Untitled

From: Shawn Walker 
Precedence: bulk

Hello.  Thanks for the poem, Luke.  I'd still love to read any thoughts
poets have about why you write what you are writing -- intentions, goals,
aims, etc.  Not that one should need them to read or understand the
poems, but while we're discussing the process of writing them...

So here are some scattered reflections on bits and pieces --

> My love is a red, red cheek
> estranged by my hand weakly

Ooooh, what's going on here?  A red cheek estranged by a hand sounds like
a slap, which is a curiously strong image amid the echo of 
arch-romanticism.  

> I'll be an old man in a purple

The resignation and inevitability in these next few lines really
constrasts the hope and will in the title 'When I am an Old Woman, I Will
Wear Purple'.  Where does this take us?

> like Atlas, not minding the

Okay, not an original criticism, but I'm a big fan of circling every
'like' in a poem with red ink and forcing oneself to justify its
existence in the poem.

> scarcity and worshipping the
> orifice
> of language.

'Orifice' is such a striking word.  The similarly striking gesture of
placing it on its own line, thus calling even more attention to it, makes
it almost stumble over itself.  I think I'd find it much more strongly
used if posed casually.  And what do we do with its clinical connotations? 

> The Perelman subsurd and ablime
> haunt me like a Japanese ghost
> mom returning for her baby.
> Ohiogesaimas, honey.

Funny that you should throw in some Japanese here because the 'subsurd'
and the 'ablime' feel just about as foreign without explanation.  How does
your personal history (the morning of your discovery of these words?)
coincide with public history, the moment (and ongoing moments) of this
poem's being read?  Say more.  Wake us up, too.  I want to feel just as
familiar as 'honey'.

> I actually plan my daily catharses.
> Just kidding. A release a day keeps

Why kidding?  Again, say more?  What does it mean to plan your daily
catharses -- if that were a possibility and not just a joke?

> Eightmiddleschoolclassmateshavekids. 

These formal gestures in the middle of such a lyric poem are sometimes
quite striking.  Why this?  It feels as if you're somewhat shy about
saying it at all.  The cramped letters seem a bit like a box, a fortress
you're daring the reader to penetrate.  Why that feel here?  Interesting.

> You whisper I'm T.S. Eliot
> I say I'm not the only one.

This moment of self-consciousness is a relief, since the literary
allusions are beginning to have a bit of the feel of the cramped
letters.  What walls are they giving you, and how are you decorating the
interior?  This, though, feels a bit vulnerable, which is good.

> generic language and images
> on a Spring day after a
> Quarter Pounder (tm) with cheese

This passage has a similar feel to the above.

> I write in transit:
> a trolley, a car, a bus.

How do you feel your literary heritage here?

> Dump, dump, my little tangerine
> will dump me,

I like moments like this, which feel fun and original -- odd and familiar
at the same time.

The most puzzling questions for me about this poem have to do with its
sense of literary tradition, about which it seems alternately heavy and
blase.  It seems to rely heavily on thoughts and influences of previous
writers but is also highly suspicious of doing so.  And all this mixed in
with the lurking love narrative.  What is the relationship between the
relationships?  How vulnerable are we going to admit ourselves to be?
What are we going to own up to, what are we going to disown before it
disowns us?  I'm not going to try to do a sum-up reading because others
on the list are much better than I am, and we all have our ways of 
offering our ways.

Shawn 



From: Luke Szyrmer 
Precedence: bulk

Shawn Walker wrote:
> Hello.  Thanks for the poem, Luke.  I'd still love to read any thoughts
> poets have about why you write what you are writing -- intentions, goals,
> aims, etc.  Not that one should need them to read or understand the
> poems, but while we're discussing the process of writing them...

