a load of pipes that send water round or house or something, and
the means both involve a process of skill with the ends being completely
different.
or...
the means to plumbing is learning how metal goes together and how pipology
works, the means to poetry is knowing how words work, so the means involve
learning 2 completely different systems, one of words and one of metal and
pipes, with end being something that works, either working as a conceptual
poem or functioning pipes.
i can see how they both work both ways, i wouldn't know how to explain
it though, just reflect on the 2 i suppose...
i spoke about free-association stuff of plumbing in another post, about how
in free-association we can slip up when it isn't constantly kept in check by
conscious awareness, and poetry doesn't matter if it messes up, to many it
makes it better as it still provokes something in the reader of it, like how
a mistake can be a symbol for the mistakes human are prone to and prone to
denying at the same time or something, depending on how the artists works
the mistake, or just does the mistake, in their work....
>
>Simply because poetry may be a less utilitarian enterprise does not mean it
>involves less craftsmanship.
yep, but in free-art there is no conscious craftmanship whatsoever, no
awareness of skill existing as the skill is put there by whatever is inside
us and what we are unaware/unconscious to, so what we are unconscious to is
what is crafting it, and if it is a skill it is a skill unknown to us. if
you do believe this is a skill beyond our waking life you are saying there
is an unconscious skill working behind our waking knowledge, which denotes
that something beyond consciousness controls us, and the understanding of
this unconscious controller is what free-art expresses for the conscious
logic to then understand, which is what i'm saying.
a lot of this is basic stuff in psychology, like the definition of words
like conscious and unconscious, which i'd have to recommend whole books for
as they are terms not easily explained by me going yadda yadda yadda, they
are understood by reading loads of case studies and seeing how certain
things happen to people under psychological analysis, through
free-association tests, dreams peoples lives leading to neurosis, infantile
behaviour etc. etc., and different people react differently, but it is clear
that they work within certain boundaries or non-boundaries, conscious and
unconscious, and recommendations that i'm not sure would be worth giving,
but let me know if you are interested in reading some psychological books
involving case studies..
>
> poetry can just
>>happen if you just write it without thinking about it,
>
>Show a good poem that 'just happened' without any conscious effort.
many people have thought my jester poem to be good, and my canyon poem on
other groups, and my tale of nothincia, all of which were done
free-association.....
>
>
>
>>
>>yes, but what i'm saying is that in poetry you have the choice of making
>>your pen move across a piece of paper writing whatever comes into your
>head,
>>or you have the choice to do it slowly and think about what sounds good or
>>bad to you....
>
>Certainly, you have the choice, but one will result in an uncrafted sludge.
again, an uncrafted sludge to you is a conceptual masterpiece to someone
else....
>
>>
>> There is not, as you seem to think, a
>>>poetry writing ghost in the machine.
>>
>>prove it,
>
>I can't *prove* that randomly banging pipes together will fix my sink, but
I
>think we'd both agree it'd be pretty futile.
i wasn't asking you to prove pipes, i was asking you to prove an inner ghost
doesn't exist, as many believe one does, either a spiritual thing or a
metaphor for unconscious intuition, and which can't be dis-prooved as its
existence would be beyond our conscious logic of dis-prooving. this ghost
i asked you to prove didn't exist, not whether free-plumbing works or
not.....
>
>
>>psychology says otherwise.
>
>Show me where psychology says poetry can be created in the manner you say
it
>can.
>
"psychiatric studies", "experimental research" by jung "interpretation of
dreams" by freud, i could go on, or might be able to find better examples,
but are you going to read them for the proof you seek?
and like i said up there, i did my jester poem as well as loads of others
that i haven't posted here free-assoc., that have been said to be good by
people, so they have provoked something in the reader which lead them to
believe the poem was good, and good, as i've said, is a perception, not a
reality, which is commen scientific knowledge.....
>
>>i'm not taking sides,
>
>You're basically saying that good poetry can exist without craft,
i'm saying that good is a perception so anything in reality can be good
depending on the perceivers choice of good or bad. my saying good poetry
exists in actual reality didn't happen, i've said people will perceive
uncrafted poetry as good...
without
>skill, without work. That's taking a side.
i'm talking about a side that is there, not saying i am of this side....
>
>
>>like i said, you can think about it and make poetry that resonates with
>>conscious likes and dislikes, or let the pen just go across the page
>>spurting out whatever it spurts out, and not actually thinking about what
>>you just wrote till you've stopped writing, in art we have a choice of
>>random or processed art....
>
>Again, show me a good poem where these procedures were used (where the poet
>didn't think about poetry) to create a good poem and I may change my mind.
well you might not like them, which doesn't mean the're not good, but my
jester poem was done free-association, as well as loads of michauxs work,
jackson pollock in painting terms, avant-garde jazz etc., which some call
poetry in things beyond words, and is stuff which you'd have to go out and
buy, listen or look at if you wanted examples, and which of course you might
not think is good, but millions of others do...
>
>>
>>well you'd have to explain dualism as i don't know what it is (but will
>look
>>into it). and it may well have been shown to be dubious, but all you
shown
>>is that you agree with it, not the reasonn for why it has been shown to be
>>highly dubious, which i would appreciate if you would show why, please...
>
>If you're really interested you'll do your own research.
which i have said i will do....
Surely that's not
>beyond you.
nope, i didn't count on your hostility though, thought you might like to
share your knowledge, sorry, my boo-boo
cheers
peace
glen
nic ollivère
remarked as such:
>>hi glen,
> (you read faust by
>goethe?, i'd recommend it if you haven't, a work of semi-contrived genius, a
>whole 2 books of a rhyming versed story, a modern myth)....
I'm ashamed to say I haven't. I've read Marlowe's Dr. Faustus is that
is any compensation.
>you're probably right, it is a form of laziness in a purely artistic sense,
>but this is the point, as the real effort lies in finding its meaning and
>not the perfection of the art.
But surely quite often there will be no meaning in such a freefall
poem?
>don't get me wrong, i read a hell of a lot, from writers of non-fiction to
>history and the study of mysticism to science and whatnot, but i don't let
>it affect my free-art is all, it just affects my perception of life....
You don't let it affect your free-art? How is that possible? If free
art is produced without conscious effort surely you can not stop it
affecting you; that would be a conscious decision.
>i wouldn't say differ as such, more a case of i'm standing behind you
>tapping you on the shoulder and you're getting annoyed because you can't see
>me properly, you're too busy going forward sort of thing, which i don't mean
>to do as a pain in the arse sense really, like that python sketch "wink
>wink, nudge nudge, say no more..", my intentions are to show others that
>there is a shadow cast while facing the sun....
Don't get too Platonic on me here.
I don't think you can really know what my intentions are other than I
believe art should go through a conscious process at some stage; thus
also where I stand in relation to you, and if I'm standing at all.
