Mark Twain: the more I learn, the less I see
Will Dockery
>
> The other day I was reading an excerpt from "Life on the
> Mississippi" by Mark Twain. In it he described how the more he learned
> how to read the river in order to navigate it the less he saw of its
> beauty.
This can easily apply to poetry, songwriting, and other arts... and a
problem with those who become so obsessed with act of writing the
poem, the form and structure, they begin to overlook the whole point
of creating it in the first place.
--
"Twilight Girl" and other poetry & music from Will Dockery:http://
www.myspace.com/willdockery
Orsen Wells w/Citizen Cain
"Will Dockery" <will.d...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:2ac957b5-85b8-4267...@o36g2000yqh.googlegroups.com...
On Feb 5, 10:24 pm, cecieb...@webtv.net (James Poe) wrote:
>
> The other day I was reading an excerpt from "Life on the
> Mississippi" by Mark Twain. In it he described how the more he learned
> how to read the river in order to navigate it the less he saw of its
> beauty.
This can easily apply to poetry, songwriting, and other arts... and a
problem with those who become so obsessed with act of writing the
poem, the form and structure, they begin to overlook the whole point
of creating it in the first place.
Mark Twain would stab you in the eye with his cigar and push you into the
Mississippi River, Will. You're a worthless douchebag, and Twain would
recognize that fact immediately.
Peter J Ross
Dockery <will.d...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Feb 5, 10:24 pm, cecieb...@webtv.net (James Poe) wrote:
>>
>> The other day I was reading an excerpt from "Life on the
>> Mississippi" by Mark Twain. In it he described how the more he learned
>> how to read the river in order to navigate it the less he saw of its
>> beauty.
>
> This can easily apply to poetry, songwriting, and other arts... and a
> problem with those who become so obsessed with act of writing the
> poem, the form and structure, they begin to overlook the whole point
> of creating it in the first place.
Having never attempted to learn how to navigate the river of
verse-writing, how would you know anything about it?
--
PJR :-)
Will Dockery
>Will Dockery wrote:
> >George Dance wrote:
>
> postpoetry
>
> although there's nothing left to say
> we're gonna say it anyway
> and if a reader doesn't read
> we'll call him something we don't need
> and if a critic calls it shit
> we won't believe a word of it
> and if a poet points that out
> we'll just ignore it and we'll shout
> about her frogs and trees and birds
> so we won't have to read her words
>
> or better yet let's write of war
> and fill a page or two with gore
> some reeking flesh a severed head
> and maggots feasting on the dead
> as for the robin what the heck
> we’ll wring the little birdie's neck
> and if perchance that doesn't shock
> let's add a line of fuck ass cock
> motherfucker piss and shit
> (who knows that just might pass for wit)
>
> what else to do what else to say
> when everything is mere cliche?
> how else to make a reader feel
> or think that what we say is real?
> of course the whole idea is dumb
> when we're as comfortably numb
> but if we act each proper motion
> we may find a real emotion –
> least it wastes an hour or two
> and we have nothing else to do
>
> Certainly it's a good idea to incorporate other people's ideas into
> your own work; only the vainest egotist will think that all and only
> his own ideas are sufficient to produce art, of any kind,
> consistently.
>
> An observation that also counts against Mr. Houstman's 'satori.' It's
> true that contemporary poets rely more on the knowledge base than
> their predecessors -- only because they have far better access -- but
> it's silly to think that means the death of art. For example, Dale's
> "collage and plagiarism" charge fits no modern poet better than Ezra
> Pound; but anyone who concluded from that that Pound produced no art
> would be only showing his own ignorance.
Stuart Leichter wrote:
Looking for something I remembered from a while back that relates led
me into an entire discussion on almost exactly the same points a while
back, when Stuart Leichter was still hanging out here:
"...My bubble gum card collection of Famous Moments in Poetry includes
Ezra Pound in the Imagists Series of cards, and (although you can't
trust bubble gum card anonymous writers -- Topps and Fleer are
corporate authors, if that) gives Pound the credit for introducing and
promoting 'haiku' (or 'hokku') along with other Japanese and Chinese
forms in English poetry, while he was editor of _Des Imagistes_ in
1913. Other cards in that series include H.D., Amy Lowell, and W.C.
Williams, who, coincidentally, is #1 in the First Set and #101 in the
Second Set, a double honor that Topps also gave to only one other
person: Ted Williams (in 1954 or 1955?) Kerouac and Maynard G. Krebs,
nevertheless, are the unsmug heroes and heralds of the Prepop Age..."