To reply to your first post on this topic, useful
poetry sounds like an oxymoron to me. Getting
utilitarian with your muse, I see. I would think
most poets have a social agenda that they fulfill,
even if that process occurs subliminally. I
generally write only if I have something
interesting to say, i.e. some kind of observation
that can be distilled into a sexy thesis. I might
start without one, but before I'm done the first 
draft I usually know what it'll be about. Then
it's a question of editing content in and fluff
out. Yet these observations are closet truisms, it
seems.

Your comments are extremely helpful. I'd prefer to
let your questions from the following section hang
and accumulate, until others have a chance to
critique the poem.



I don't think I'm an advocate of 'useful poetry' because 'useful' is so
shifty from one time or one person to the next.  Also, I want to allow for
a certain usefulness to apparently only the poet (while maintaining
questions about how even this extends to others when the poetry becomes
public).  Mostly, I am very interested in writing which is the product of
conscious intentions, whatever they may be. 

> I would think
> most poets have a social agenda that they fulfill,
> even if that process occurs subliminally.

Right.  I don't find anything wrong with those subliminal processes.  I
would like to see more poets conscious of their social agenda in their
everyday lives.  Because the subliminal innovation always occurs one step
beyond what's happening on the surface/foundation, if we clearly define
(or attempt to articulate) our foundations, I can only imagine the
subsequent poetry to be that much more meaningful.

> I generally write only if I have something
> interesting to say, i.e. some kind of observation
> that can be distilled into a sexy thesis.

Right again.  But what makes something 'interesting to say'?  Is poetry
like watching tele -- are we supposed to be distracted by words for a few
moments or hours?  Okay, so it's supposed to make us 'think'?  Why?  How?
To what end?  About what?  I'm just trying to wrap my mind around the  
nature and purpose of Interesting.

Shawn 



From: mmagee@dept.english.upenn.edu (Michael Magee)

Shawn & Luke sd:

> To reply to your first post on this topic, useful
> poetry sounds like an oxymoron to me. Getting
> utilitarian with your muse, I see.

I don't think I'm an advocate of 'useful poetry' because 'useful' is so
shifty from one time or one person to the next.  Also, I want to allow for
a certain usefulness to apparently only the poet (while maintaining
questions about how even this extends to others when the poetry becomes
public).  Mostly, I am very interested in writing which is the product of
conscious intentions, whatever they may be."   

I *am* an advocate for useful poetry: as Charles Olson sd, "USE USE
USE...there it is, brothers, for use" (I of course add sisters).
Language, as Kenneth Burke says, is symbolic action, and since belief
systems are symbolic systems lanaguge *acts* to affect & change them.  Is
poetry a useful intervention in this regard?  Your goddam right it is (man
am I feeling feisty this morning, & only 10 minutes till class...).  So
that's me mornin's 2 sense.  Your's in usage, -m.   



From: Luke Szyrmer 

Shawn Walker wrote:

> I don't think I'm an advocate of 'useful poetry' because 'useful' is so
> shifty from one time or one person to the next.  Also, I want to allow for
> a certain usefulness to apparently only the poet (while maintaining
> questions about how even this extends to others when the poetry becomes
> public).  Mostly, I am very interested in writing which is the product of
> conscious intentions, whatever they may be.

So you are talking about the therapeutic value of
poetry, using poetry as a form of self
examination?

> > I would think
> > most poets have a social agenda that they fulfill,
> > even if that process occurs subliminally.
>
> Right.  I don't find anything wrong with those subliminal processes.    

Neither do I. They often generate extra
multiplicity of meaning, and serve many other
'useful' purposes.

> I
> would like to see more poets conscious of their social agenda in their
> everyday lives.  Because the subliminal innovation always occurs one step
> beyond what's happening on the surface/foundation, if we clearly define
> (or attempt to articulate) our foundations, I can only imagine the
> subsequent poetry to be that much more meaningful.

Often this articulation has come in the form of
some kind of statement or manifesto about poetry,
particularly over the last fifty years, which I'm
sure you know. At the core of such a statement is
a definition of poetry in some form. Try answering
the superficially simple question 'What is
poetry?'. Your answer pretty much determines what
you write and how you write it.