>from the history so far both last, the heretics and the orthodox, from
>shakespeare to maiers (famous alchemist), but they seem to have stayed in
>the same places, one in the majorities and one in the minorities. now,
>thankfully, people aren't burnt on the stake for reading the ones that
>aren't orthodox, the're just slagged off in poetry groups (not meaning you,
>but i'm sure you're aware of those who do)...
It's not a case of being non-orthodox as far as I can tell.
>p.s. to get a good idea of the conceptual writing i speak of check michaux
>out, he did it best for me, joseph meyers is interesting too.
I'm reading Douglas Dunn's 'The Donkey's Ears' at the moment, a
example of poetry you'd probably not like, but once I've finished I'll
look them up.
nic.
glen
nic ollivčre wrote in message <396e4234...@news.demon.co.uk>...
>On Thu, 13 Jul 2000 19:58:35 +0100, "glen" <h...@notic.fsnet.co.uk>
>remarked as such:
>
>>>hi glen,
>
>> (you read faust by
>>goethe?, i'd recommend it if you haven't, a work of semi-contrived genius,
a
>>whole 2 books of a rhyming versed story, a modern myth)....
>
>I'm ashamed to say I haven't. I've read Marlowe's Dr. Faustus is that
>is any compensation.
not read that, faust is a trip though....
>
>>you're probably right, it is a form of laziness in a purely artistic
sense,
>>but this is the point, as the real effort lies in finding its meaning and
>>not the perfection of the art.
>
>But surely quite often there will be no meaning in such a freefall
>poem?
not in my experience, or a lot of psychologists. all the free-associative
stuff i've done, after a lot of work and dissecting, hits the centre of it
and a feeling rushes all over me, like dejavu or something, it is quite
strange...
>
>>don't get me wrong, i read a hell of a lot, from writers of non-fiction to
>>history and the study of mysticism to science and whatnot, but i don't let
>>it affect my free-art is all, it just affects my perception of life....
>
>You don't let it affect your free-art? How is that possible? If free
>art is produced without conscious effort surely you can not stop it
>affecting you; that would be a conscious decision.
you're right really, i should have explained. what i read all goes into the
unconscious, or so the theory goes, so it will affect whatever is sending
the words and images from the unconscious, but i meant in my consciousness
really, like i don't read something by someone and then think "hmm, what he
said i liked, i'll put that in my poem" or anything like that. but you're
right about the conscious decision and stuff i think, it's a matter of it
affects the unconscious in some way which then comes out as it comes out, so
must affect me eventually....
>
>>i wouldn't say differ as such, more a case of i'm standing behind you
>>tapping you on the shoulder and you're getting annoyed because you can't
see
>>me properly, you're too busy going forward sort of thing, which i don't
mean
>>to do as a pain in the arse sense really, like that python sketch "wink
>>wink, nudge nudge, say no more..", my intentions are to show others that
>>there is a shadow cast while facing the sun....
>
>Don't get too Platonic on me here.
apologies..
>I don't think you can really know what my intentions are other than I
>believe art should go through a conscious process at some stage;
i know, did i say your intentions then? i gave a metaphor to how i saw the
situation, but i'd never claim to know anothers intentions....
thus
>also where I stand in relation to you, and if I'm standing at all.
absolutely, all i know is i stand and talk, you stand and talk etc. etc.,
and what you talk to me i put through my machine to adjust my perception of
stuff, and i've been doing a lot of that lately since i've been here.
you're ideas hold ground in me, but that doesn't mean i understand you, i
just understand how your words and ideas work in my head....
>
>
>>from the history so far both last, the heretics and the orthodox, from
>>shakespeare to maiers (famous alchemist), but they seem to have stayed in
>>the same places, one in the majorities and one in the minorities. now,
>>thankfully, people aren't burnt on the stake for reading the ones that
>>aren't orthodox, the're just slagged off in poetry groups (not meaning
you,
>>but i'm sure you're aware of those who do)...
>
>It's not a case of being non-orthodox as far as I can tell.
what isn't, heretics? heretics are non-orthodox as the're booted out of the
ortodox regime, like free-art is kicked out of the orthodox regime of
perfected art, but i'm not sure what you really mean here....
>
>>p.s. to get a good idea of the conceptual writing i speak of check
michaux
>>out, he did it best for me, joseph meyers is interesting too.
>
>I'm reading Douglas Dunn's 'The Donkey's Ears' at the moment, a
>example of poetry you'd probably not like, but once I've finished I'll
>look them up.
i don't not like anything, it might not resonate with me as well as say
michaux is at the moment, but i wouldn't dislike it, i guarantee it, i just
might take it down for future reading, and i love the title....
take care
peace
glen
AskSimon
poet is becoming rarer and far between. Thank you for
brightening my day.
* Sent from AltaVista http://www.altavista.com Where you can also find related Web Pages, Images, Audios, Videos, News, and Shopping. Smart is Beautiful
Aidan Tynan
>>
>>Show a good poem that 'just happened' without any conscious effort.
>
>many people have thought my jester poem to be good,
Your jester poem was pretty woeful. If that's all you have to prove your
theory then I remain unconvinced.
and my canyon poem on
>other groups, and my tale of nothincia, all of which were done
>free-association.....
>
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>Show me where psychology says poetry can be created in the manner you say
>it
>>can.
>>
>
>"psychiatric studies", "experimental research" by jung "interpretation of
>dreams" by freud,
Is there a direct quote stating that 'good poetry can be written without any
conscious effort'? If there was then I'd say the author didn't know much
about what constitutes good poetry.
,
>
>i'm saying that good is a perception so anything in reality can be good
Nope: there is good poetry, and then there is bad poetry. Just because some
people happens to like a bad poem (like your jester poem) doesn't change the
fact that the poem is bad when compared to the body of existing poet work.
Unless you admit this then you will be able to pick and choose which
critique is valid and which is not. You'll be able to reject any one who
says your poetry is sub-standard (because every opinion is *subjective*),
and you'll never learn anything from those who know more than you.
If you're really interested in improving then you'll have to address the
flaws in your work (some of which have already been pointed out to you on
this group).
>depending on the perceivers choice of good or bad. my saying good poetry
>exists in actual reality didn't happen, i've said people will perceive
>uncrafted poetry as good...
If you believe this and refuse to change your mind then you're in the wrong
newsgroup (oh yeah, I forgot, you're a troll).
-Aidan
glen
Aidan Tynan wrote in message ...
>
>>>
>>>Show a good poem that 'just happened' without any conscious effort.
>>
>>many people have thought my jester poem to be good,
>
>Your jester poem was pretty woeful. If that's all you have to prove your
>theory then I remain unconvinced.
>
>and my canyon poem on
>>other groups, and my tale of nothincia, all of which were done
>>free-association.....
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>
>
>>>Show me where psychology says poetry can be created in the manner you say
>>it
>>>can.