George Dance wrote:
> > > > My daughter asked me to share this poem (author unknown to either of us):
>
>>> Haiku are quite easy
>>> though sometimes they make no sense;
>>> refrigerator.
>
> > Hmm. Remind me of the first poem I ever memorized. It was from a
> > Beverley Hillbillies episode in which (for some reason connected with
> > the Drysdales) a Beat Poet from San Francisco was staying with the
> > Clampetts.
> > One day Granny found the poet standing on his head against a wall. He
> > told her he was meditating; when she asked why he told her (more or
> > less), "When I meditate, my brains soar." So she explained that it
> > was sore because all his blood was rushing to it, and pulled him
> > down.
> > He was a bit upset, and told her that was how he wrote his poetry.
> > She asked if he'd written a poem; he told her he had, and recited it
> > (and this part I've committed to memory):
>
> > Blue cheesecake
> > A silver spoon in the sand
> > The seaweed barks at me.
>
> > So she turned him upside down again, and left him there to write a
> > better one.
>
> Old school television had a grip on the Beat scene, no doubt... the Addams
> Family hosted a poetry gathering, while the Munsters took it on down the
> Highway 61.
> I'm sitting here with the television blasting on the side like old time
> radio, and Lucy and Ricky Ricardo are going through the old "handcuffed by
> accident" routine (TVLand could do a compilation of these, since it seems
> everyone on sitcom tv went through this at least once).
> An old locksmith from Yonkers is there to set 'em free but is more
> interested in Ricardo's music, as his wife is a fan... and he says "For
> Christmas I'll give her a drum."
As soon as I read those lines, I heard Ricky Nelson in my mind.
> So, in L&T tradition, what were the chances Dylan was sitting up one night,
> smoking weed and writing LMZNL, and the late night reruns playing soft off
> to the side is this "I Love Lucy" episode? It would have been about a decade
> old at the time, and probably in syndication prime... just a morning coffee
> thought to toss out which was of at least a passing Dylan interest.
It's interesting. A while back I was reading some posts on the
"Dylan
ripped off Timrod" controversy, and I read a good article on that;
the
writer came up with a dozen or so other sources that Dylan "ripped
off" in the same song - his point being that the way they've been
recombined, to say something new, makes them original art. (I doubt
I'd be able to find the article again, unfortunately.)
"I had withdrawn in forest and my song
Was swallowed up in leaves..."
-Robert Frost
[from the review of "A Boy's Will" by Robert Frost]:
"I remember that I was canoeing and thirsty and I put into a shanty
for
water and found a man who had no water and gave me cold coffee
instead. And he didn't understand it, he was from a minor city and he
"just set there
watchin' the river" and didn't "seem to want to go back," and he
didn't care for anything else. and so I presume he entered into
Anunda. And I remember Joseph Campbell telling me of meeting a man on
a desolate waste of bogs, and he said to him, "it's rather dull here";
and the man said, "Faith, ye can sit on a middan and dream stars. And
that is the essence of folk poetry with distinction between America
and Ireland. And Frost's book reminded me of these things..."
-Ezra Pound
> > The music is copped, sometimes note-for-note, from such people as BB King
> > and Bing Crosby... I had a link to a site that plays the original songs,
and
> > they're so close to the songs Dylan "wrote" that they sound like the
same tracks sometimes.
> > But while the Timrod poetry is public domain and /legally/ available (it
> > would have looked better for Dylan if he'd given credit to Timrod either in
> > the byline of the songs, or at least in the liner notes) much bigger was his
> > lifting of dozens of lines from the Japanese writer Dr. Saga for the
songs
> > of "Love & Theft" back in '01.
> > But, like the person wrote on the use of the Timrod lines, Dylan did do
some
> > interesting things with the lines... some of his best songs are on these two records, imo.