> Right again.  But what makes something 'interesting to say'?  Is poetry
> like watching tele -- are we supposed to be distracted by words for a few
> moments or hours?

No. Personally I leave Entertainment with a
capital 'E' to Hollywood.

> Okay, so it's supposed to make us 'think'?  Why?  How?
> To what end?  About what?  I'm just trying to wrap my mind around the
> nature and purpose of Interesting.

Again, I think that the nature of interesting
depends on your answers to the fundamental
questions about the amorphous blob of words know
as poetry. Your answers can change from poem to
poem, with each poem being a different take on
poetry. Lyricism for example depends on finding
deviated language. In that case, poetry is loosely
defined as a "linguisitic deviation"* from the
language being written in. That way what is  
expressed sounds fresh and vivid to the
uninitiated ear, and ideally even the initiated.

Another take on 'interesting' is people. Poetry is
thought candy for humanists. Poetry is read to
learn about people-interoirs and exteriors,
specific and generalized, thoughts and feelings,
cultures and realities, protocols and ironies, you
name it. In this sense poetry is "useful" in the
sense of Mike's quote. One vivid illustration of
this proposition is the role of poetry in the
tired movie Dead Poets Society with Robin
Williams.

Is your schoolwork on a related topic, or are you
just exploring for your own benefit?

-Luke    

* I read that somewhere, but I can't remember the
source. 



From: mmagee@dept.english.upenn.edu (Michael Magee)
Precedence: bulk

from Luke:
"Another take on 'interesting' is people. Poetry is
thought candy for humanists. Poetry is read to
learn about people-interoirs and exteriors,
specific and generalized, thoughts and feelings,
cultures and realities, protocols and ironies, you
name it. In this sense poetry is "useful" in the
sense of Mike's quote. One vivid illustration of
this proposition is the role of poetry in the
tired movie Dead Poets Society with Robin
Williams.

Is your schoolwork on a related topic, or are you
just exploring for your own benefit?"

Couldn't tell if this last question was directed toward me or Shawn but
figured I'd answer anyway - yeah, my work walks around this issue of the
"usefulness" of language.  "thought candy for humanists" seems to me a
particularly negative way to think of such use, was that your intent?  I'm 
as skeptical as the next person about run-of-the-mill humanism, though I
am interested in a particular strain of the humanist philosophic
tradition, Pragmatism.  I'd count Olson & Burke, who I named in my last
post, among this group.  They differ from humanists largely in their
definition of "human-ness" a category which they would see as much more
complex, multi-faceted and contingent, fragmented.  As such, *use* and
usefulness, being hyuman categories, become equally complicated and
contingent.  They would also put a premium on the idea of language as
defining medium of both identity and social relations, in such a way that
the poet is seen as actively mediating *and* mediated *by* social forces.
Olson has a great line which just occurred to me, in the Maximus poems:
"An American is a complex of occassions."  Anyway, not sure where I'm
going with this now accept to say that, in so far as a poem is an
intervention into the language, it matters, its "useful", and its social,
and its lovely.   -m.
                       


From: Shawn Walker 

Thanks to Mike for your first and second posts, pointing out to me that I
didn't exactly know what I was talking about.  (That was sincere.)  The
point was, I just wanted to start talking about it in terms of our own
poetry and how people on this list are thinking about what/how they are
doing.

> from Luke:
>
> Is your schoolwork on a related topic, or are you
> just exploring for your own benefit?"

If the question is for me -- obviously, I don't have enough schoolwork --
here I am back on this list!  When I copied some of Waldrop's ILS lecture
for one of the first seminars, someone was actually *offended* at my
attempt to introduce theory to class discussions -- which didn't turn out
so bad because it forced me to think about how I could bring up some of
the discussions I wanted to have through my own poetry.  (For those of you
who don't know, I'm doing an MA in Creative Writing at an English
University.)