>>>
>>
>>"psychiatric studies", "experimental research" by jung "interpretation of
>>dreams" by freud,
>
>Is there a direct quote stating that 'good poetry can be written without
any
>conscious effort'? If there was then I'd say the author didn't know much
>about what constitutes good poetry.
i just told you, i am talking about good poetry as not existing, i am saying
the word good is a perception so good poetry exists in peoples minds.
poetry, or a load of words put together to sound pretty, exists as what we
see, whether you think it good or not is another matter completety, it is a
matter of how your mind processes the art and then decides what it thinks it
is, which you can consult, for this particular idea on opposites, jungian
psychology or any ancient text from the east, as well as loads of others....
>
>,
>>
>>i'm saying that good is a perception so anything in reality can be good
>
>Nope: there is good poetry, and then there is bad poetry. Just because some
>people happens to like a bad poem (like your jester poem) doesn't change
the
>fact that the poem is bad when compared to the body of existing poet work.,
this is pointless, you're not seeing what i'm saying, you're seeing your
projection/perception of it, what you want to hear, i have covered all the
points you just said elsewhere. give me new arguments if you like, but
repeating yourself is getting nowhere, as i seem to be with you.....
>
>Unless you admit this then you will be able to pick and choose which
>critique is valid and which is not. You'll be able to reject any one who
>says your poetry is sub-standard (because every opinion is *subjective*),
>and you'll never learn anything from those who know more than you.
i learn every single day about myself from everything i come across, but i'm
not bothered about learning about an insignificant thing like bettering my
poety, which is making myself sound prettier when there are more important
things like mental health and others less forunate than myself that need
bettering. i want to better my perception of life and those who don't have
the gift of health or education etc., so i don't go around projecting all my
complexes onto everyone and calling it my opinion, or an objective reality
that isn't there. the comments i get here help me understand and better
myself, not my poetry, poetry is just a past time, be it a professional one
or an amateur one.....
>
>If you're really interested in improving then you'll have to address the
>flaws in your work (some of which have already been pointed out to you on
>this group).
i do address them, and i then see why i would write them and reflect the
psychology of myself, so my poetry reflects certain complexes within me,
which i learn about, but i don't waste my time trying to sound pretty...
>
>>depending on the perceivers choice of good or bad. my saying good poetry
>>exists in actual reality didn't happen, i've said people will perceive
>>uncrafted poetry as good...
>
>If you believe this and refuse to change your mind then you're in the wrong
>newsgroup (oh yeah, I forgot, you're a troll).
maybe, but i don't care for your insignificant opinion of me, you can do
that of poetry if you like, but my life is nothing but words on a computer
screen to you, but i'd appreciate your reasoning, which you seem to have
difficulty in releasing for whatever reason satisfying yourself with your
opinion...
peace
glen
>
>
>
>
>
>-Aidan
>
>
shamima khan
[snip]
> Nope: there is good poetry, and then there is bad poetry. Just because some
> people happens to like a bad poem (like your jester poem) doesn't change the
> fact that the poem is bad when compared to the body of existing poet work.
sorry to interrupt, but aidan, i think it would be useful if you gave some
of the criteria to determine a 'good' poem from a 'bad' poem.
regards,
sk
[more snip, sorry]
shamima khan
hey glen,
i'm not sure why you think bettering one's poetry means make it look/sound
pretty...
regards,
sk
glen (h...@notic.fsnet.co.uk) wrote:
> hiccup
> >Nope: there is good poetry, and then there is bad poetry. Just because some
> >people happens to like a bad poem (like your jester poem) doesn't change
> the
> peace
> glen
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >-Aidan
> >
> >
glen
shamima khan wrote in message <8kn1se$jme$5...@bertrand.ccs.carleton.ca>...
>
>hey glen,
>
>i'm not sure why you think bettering one's poetry means make it look/sound
>pretty...
>
well poetry is an aesthetic art, i thought, and how the poems points gets
"delivered" (how the readers eye sees the poem and where this initial
perception then takes them) i thought was the thing everyone was interested
in here. i mean i could write a load of random wise quotes or something
and call it a poem, so it would have deep insight but without the form to
make it look aesthetically pleasing, there might not be flow etc., so not
pretty, and aestheticism is prettyness isn't it? again this is the
difference i think in the conceptual stuff, as the conceptual artist is more
interested in getting his concept behind his words across, is more
interested in where the reader is going than where the reader is in the
poem, so spends less time on how the concept is seen and more time on what
the concept means, which then goes back to the debate of how some people
can't see a concept unless it's well put, but others who look deeper and
look for meaning in the weird stuff, find that often random looking pieces
of art, once pieced together by the reader (which is another point of the
conceptual artist, he involves the reader in making the art as much as the
artist did so the art is never finished, as each reader has to build it, to
finish it off sort of thing), makes more sense and took less time then
making a well crafted piece of art, to some, of course. hope i helped..
cheers
peace
glen
Ryan Deschamps
> hi
> shamima khan wrote in message <8kn1se$jme$5...@bertrand.ccs.carleton.ca>...
> >
> >hey glen,
> >
> >i'm not sure why you think bettering one's poetry means make it look/sound
> >pretty...
> well poetry is an aesthetic art, i thought, and how the poems points gets
> "delivered" (how the readers eye sees the poem and where this initial
> perception then takes them) i thought was the thing everyone was interested
> in here. i mean i could write a load of random wise quotes or something
> and call it a poem, so it would have deep insight but without the form to
> make it look aesthetically pleasing, there might not be flow etc., so not
> pretty, and aestheticism is prettyness isn't it?
This interests me deeply. Poetry is words and words in and of themselves
are not really that pretty. I mean we are talking about black and white
symbols on a page. Even if they are put together in a picture, it will
never look as good as a painter putting colors on a canvas.
Poetry, even spoken poetry, does not sound as beautiful as music. It
does not make you bop your feet, it does not make you want to pull grand
jette (sp?) like Barishnokov-- not unless it is supported by music.
Poetry is art using language. The aesthetic of poetry is *meaning*.
Sound and visual effects merely support this aesthetic of meaning. Those
symbols we see on a page are beautiful only because they mean something
more than what they intrinsically are. The sounds of words work the same
way.
Visual art is spacially aesthetic. Music is temporally aesthetic.
Poetry is some combination of these and semantic aesthetics. Both visual
art and music have its combinations too. (Visual art sometime contains
words, music often has lyrics etc.)
> look for meaning in the weird stuff, find that often random looking pieces
> of art, once pieced together by the reader (which is another point of the
> conceptual artist, he involves the reader in making the art as much as the
> artist did so the art is never finished, as each reader has to build it, to
> finish it off sort of thing), makes more sense and took less time then
> making a well crafted piece of art, to some, of course. hope i helped..
Reader's response theory. I like it. But another theory is that a good
poet's poems don't *have* to be fully understood in order to be
appreciated. For example, sound device and imagery do its emotional
stuff on the reader in many poems without the reader having to analyse
what "deeper" meaning lie within.