> Pretty much what the author of the article I rememberd said. I found
> it, BTW; it was actually a webbed article by Robert Polito (who edited
> Kenneth Fearing's /Selected Poems/. Here's the link:
> http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/feature.html?id=178703
Yeah, that's the one... still, the use of multiple lines by another
writer
is a situation I'd hate to have to deal with enough that I'll continue
to
think up my own. Here's a good piece on the borrowings from the
Japaenese writer, which he turned into some fantastic works, actually
some of his best work ever:
"CONFESSIONS OF A YAKUZA" BY JUNICHI SAGA" "LOVE AND THEFT" BY BOB
DYLAN**
<http://www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/plagiarbk010.htm>
"My old man would sit there like a feudal lord..." ("Confessions of a
Yakuza," page 6) "My old man, he's like some feudal lord/Got more
lives
than a cat" ("Floater")
"If it bothers you so much," she'd say, " why don't you just shove
off?"
("Confessions," page 9) "Juliet said back to Romeo, 'Why don't you
just
shove off/If it bothers you so much?'" ("Floater")
"My mother...was the daughter of a wealthy farmer...(she) died when I
was eleven...I heard that my father was a traveling salesman who
called at the house regularly, but I never met him. (My uncle) was a
nice man, I won't forget him...After my mother died, I decided it'd be
best to go and try my luck there." ("Confessions," pages 57-58) "My
mother was a daughter of a wealthy farmer/My father was a traveling
salesman, I never met him/When my
mother died, my uncle took me in -- he ran a funeral parlor/He did a
lot of
nice things for me and I won't forget him" ("Po' Boy")
"Break the roof in!" he yelled.... (He) splashed kerosene over the
floor and led a fuse from it outside." ("Confessions," page 63) "Yes,
I'm leaving in the morning just as soon as the dark clouds lift/Gonna
break
the roof in -- set fire to the place as a parting gift" ("Summer
Days")
"I won't come anymore if it bothers you." ("Confessions," page 139)
"Some things are too terrible to be true/I won't come here no more if
it
bothers you" ("Honest With Me")
"D'you think I could call myself a yakuza if I couldn't stand up to
some old
businessman?" ("Confessions," page 141) "D'you think I could call
myself a yakuza if I couldn't stand up to some old businessman?"
("Confessions," page 141)
" ...I heard he caused some kind of trouble that put him on bad terms
with
the younger men.... A good bookie makes all the difference in a
gambling
joint-- it's up to him whether a session comes alive or falls flat....
But
even kicking him out wasn't as easy as that.... So I decided to wait a
while
and see how it worked out.... But age doesn't matter in that
business....
Age by itself just doesn't carry any weight. ("Confessions," pages
153- 155) "The old men 'round here, sometimes they get on/Bad terms
with the younger men, But old, young , age don't carry weight/It
doesn't matter in the end"
("Floater") "Things come alive or they fall flat" ("Floater") "It's
not always easy kicking someone out/Gotta wait a while - it can be an
unpleasant task" ("Floater") "Actually, though, I'm not as cool or
forgiving as I might have sounded." ("Confessions," page 158) "I'm not
quite as cool or forgiving as I sound/I've seen enough heartaches and
strife" ("Floater") "Tears or not, though, that was too much to
ask...." ("Confessions," page 182) "Sometimes somebody wants you to
give something up/And tears or not, it's too much to ask ("Floater")
"Just because she was in the same house didn't mean we were living
together as man and wife...I don't know how it looked to other people,
but I never
even slept with her--not once." ("Confessions," page 208)
"Samantha Brown lived in my house for about four or five months/Don't
know how it looked to other people/I never slept with her even once"
("Lonsesome Day Blues")
"They were big, those trees--a good four feet across the trunk...."
("Confessions, page 241) "There's a new grove of trees on the
outskirts of town/The old one is long gone/Timber two-foot six across/
Burns with the bark still on" ("Floater")
"There was nothing sentimental about him--it didn't bother him at all
that
some of his pals had been killed. ("Confessions," page 243) "My
captain,
he's decorated -- he's well schooled and he's skilled/He's not
sentimental -- don't bother him at all/How many of his pals have been
killed" ("Lonesome Day Blues") Dylan's "people" denied that he'd
stolen the lines, about a dozen, although they match word-for-word. To
this day Saga isn't mentioned anywhere on the cover or credits, and
the song is still credited to Dylan only. I wrote here at the time
that a cool way to handle it might have been to change the credit to
the song to "Dylan-Saga", and perhaps open the door to future
collaborations between the two.
>> There are some reasons to believe that we are already living in a
>> "post-art" world, in which all work produced is merely collage and
>> plagiarism, comments on art rather than art itself.
--
"Twilight Girl" and other song-poems by Will Dockery:
http://www.myspace.com/willdockery