> "usefulness" of language.  "thought candy for humanists" seems to me a
> particularly negative way to think of such use, was that your intent?

I would agree.  'Candy' seems dangerously close to 'Entertainment with a
capital E,' only with different (?) consumers in mind.

> post, among this group.  They differ from humanists largely in their
> definition of "human-ness" a category which they would see as much more 
> complex, multi-faceted and contingent, fragmented.  As such, *use* and
> usefulness, being hyuman categories, become equally complicated and
> contingent.

This is close to what I was trying to get out by trying to find a
terribly long way around the subject to get vaguely close to discussing
it.

> They would also put a premium on the idea of language as
> defining medium of both identity and social relations, in such a way that
> the poet is seen as actively mediating *and* mediated *by* social forces.

So would I -- how do the poets on this list see themselves as 'actively
mediating *and* mediated *by* social forces'?

> in so far as a poem is an intervention into the language

and how far and in what senses are our poems interventions in the
language?

That's all ... just endless questions...

Shawn        



From: Shawn Walker 

> So you are talking about the therapeutic value of
> poetry, using poetry as a form of self
> examination?

No!  Please no!  Anything but this!  I take back everything!

> Often this articulation has come in the form of
> some kind of statement or manifesto about poetry,
> particularly over the last fifty years, which I'm
> sure you know. At the core of such a statement is
> a definition of poetry in some form. Try answering
> the superficially simple question 'What is
> poetry?'. Your answer pretty much determines what
> you write and how you write it.

I agree.  I advocate manifestos of all shapes and sizes on a daily basis,
and constant definings of poetry.

> language being written in. That way what is 
> expressed sounds fresh and vivid to the
> uninitiated ear, and ideally even the initiated.

Where we have an 'uninitiated ear,' we have the potential for a basis for
hearing which is perpetually fresh and vivid.  Poetry is read to UNlearn
(about) people.

Shawn   



From: Luke Szyrmer 

Shawn Walker wrote:
>
> Thanks to Mike for your first and second posts, pointing out to me that I
> didn't exactly know what I was talking about.  (That was sincere.)  The
> point was, I just wanted to start talking about it in terms of our own
> poetry and how people on this list are thinking about what/how they are
> doing.

I like the way this discussing is going. Both of
your posts were insightful and helpful.

> > Is your schoolwork on a related topic, or are you
> > just exploring for your own benefit?"

> If the question is for me -- obviously, I don't have enough schoolwork--
> here I am back on this list!  When I copied some of Waldrop's ILS lecture
> for one of the first seminars, someone was actually *offended* at my
> attempt to introduce theory to class discussions -- which didn't turn out
> so bad because it forced me to think about how I could bring up some of
> the discussions I wanted to have through my own poetry.  (For those of you
> who don't know, I'm doing an MA in Creative Writing at an English
> University.)

I didn't know it was in creative writing. I was
actually asking in order to gague how precise or
formal I should be with language and referencing
quotes. I guess I wanted know how "professional",
academically speaking, I should attempt to be, in
order to make this discussion useful to you, Shawn
and Mike.


> > "usefulness" of language.  "thought candy for humanists" seems to me a
> > particularly negative way to think of such use, was that your intent?

> I would agree.  'Candy' seems dangerously close to 'Entertainment with a
> capital E,' only with different (?) consumers in mind.

The intent was neither negative nor positive. The  
way I was looking at poetry exclusive of the
concerns of other humanistic approaches to people,
society and culture. I was trying to encapsulate
Sir Phillip Sidney's approach in his Defense of
Poesy, in a few words, throwing in some basic
identity theory, if you can even call it that. I
tried to define poetry by what it's not. If you
try to isolate the 'purpose' of each discipline,
none of the others are used for decorative value,
i.e. a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go
down. Arguably metaphor, which is to some extent a
defining characteristic of poetry, is so common to
other literary forms, that it ceases to be a
useful distinction. Metaphor is poetry's
epistomelogical device and its  contribution to
the humanities. Because other forms of literature
developed from poetry, it is hard to distinguish
between genre llnes, especially when poetic
language and use of metaphor is bastardized as a
signal of 'literariness' in other genres.        