That's why lots of contemporary poets are using ambiguity and blank
ironies in their poems. To them, there is no deeper meaning-- what's
more important is how we react to art, and how art makes us react to it.
For example, good poems aren't like good houses. Bad houses fall and
kill us. Bad poems don't. However, when poets write poorly, it makes
us feel as if they are doing something *very* wrong-- as if our house
might fall around us. This has a lot to do with the impact of a good
poem. We've read good poems and have felt them important somehow. They
aren't intrinsically important, but perhaps emotionally important. Kind
of like having sex and passing on your genes or something.
Ryan. .
Ryan Deschamps
http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~greebie/Profile.html - Personal Profile
http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~greebie/cinquain.html - Poetry Page
shamima khan
this was a *great* read. thanks ryan. you gave me a lot to think about.
sk
shamima khan
> hi
> shamima khan wrote in message <8kn1se$jme$5...@bertrand.ccs.carleton.ca>...
> >
> >hey glen,
> >
> >i'm not sure why you think bettering one's poetry means make it look/sound
> >pretty...
> >
> well poetry is an aesthetic art, i thought, and how the poems points gets
> "delivered" (how the readers eye sees the poem and where this initial
> perception then takes them) i thought was the thing everyone was interested
> in here. i mean i could write a load of random wise quotes or something
> and call it a poem, so it would have deep insight but without the form to
> make it look aesthetically pleasing, there might not be flow etc., so not
> pretty, and aestheticism is prettyness isn't it? again this is the
> difference i think in the conceptual stuff, as the conceptual artist is more
> interested in getting his concept behind his words across, is more
> interested in where the reader is going than where the reader is in the
> poem, so spends less time on how the concept is seen and more time on what
> the concept means, which then goes back to the debate of how some people
> can't see a concept unless it's well put, but others who look deeper and
> look for meaning in the weird stuff, find that often random looking pieces
> of art, once pieced together by the reader (which is another point of the
> conceptual artist, he involves the reader in making the art as much as the
> artist did so the art is never finished, as each reader has to build it, to
> finish it off sort of thing), makes more sense and took less time then
> making a well crafted piece of art, to some, of course. hope i helped..
> cheers
> peace
> glen
thanks glen.
regards,
sk
glen
i am deeply intrigued by what you are saying ryan, please read on......
Ryan Deschamps wrote in message ...
>On Fri, 14 Jul 2000, glen wrote:
>
>> hi
>> shamima khan wrote in message <8kn1se$jme$5...@bertrand.ccs.carleton.ca>...
>> >
>> >hey glen,
>> >
>> >i'm not sure why you think bettering one's poetry means make it
look/sound
>> >pretty...
>
>> well poetry is an aesthetic art, i thought, and how the poems points gets
>> "delivered" (how the readers eye sees the poem and where this initial
>> perception then takes them) i thought was the thing everyone was
interested
>> in here. i mean i could write a load of random wise quotes or something
>> and call it a poem, so it would have deep insight but without the form to
>> make it look aesthetically pleasing, there might not be flow etc., so not
>> pretty, and aestheticism is prettyness isn't it?
>
>This interests me deeply. Poetry is words and words in and of themselves
>are not really that pretty. I mean we are talking about black and white
>symbols on a page. Even if they are put together in a picture, it will
>never look as good as a painter putting colors on a canvas.
again this is debatable though, like what i said about french, i love the
language and don't speak a word of it, except for the 'bonjours' and
'jabeeta england' type stuff, but the language itself i find beautiful,
eloquent sort of, so in this sense just plain old words are pretty for me.
i mean words still have curves and lines and can mold together well, like
anagrams and stuff (although this is moving away from collective language
into individual symbols), so in this sense words are as artistic as a black
and white picture because they are shapes, but to see words beyond boring
old human language i think we have to see that human language is but one
language, there is also the language of symbols, where any image before our
eyes communicates something to us, regardless of whether other people
understand it or our logic does....
if you go back to the beginnings of human thought, anything written was seen
as beauty, like hieroglyphs were symbols that seemed to be beautiful
pictures yet practical means of communication to the egyptians.
again just thoughts and stuff, but it seems the first words were practical
and beautiful to the early humans, like worshipping the gods through them
while speaking to each other, and giving thanks to the gods for blessing
them with words, as words were thought to be given them by the gods, not
actually formulated by and for the people in the tribe, as whatever the
shaman of the tribe said was what the gods wanted the tribe to know, not
just what the shaman thought, because the shaman was thought to have a
direct connection to the gods, more so than the rest of the tribe, but this
is just what it looks like from the reading i've done on ancient
peoples......
>
>Poetry, even spoken poetry, does not sound as beautiful as music.
i agree there, it's why i bought myself a soprano sax, to free myself from
words when they bog me down, it seems einstein loved his violin in the same
way, but in his case a freeing from mathematical language and not the
collective human language. i feel so much better for it too, i can now see
the world beyond human words, and it's so much bigger, infinite maybe....
It
>does not make you bop your feet,
what about chants though, and mantras?. if you take a sentence, i used
"the rhythm of everything", and keep repeating it and repeating it, the
human meaning of the words disappear and your left with a rhythm the
sentence makes, you could beat the rhythm of the sentence out on a drum for
example, like speaking into a mic and recording it and putting effects over
the voice till you can hear just a sort of rhythm without words, and this
rhythm is what's supposed to hypnotise you when you meditate on mantras, we
then transcend the human meaning of the words and penetrate the universal
rhythm/harmony of everything, in the eastern sense.
the first words were just sounds, like bamma, or daka etc., and tribes
chanted them in rituals to praise the gods, so i'm coming to thinking that
we used meaning in words to communicate something to each other (other
humans), and the rhythm through chants we praised the gods of the other
world with, so reflected the gods world of harmony through the harmony in
words, but through us now repressing these gods and their harmony into the
other world (unconscious) we have focussed our psychic energy (not mystical
in anyway, any energy of focus within the human psyche) on human meaning, so
causing an imbalance in the psyche, where we focus our attention solely on
the outside world instead of the feelings and instinct that compels us to do
anything aswell..... just a thought.....
it does not make you want to pull grand
>jette (sp?) like Barishnokov-- not unless it is supported by music.
again there's the other side, not that i'm disagreeing as i prefer music to
words at the moment, but there are ideas out there saying that words have
rhythm, we just have to forget about the meaning we've projected into them
and experience the feeling they provoke beyond what we say they mean...
>
>Poetry is art using language. The aesthetic of poetry is *meaning*.
hmmm, i don't get this, as finding meaning i see as the science, like using
logical functions to understand what someone is communicating to us, the
aesthetic side i saw as what is automatically/instinctually pleasant to the
senses type of thing (although with complexes formed by over focussing on
words the automatic reaction would be a result of the complex we have formed
and not the instinctual reaction, in psychology this is reacting to the
personal unconscious instead of the collective unconscious), where they
provoke feelings in us in the same way a melody creates feeling. for
example, logical discussions don't provoke feeling in me, like this one, i
just sort of logically feed what you're saying into my head and see if it
works with the logic what's already in my conscious knowledge or experience,
but beautiful melodys and meditating on mantras can really move me, what
moves me emotionally nowadays isn't human opinion or words, but the
experience of things beyond the human sphere of understanding.
i'm really interested in what your saying ryan and would love to go further
with this, if you're willing to take it further......