> > post, among this group.  They differ from humanists largely in their
> > definition of "human-ness" a category which they would see as much more
> > complex, multi-faceted and contingent, fragmented.  As such, *use* and
> > usefulness, being human categories, become equally complicated and
> > contingent.

I understand your Pragmatist take, Mike. I think
the danger in taking this approach is that it
discounts the importance of figuring out how and
why things work, even if there are no practical
gains from such theoretical speculation. Generally
speaking, by complicating your model, it becomes
more realistic telling you about how things are
outside of the realm of theory, but the
complications obscure the fundamental
relationships which the model is supposed to
reveal. I realize that I'm using model in a very
vague cross disciplinary way here, which makes it
more difficult to understand what I'm trying to 
say.

> > They would also put a premium on the idea of language as
> > defining medium of both identity and social relations, in such a way that
> > the poet is seen as actively mediating *and* mediated *by* social forces.
>
> So would I -- how do the poets on this list see themselves as 'actively
> mediating *and* mediated *by* social forces'?

This is politics again, i.e. convincing people of
your POV. This question seems to be the outgrowth
of the hackneyed debate about whether langauge
defines reality, or reality, language.

> and how far and in what senses are our poems interventions in the
language?

Our poems latch on and attach meanings wherever
they can. By sharing poetry, we begin to share
thoughts and ideas, which increases similarities
among us.                             

> That's all ... just endless questions...

They're good ones. I hope mine are as useful as
yours were to me.

-Luke   



From: Luke Szyrmer 
Precedence: bulk

Shawn Walker wrote:
>
> > So you are talking about the therapeutic value of
> > poetry, using poetry as a form of self
> > examination?
>
> No!  Please no!  Anything but this!  I take back everything!

Srry. Cute retraction. Maybe I was being too
reductive again.

> > language being written in. That way what is
> > expressed sounds fresh and vivid to the
> > uninitiated ear, and ideally even the initiated.
>
> Where we have an 'uninitiated ear,' we have the potential for a basis for
> hearing which is perpetually fresh and vivid.

Forgive me but I don't understand what you are 
trying to say here.

> Poetry is read to UNlearn
> (about) people.

Even though I think I understand what you're
trying to say in the context of Mike's comments,
it seems you've done a 180. On a certain level you
are saying poetry is UNuseful.              



From: Shawn Walker 

Me: (Poetry is meant to UNlearn (about) people.)

Luke: Even though I think I understand what you're trying to say in the
context of Mike's comments, it seems you've done a 180. On a certain level
you are saying poetry is UNuseful.

That's my problem with the word 'useful.' It depends on what you and/or I
consider 'useful.' I think a lot of poetry confirms our preconceived
ideas, delivers stereotypes, limits our ability to relate to people as
individuals, and resonates with the assumptions which make our lives most
comfortable and most irresponsible (by which I mean something like
willingly unaware), all under the guise of 'teaching' us about People.
I consider that to be not-useful.  I want poetry to force me to admit
what I don't understand and the possibilities of connection withing that
mystery.

> I understand your Pragmatist take, Mike. I think
> the danger in taking this approach is that it      
> discounts the importance of figuring out how and
> why things work, even if there are no practical
> gains from such theoretical speculation.

For some reason, 'figuring out how and why things work' sounds very
practical to me, but perhaps I'm not completely understanding your
critique of the Pragmatist model.

> This is politics again, i.e. convincing people of
> your POV. This question seems to be the outgrowth
> of the hackneyed debate about whether langauge
> defines reality, or reality, language.              

I don't think it is a simple case of 'convincing people of your POV.'
I'd like to be a little more optomistic and think of poetry as opening up
possibilities, new ways of (put your own sense-gerund here), without
limiting perceivers to a certain conclusion or result (which is how I see
politics working), which may end up to be a new form of control.

Thanks,

Shawn   



From: mmagee@dept.english.upenn.edu (Michael Magee)

Shawn and Luke's words:
"> I understand your Pragmatist take, Mike. I think
> the danger in taking this approach is that it
> discounts the importance of figuring out how and
> why things work, even if there are no practical
> gains from such theoretical speculation.

For some reason, 'figuring out how and why things work' sounds very
practical to me, but perhaps I'm not completely understanding your
critique of the Pragmatist model."

Yeah, "figuring out how things work" is a kind of central metaphor behind
most pragmatist discussions of poetry, language, rhetoric, etc.  Someone
like Richard Rorty spends alot of time disabusing his readers of the
notion that language is representational; rather, says RR, its more like a
set of tools - all you *can* do is try to describe "how and why (they)
work," since *what* they mean is a somewhat bogus question.  Like William
James, Rorty considers this a pretty happy little dilemma - it frees the
poet up to do a lot of work without quite the burden of explanation as it  
exists outside of the actual social nexus of communication.  The nexus is
complex enough, the pragmatist says, without adding the xtra headache of
whether what you're saying is eternally true; better to focus on a
different question: "what happens when I say it?"  What happens to me & my
speech, what happens to the speech of my community & other comunities in
contact w/ it; or, more realistically, what *might* happen after the long
process of circulation runs its course.  What kind of work might a poem
perform, taking for granted the many contingencies bond to divert or
impede that performance.  To some people this sounds just awful (Kristen G
once sent me a post from a feminist listserv which described "Rorty's
mind-numbing pragmatism"), but I think it poses some interesting
possibilites for the poet: and Rorty is only the white-male-philosopher
version of such a stance; similar positions with more interesting cultural
specificity can be found in people like Ellison, Nate Mackey, Joan
Retallack, Ann Lauterbach, many others.  Of course the "work" metaphor is
all over the New American Poetry scene.  Ok, enough of me.  -m.         



From: Luke Szyrmer 

Now to take on mike's missive...

> Yeah, "figuring out how things work" is a kind of central metaphor behind
> most pragmatist discussions of poetry, language, rhetoric, etc.  Someone
> like Richard Rorty spends alot of time disabusing his readers of the
> notion that language is representational; rather, says RR, its more like a
> set of tools - all you *can* do is try to describe "how and why (they)
> work," since *what* they mean is a somewhat bogus question.  Like William
> James, Rorty considers this a pretty happy little dilemma - it frees the
> poet up to do a lot of work without quite the burden of explanation as it
> exists outside of the actual social nexus of communication.

I don't know what to think of the seperation of
the "hows and whys" from the poem's meaning.
Disuniting questions about function from the
poem's meaning is counterintuitive to me. The
"pretty little dilemma" releases you form the
responsibility to think. You just need to collect
information. Is this what you (as the pragamitist)
call useful? Something that permits you to stop
working and thinking?          

>  The nexus is
> complex enough, the pragmatist says, without adding the xtra headache of
> whether what you're saying is eternally true; better to focus on a
> different question: "what happens when I say it?"

Eternal truths are bogus; but many states, truths,
and laws exist in such a viscous form, that they
seem eternal and universal to humans. "What
happens when you say it" depends on what's inside
it, content and structure.

> What happens to me & my
> speech, what happens to the speech of my community & other comunities in
> contact w/ it; or, more realistically, what *might* happen after the long
> process of circulation runs its course.  What kind of work might a poem
> perform, taking for granted the many contingencies bond to divert or
> impede that performance.

So you're claiming that Pragmatists focus on the 
poem's effect on its social context. You're
comparing the poem to the joke as a narrative
form. That's interesting, considering the your
excellent turns of wit in much of your poetry. I'm
trying to figure out what other potential effects
a poem can have, but I can't think one off the top
of my head that would introduce substantial
change, at least psychologically. Maybe you can
suggest something from your wide reading in this
philosophical/philological tradition.