>Sound and visual effects merely support this aesthetic of meaning. Those
>symbols we see on a page are beautiful only because they mean something
>more than what they intrinsically are
this i'm not sure of, i mean a tree blowing in the wind doesn't really mean
anything at face value, but just seeing it provokes emotion in me (when in
an empty frame of mind), so i guess it could still have a meaning but an
instinctual type of meaning, one rooted within us somewhere that connects
the tree to our psyche in someway, in the same way a tree was sculpted by
nature as our human forms were. the further ideas on this relate to
synchronicity, an inner connection to everything.....
. The sounds of words work the same
>way.
i think i get you, not sure, but are you saying that beauty in words is down
to the meaning we put in them? so the rhythm of a sentence would be what is
behind the meaning, what is unconscious to the meaning of a word we make in
consciousness? if you are saying this i agree, i think, as the meaning in
words themself is what we humans have put in them, the rhythm though is the
primary meaning to words, as the first words were just sounds representing
something in reality, like the word "rush" sounding like a rushing river for
example, so we were reflecting and copying what was before us already, in
the "melody" (rhythm) that provoked us so much that we copied it to create
the first words, which is an instinct we still have to good melodies today,
when we whistle or can't get songs out of our head.
if you're interested in this there's a good book by levy-bruhl called 'how
natives think', he takes the words used by primitive tribes and explains the
context in which the natives use them, the're mainly sounds like bak or
dumma, each one with a sound rooted in a sound in nature that lead them to
create the word, and where the sound comes from is what the tribe have shown
him, (this not castanadean in anyway, levy-bruhl is a scientist before
anything else) with him trying to piece it all together to make it
comprehensible to the reader. it gives a great and new perspective on
modern day words, and from what you're saying i think you'd like it, it
gives a perspective of words from a way we first saw them as before we used
them in logical methods to explain the universe around us, when we used them
to just praise and worship this marvellous vision before us. i'm not saying
i'm of the primitive idea solely, but it has helped me see words in a new
light, a light balanced in logic as well as instinct (or i'm getting there
anyway)......
>
>Visual art is spacially aesthetic. Music is temporally aesthetic.
>Poetry is some combination of these and semantic aesthetics. Both visual
>art and music have its combinations too. (Visual art sometime contains
>words, music often has lyrics etc.)
i'd agree with what you say of poetry, it is a medium between the inner
world of the gods/opinions/meaning (what doesn't exist of the physical
plain) and the world of nature (the physical world), so they can exist as
either 2 seperate things - pure meaning or pure aesthetic - or you can put
them both together to create......what? i believe it is art in the sense the
first people practised the divine art of alchemy, the art that sought a
medium between the world of man and the world of the unknown, handed down
from hermes, the egyptian god thoth. this is, however, creating a medium
where all logic fails, as logic is sided in meaning and finding it, where
the pure aesthetic is sided in just the feelings provoked by what we see as
beauty, so what you're saying seems to go back to the first civilisations
and how they used the word, like the egyptians and how they used words on
the level of communication with the gods and to other humans, and used
images and pictures when making this communication real, when making them
something concrete and something to actually see on papyrus.
i am not sure if i fully understand what you're saying though, but am truly
interested, we might want to start either another thread or continue through
email though, the subject might be beyond comments on poems....
>
>
>> look for meaning in the weird stuff, find that often random looking
pieces
>> of art, once pieced together by the reader (which is another point of the
>> conceptual artist, he involves the reader in making the art as much as
the
>> artist did so the art is never finished, as each reader has to build it,
to
>> finish it off sort of thing), makes more sense and took less time then
>> making a well crafted piece of art, to some, of course. hope i helped..
>
>Reader's response theory. I like it. But another theory is that a good
>poet's poems don't *have* to be fully understood in order to be
>appreciated.
exactly, this is really what i'm saying, that there is feeling provoked in
art beyond what our opinion/understanding makes of it, and this
non-understanding is what i love about the free-poetry, although eventually
these non-sensible amalgamtions of words do make sense to me, not often from
my own search for their meaning, but something might happen where i will
remember a poem that confused me, and the light of this new experience on
what previously had no meaning (a weird poem for example) has a very clear
meaning. i do find that what doesn't make sense one week, can make perfect
sense the next, with time being that which tells of the meaning, like the
alchemists would leave their mixed metals to settle for a long time, after
which the golden elixir was born....
For example, sound device and imagery do its emotional
>stuff on the reader in many poems without the reader having to analyse
>what "deeper" meaning lie within.
i'd agree, the meaning is related to what the reader is already conscious of
maybe, where things like a michaux poem (only my example, he is often very
confusing and seemingly random to me) that have no relation to what i am
conscious or knowledgable of at the time of reading, will later on come back
to me in a new light and make perfect sense, usually more sense than "plain
old english", as usually the sense brought about is a sense dealing with the
meaning of the psychological symbolism in the poem, and not the meaning in
strictly human communication terms.....
>
>That's why lots of contemporary poets are using ambiguity and blank
>ironies in their poems. To them, there is no deeper meaning--
not sure about this, if you talk of some poets i'd agree, but to others they
ambiguise their poetry so the reader has to take part in the discovery of a
meaning, not an objective meaning perhaps, but a meaning that the reader
finds within it, (like alchemical poetry) and a meaning that the reader had
to find by searching, so the meaning wasn't simply plonked on their lap by
an easily comprehensible poem. in alchemcy this was the process of
divination through "the divine art", as a true "student of hermes" (what the
alchemists often called themselves) had to go through the process of
discovery before being enlightened, it wasn't a simple matter of reading
something and understanding it, it had to meditated over for a long time
before the gold within their words was found....
what's
>more important is how we react to art, and how art makes us react to it.
i agree, and the more confusing i find any art, the more it provokes
intrigue, which seems to be a popular way of thinking in many who enjoy
conceptual art, as it involves the perceiver to search the art in front of
them, and which taken further makes the perceiver search themself by
searching for the meaning in a piece of art, be the art poems or images or
sound or even a photograph of ayres rock, as meaning can be found in
anything, meaning being something humans project from within to without...
>For example, good poems aren't like good houses. Bad houses fall and
>kill us. Bad poems don't.
aaaah, someone who understands this, this is like the plumbing thing i said
to someone. you can do art without being conscious of what you're doing and
no-one gets hurt, if a plumber isn't aware of what he's doing he puts
himself at risk of building leaky pipes, and people get wet or have no
water, bad poetry just pisses self-righteous poets off...
However, when poets write poorly, it makes
>us feel as if they are doing something *very* wrong--
..and often the poets reason for doing so, as you've said. this, i think,
goes down to projection, like you say we 'feel' they do wrong, so the
feeling within us is leading us to so called rational decisions on good or
bad poetry, when feelings aren't rational, they spring up within us often
for completely unexplained reasons, so rational decisions based on feelings
aren't rational, the're what our own feelings make of something, and which
we then class as an opposite of either good or bad, right or wrong etc......
as if our house
>might fall around us.
indeed, and an opinion falling down around us can be walked out of without
any harm brought upon us, as our opinions we build ourself, so when they
don't work and collapse around us only ourself is to blame. and by falling
down i don't mean everyone around us disagrees with us, i mean it when we
become so enraged by something that it threatens this opinion and we weaken
the frame of our house through shouting in it so loudly, or tearing it to
pieces from within, or the house of opinion was so badly built that the big
bad wolf huffs and he puffs and he blows our house down.
this also reminds me of something nietzche said, that a good philosopher
doesn't fear for when the huge building of knowledge he creates falls down,
for once destroyed he is left with the bricks to rebuild it, with the
advantage of seeing every single brick seperately and discovering which one
had the fault, so rebuilding the house with better foundations in the light
of experience next time round....
This has a lot to do with the impact of a good
>poem. We've read good poems and have felt them important somehow. They
>aren't intrinsically important, but perhaps emotionally important.
i agree, they are important to the readers emotions and the reader only, or
maybe many other like minded readers, but a majoritive opinion is never
objective reality.....
Kind
>of like having sex and passing on your genes or something.
yeah man, good analogy, i like..
cheers, take care, i hope we can continue this, i'm really intrested....
peace
glen
"what is thinking? and how does one think? we think with words; that in
itself is sensual and brings us back to nature. think of it! a
metaphysician has nothing with which to build his world system except the
perfected cries of monkeys and dogs. what he calls profound speculation and
transcendental method is merely the stringing together, in an arbitary
order, of onomatopoeic cries of hunger, fear, and love from the primeval
forests, to which have become attatched, little by little, meanings that are
believed to be abstract merely because they are loosely used. have no fear
that the succession of little cries, however extinct or enfeebled, that
composes a book of philosophy will teach us so much about the universe that
we can no longer go on living in it"
-anatole france (from le jardin d-epicure)
Aidan Tynan
>i learn every single day about myself from everything i come across, but
i'm
>not bothered about learning about an insignificant thing like bettering my
>poety,
PLONK
-Aidan
which is making myself sound prettier when there are more important
>things like mental health and others less forunate than myself that need
>bettering. i want to better my perception of life and those who don't have
>the gift of health or education etc., so i don't go around projecting all
my
>complexes onto everyone and calling it my opinion, or an objective reality
>that isn't there. the comments i get here help me understand and better
>myself, not my poetry, poetry is just a past time, be it a professional one
>or an amateur one.....
>
>>
>>If you're really interested in improving then you'll have to address the
>>flaws in your work (some of which have already been pointed out to you on
>>this group).
>
>
>i do address them, and i then see why i would write them and reflect the
>psychology of myself, so my poetry reflects certain complexes within me,
>which i learn about, but i don't waste my time trying to sound pretty...
>
>>
>>>depending on the perceivers choice of good or bad. my saying good poetry
>>>exists in actual reality didn't happen, i've said people will perceive
>>>uncrafted poetry as good...
>>
Ryan Deschamps
<snip>
> >Poetry is art using language. The aesthetic of poetry is *meaning*.
> hmmm, i don't get this, as finding meaning i see as the science,
I thikn you misunderstand what I mean. I am talking about "meaning" in
its purest sense as when one thing "means" something else. I think you
are talking a little more broad as in "discover the "meaning" of this
poem." Poems don't necessarily have to "mean" anything directly, but
meaning is the asthetic. Read on.
> >Sound and visual effects merely support this aesthetic of meaning. Those
> >symbols we see on a page are beautiful only because they mean something
> >more than what they intrinsically are
> this i'm not sure of, i mean a tree blowing in the wind doesn't really mean
> anything at face value, but just seeing it provokes emotion in me (when in
> an empty frame of mind),
take the word "tree." Intrinsically, the word "tree" is a 't' followed by
an 'r' followed by two 'e's. What the word "tree" represents, hoever, is
something aesthetically beautiful-- that thing outside your yard with the
leaves and branches and trunk and bark and birds chirping (etc). Poetry
takes things even further because a "tree" in poetry is almost never only
a "tree" but also something else (tree of life/tree of knowledge etc).
Poetry uses the meaning of words to effect our emotions-- that's the
aesthetic. (as opposed to art that uses space to effects us visually and
music that uses time and sound to effect us aurally). Of course, some
poems effect us aurally and visually too-- but it's semantics that's the
primary aesthetic-- sound and visual aspects are secondary.
> . The sounds of words work the same
> >way.
>
> i think i get you, not sure, but are you saying that beauty in words is down
> to the meaning we put in them? so the rhythm of a sentence would be what is
> behind the meaning, what is unconscious to the meaning of a word we make in
> consciousness?
Yes. That's it.
> >Visual art is spacially aesthetic. Music is temporally aesthetic.
> >Poetry is some combination of these and semantic aesthetics. Both visual
> >art and music have its combinations too. (Visual art sometime contains
> >words, music often has lyrics etc.)
<snip>
> the pure aesthetic is sided in just the feelings provoked by what we see as
> beauty, so what you're saying seems to go back to the first civilisations
> and how they used the word, like the egyptians and how they used words on
> the level of communication with the gods and to other humans, and used
> images and pictures when making this communication real, when making them
> something concrete and something to actually see on papyrus.
> i am not sure if i fully understand what you're saying though, but am truly
> interested, we might want to start either another thread or continue through
> email though, the subject might be beyond comments on poems....
How long have you been on rap? bahh-- people talk about everything and
anything besides poetry-- our discussion is at least vaguely related to
poetry0-- we are discussing aesthetic and how poetry creates it. That
sounds pretty inoucuous to me.
> However, when poets write poorly, it makes
> This has a lot to do with the impact of a good
> >poem. We've read good poems and have felt them important somehow. They
> >aren't intrinsically important, but perhaps emotionally important.
>
> i agree, they are important to the readers emotions and the reader only, or
> maybe many other like minded readers, but a majoritive opinion is never
> objective reality.....
>
> Kind
> >of like having sex and passing on your genes or something.
>
>
> yeah man, good analogy, i like..
> cheers, take care, i hope we can continue this, i'm really intrested....
>
> peace
>
> glen
Ryan. . .
Joy Yourcenar
<gre...@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote:
>> i am not sure if i fully understand what you're saying though, but am truly
>> interested, we might want to start either another thread or continue through
>> email though, the subject might be beyond comments on poems....
>
>How long have you been on rap? bahh-- people talk about everything and
>anything besides poetry-- our discussion is at least vaguely related to
>poetry0-- we are discussing aesthetic and how poetry creates it. That
>sounds pretty inoucuous to me.
You're in AAPC, right now, darling man.
Joy
I am the milkman of human kindness, so leave an extra pint.
~Billy Bragg~
Ryan Deschamps
> On Tue, 18 Jul 2000 11:51:30 -0300, Ryan Deschamps
> <gre...@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote:
>
> >> i am not sure if i fully understand what you're saying though, but am truly
> >> interested, we might want to start either another thread or continue through
> >> email though, the subject might be beyond comments on poems....
> >
> >How long have you been on rap? bahh-- people talk about everything and
> >anything besides poetry-- our discussion is at least vaguely related to
> >poetry0-- we are discussing aesthetic and how poetry creates it. That
> >sounds pretty inoucuous to me.
>
> You're in AAPC, right now, darling man.
Same damn thing. :)
Christopher Keelan
Except for Thursdays. We don't have ice cream on Thursdays. And
Bettina isn't around for anyone to say bad things about her so
that jr can kill him.
Other than that, pretty close.
- Chris
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I've have personally heard, at a minimum, 100 poems containing
this exact same line. Unfortunately, none of them were successful.
- Tom Woolery
-----------------------------------------------------------
Got questions? Get answers over the phone at Keen.com.
Up to 100 minutes free!
http://www.keen.com
glen
-----Original Message-----
From: Ryan Deschamps <gre...@chebucto.ns.ca>
Newsgroups: alt.arts.poetry.comments
Date: 18 July 2000 15:51
Subject: Re: Glass Heart C & C
>On Fri, 14 Jul 2000, glen wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>> >Poetry is art using language. The aesthetic of poetry is *meaning*.
>
>> hmmm, i don't get this, as finding meaning i see as the science,
>
>I thikn you misunderstand what I mean. I am talking about "meaning" in
>its purest sense as when one thing "means" something else. I think you
>are talking a little more broad as in "discover the "meaning" of this
>poem." Poems don't necessarily have to "mean" anything directly, but
>meaning is the asthetic.
right, so if meaning is the aesthetic, in order to appreciate the aesthetic
we'd have to discover the meaning right? as with us humans being an ends (a
product of primal/primary/natural means) we would have to learn how to go go
back to the means, or learn how to forget that we are actually an ends in
order to experience the means first hand, as opposed to translating the
means into comprehensible human terms (ends).
take a tree, in itself beyond the word tree, (the experience of seeing a
green bushy thing before i make it comprehensible and call it a tree),
doesn't mean anything as it's just a natural thing in front of me, (this is
before i then tell anyone else it is a tree and use the word tree) so it is
the experience of actual phenomena that moves me when i see it, but meaning
is then what i would portray through a poem or other words about this
experience.
i think we may be getting mixed up with the difference of writing about a
tree and experiencing a tree, as the experience of a tree, in the way i
meant when i really appreciate it and am clear from thought in mind, is what
moves me, and the word tree is not even in my mind then as i have detatched
from any "particular" meaning and am experiecing the vision and movement of
a tree. maybe you mean the underlying meaning to a tree would be what the
tree awoke in my unconscious, so are you saying that meaning isn't "only"
meaning in words/semantics, like an interpretation of the tree to human
terms, but that the unconscious feeling provoked by seeing a tree is itself
meaning? this takes away the fundamentals of what the word "meaning" means
as it is what our conscious logic (which is the ends to the means of an
unknown/unconscious desire to want to know anything) uses to "find" the
means (meaning) and is not the means itself; the word meaning is simply an
adjective to the words means, so "describes" a meaning and is not the means
in itself. this primal/unconscious meaning-in-itself is what i would refer
to as "rhythm", in that i forget my humaness/logic and become part of the
rhythm (harmony) of the actual experience of nature via my deepest,
unconscious roots, and am pushed along in the way lao tzu describes being
pushed along by "tao" (the way of everything so to speak), where we forget
ourself and our own existence and no longer "co-exist" with nature as me
being its ends and nature the means (as ends and means co-exist and can see
each other and comprehend each other as they are two different
things/opposites), but exist "as one" and connect as one and the same
organism that is all of life, so can no longer distinguish any means as i am
one with the means itself by forgetting i exist. so when i'm a part of this
"rhythm" i am not distinguishing the tree from anything else with my
conscious logic and am just "feeling" it as part of myself (part of my
unconscious/primal roots), i become meaning itself so become unaware of
meaning by being awareness itself, or meaning itself, or i become everything
itself and deny consciousness (for awareness to be aware of itself is like a
computer being aware of itself and forming consciousness, so i become like a
computer while mesmerised by the tree), i become unconscious to such things
as the word tree which i consciously formulate later on to tell others what
it is (to make it mean something when i then become aware of myself as the
ends and can consciously understand the means again). another word is a
word used in zen buddhism called "zazen", or "nirvana" in buddhism, where we
become unaware of our own individual existence and become one with all
existence, but in buddhism this is to be an eternal state of being, where as
i just visit this stae of absolute awareness when i meditate of am
hypnotised by a tree.
this may take a bit of time, and i hope you have the patience to
explain, as you seem very philosophically minded, the way you explain
yourself is anyhow. it's similar to how kant and schopenhauer explain their
theories (not that i'm saying you are kantian/schopenhauerian in thought as
such, though i suspect there is some kantian thought in there, it looks
similiar), and i'm not too hot on western philosophy at the moment, i've
been mostly learning how to forget, through the philosophies of lao tzu and
chuang tzu, alchemy etc., as these people spoke of the divine knowledge as
forgetting all knowledge so having no knowledge, though things have changed
for me now .
i went through a phase a long while ago, around 2-3 years ago, where i
would soar the lofty heights of philosophy in the form of plato,
schopenhauer, nietzche, democritus, kant etc., but came back down to earth
as the answers i truely sought in life were grounded in the planet i came
from, and i wished for an understanding of "experience" rather than
explanation of experience into logical terms, and this understadnding of
direct experience, like in a "primal roots" sense of understanding our
instincts, leads to an un-understanding of everything consciously logical,
and becoming one with these roots again, but once this oneness has been
experienced again by modern man, i believe we can "start from scratch" as
they say, without forgetting these roots in subjects such as science,
philosophy, art etc.. i think understanding our primal instincts involves
forgetting such things as words and conscious knowledge in order to let the
feelings/instincts come from the primal forests (unconscious) unhindered by
conscious logic and effect us directly, beyond us putting it into words and
making it comprehensible (is this direct experience of feeling what you are
calling meaning in your above paragraph?). now, however, i feel i have
discovered some firm roots after immersing myself in ancient wisdom over a
long period of seclusion and meditation, and will be taking flight into the
philosophical language once again, knowing that it is a mind game and not a
science of understanding reality, and is a means of understanding "thought
itself", not reality, in the way plato described his forms, and trying to
understand n"wisdom" rather than understanding the outside world. i now see
understanding the psyches perception of reality as psychology, and realitys
perception of the psyche as objective/natural science - i guess philosophy
is understanding the things that go between the two, our thoughts, so i am
thinking philosophy will lead me from my now firm roots in the psyche
(soul), and out into the objective reality as explained and prooved with
science, in the same way philosophy led us from primitive beings into the
western civilised cities of ancient greece. i mention all this as i hope it
will explain why we seem to differ, and i think the difference is merely a
matter of approach, and a lot of the words you use i think i use other words
for....
Read on.
>
>> >Sound and visual effects merely support this aesthetic of meaning.
Those
>> >symbols we see on a page are beautiful only because they mean something
>> >more than what they intrinsically are
>
>> this i'm not sure of, i mean a tree blowing in the wind doesn't really
mean
>> anything at face value, but just seeing it provokes emotion in me (when
in
>> an empty frame of mind),
>
>take the word "tree." Intrinsically, the word "tree" is a 't' followed by
>an 'r' followed by two 'e's. What the word "tree" represents, hoever, is
>something aesthetically beautiful-- that thing outside your yard with the
>leaves and branches and trunk and bark and birds chirping (etc).
i think my above piece explained this, but the word tree is just what i used
to explain the experience of seeing a tree to you, not the experience of
seeing a tree itself, as while i was experiencing a tree i was completely
unaware of the word tree at all.
Poetry
>takes things even further because a "tree" in poetry is almost never only
>a "tree" but also something else (tree of life/tree of knowledge etc).
i undertand this, but this is the word "tree" that then moves us, or the
symbol that is the word tree, (the human interpretation of a green thing in
the garden), so the tree itself exists seperately and away from the word
tree, and it is this green thing in the garden i call a tree that was there
before i explained it into a meaning that moves me. the word tree is as you
explain, a "t" followed by an "r" followed by two "e"s, which us humans have
made so we can express this green thing with a brown bit in the middle into
comprehensible, human terms, but is not what the word tree means itself...
>Poetry uses the meaning of words to effect our emotions-- that's the
>aesthetic.
this i understand, it is using the symbol that is the word "tree", and
peoples perception of it, to connect it to other things that happen, or
maybe just an idea like the tree of knowledge etc., so uses peoples meaning
of the word tree to provoke emotions by various means, yes?
(as opposed to art that uses space to effects us visually and
>music that uses time and sound to effect us aurally). Of course, some
>poems effect us aurally and visually too-- but it's semantics that's the
>primary aesthetic--
this is a complicated thing to explain, especially as we are using
philosophical/philological means of explanation which i'm not well trained
in. are you seing aesthetic as existing in things beyond human
interpretation? i.e. do you see aesthetic as what us humans turn a natural
phenomena into through art, or is aesthetic being seen as already in the
tree and was put there by nature as the artist? i have, in the following
paragraphs, used aesthetic as what humans make a tree into, as the word
itself is a human term, but hope to hear what you're thinking on this is.
in the actual "aesthetic", not the feelings themselves a tree provokes
but the feelings provoked by the artists means of expressing the trees
beauty into a poem for example, the aesthetic is primary as it is the means
of making a tree seem beautiful in "the way the artist wants the tree to be
seen", which is different from how it is "actually" seen by me when my mind
is blank and am mesmerised by the tree, but if the emotions provoked by the
aesthetic are seen as primary, then all the semantics (aesthetics) are doing
is acting as messengers for this new human interpretation of the green thing
with a brown bit in the middle, and which goes from the artists vision into
becoming another persons vision, and in which case me being hypnotised by a
tree has nothing to do with semantics of any kind, and nothing to do with
aestheticism in any human kind, as it is the deepest roots of my nature that
holds me in awe of natures "aesthetic", which is, at the time of mesmeration
by the tree, completely unaware to me. like the way our ancestors became
awed by nature and started painting it on walls, and seeing
souls/spirits/gods in every last piece of nature. i'm not sure of how you
are thinking here though, is it a particular form of thought or author that
lead you to this thinking? or has an author/philosophy played a fundamental
part in you coming up with your ideas? if so could you let me know?, it
might make it easier to explain. i'm not sure whether you're seeing
aesthetic as an unconscious thing, the feeling that was awaoken by watching
a tree "itself", or if you're seeing aesthetic as what the poet uses to make
the tree beautiful in human understandable terms, when we make the tree mean
something beyond a green thing in the yard that is........
sound and visual aspects are secondary.
this would be in the human art form sense wouldn't it?, but the feelings,
from the other way of thinking, are the primary thing that moves the artist
to have a vision which he then creates a piece of art with and gives to
other people through the medium of art. like i say, i'm not sure of how
you're thinking, you've jumped a lot of the basics i think so am a bit
bewildered by what you are trying to say.....
>
>> . The sounds of words work the same
>> >way.
>>
>> i think i get you, not sure, but are you saying that beauty in words is
down
>> to the meaning we put in them? so the rhythm of a sentence would be what
is
>> behind the meaning, what is unconscious to the meaning of a word we make
in
>> consciousness?
>
>Yes. That's it.
so then meaning isn't primary, as the unconscious/primal feeling the tree
awakes in us is what starts any process of making any art whatsoever (to
make a tree mean something beyond a green thing), but then if you mean
primary from the point of view of the human making the tree
comprehensible/understandable to humans it would be primary to the "human"
process of understanding it/making it art, but there was still an
unconscious energy that provoked us to start the process of turning our
vision of a green thing into a vision for others to see and appreciate, the
only difference being this original energy that provoked us to make the art
is not consciously/logically comprehesible as it came from outside
consciousness (from unconscious/primal roots), so has no meaning until we
turn this unknown/primal energy into something consciousness (something that
came after unconsciousness) can understand and grasp. ultimately, i guess,
i'm saying that what we don't understand (darkness) comes before what we do
understand (light), as what we don't understand was the thing that made us
go "i want to understand that".......
this might not be understood, i'm unsure myself, but let me know where
you differ and we'll come towards an understanding i'm sure.
and congratulations to anyone who made it this far and has made any
sense, my hat's off to you,
cheers for listening, take care
peace
glen
Cheryl
It shows a side of your creativity that is very deep and profound.
Cheryl
"Chuck Lysaght" <chuckl...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:8kfdsq$mq8$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> Blue Lady in cotton dress
> Paper bags on your feet
> You sit
> On a seatless chair
> And stare through the stained glass heart
> You hold in your quiet hands
>
> You move slowly
> To the sooty window of despair
> And the faint rustle of hope behind you
> Is heard by one ear.
>
> Time floats above you.
> Your dusty ceiling moves
> To the music of lost dreams
> The future is caught in dangling cobwebs
> That hang high above the unquenchable darkness
> Of your songless nights, and so
> You sit
> Your glass heart weeps a crystal tear, and
> Your leaden laughter cracks the silence
>