I think you've already said something on this
listserv about your concern that you are
denigrating your poetry by your use of humor. If
you stick to a Pragmatist definition of poetry,
you aren't hurting your poetry. Your concern,
then, arises from your perception of Pragmatism's
shortcomings, does it not? I think you are looking
to incorporate more definitions of poetry into
your writing simultaneously, and that's probably a

good way to go.

Luke
  


From: Luke Szyrmer 

Shawn Walker wrote:
>
> Me: (Poetry is meant to UNlearn (about) people.)
>
> Luke: Even though I think I understand what you're trying to say in the
> context of Mike's comments, it seems you've done a 180. On a certain level
> you are saying poetry is UNuseful.
>
> That's my problem with the word 'useful.' It depends on what you and/or I
> consider 'useful.' I think a lot of poetry confirms our preconceived
> ideas, delivers stereotypes, limits our ability to relate to people as
> individuals, and resonates with the assumptions which make our lives most
> comfortable and most irresponsible (by which I mean something like
> willingly unaware), all under the guise of 'teaching' us about People.
> I consider that to be not-useful.  I want poetry to force me to admit
> what I don't understand and the possibilities of connection withing that 
> mystery.

I understand your distinction about usefulness. I
think discussions about definitions are quite
worthwhile, because definitions lie at the base of
any conceptual structure. You seem to deride the
use of poetry as a prescriptive, and therefore
limiting, device. Because it limits, it is
therefore not useful. I think that if poetry is
seen as descriptive, it is liberating. When you
know what to expect, you can play around--with
words, expectations, whatever. Usefulness, that
way, helps create. It promotes progress,
conceptually at least.

As an aside: all stereotyping is generalizing, all
generalizing is NOT stereotyping. Certain types of
generalizing require a certain amount of
intellectual rigor not found in stereotyping.  

> For some reason, 'figuring out how and why things work' sounds very
> practical to me, but perhaps I'm not completely understanding your
> critique of the Pragmatist model.

"Figuring how and why things work" necessarily
requires theory. Without theory, you are blindly
proceeding through life, without a clue why things
work. Without Newton's massive intellectual
accomplishment of developing calculus, people
could have continued living. Gravity and
everything else worked without people's knowing
why it worked. Yet once calculus was invented, it
was such a significant advance, that it enabled
people to see the same world completely       
differently. At the time it was invented, there
was little use for it, and it merely described how
things work (descriptive). As time went on, that
very invention became essential to understanding a
number of processes that were completely unrelated
to its original application. Once all of this
'understanding' had occurred, people began to
apply that knowledge. They created, they invented.
At that point, the calculus left the realm of
theory, and became useful. Newton even exerted
influence on Blake. There's a book out that Dr.
Stuart Curran was talking about that explores the
physics of Blake. Outside the realm of poetry,
calculus could be used to calculate population
growth, interest rates, and for a number of other
uses that lie well beyond high school mathematics.

That is what I mean when I say useful theory. I
don't consider the Pragmatist approach useful
because it doesn't help discover underlying     
processes and relationships, and therefore doesn't
help figure out how and why things work. I guess
I'm taking a sociological view of poetry, not the
standard Willism James psychological take on it,
that Olson and company have extrapolated and
detailed. The Pragmatist 'party line' seems to be
a theoretical dead end.

> I don't think it is a simple case of 'convincing people of your POV.'
> I'd like to be a little more optomistic and think of poetry as opening up
> possibilities, new ways of (put your own sense-gerund here), without
> limiting perceivers to a certain conclusion or result (which is how I see
> politics working), which may end up to be a new form of control.

I think we agree here, because I was raising
similar issues with the prescriptive/descriptive
distinction. You are defining a person's POV as
polemic, not multifaceted. By imposing a POV on
someone, you impose preferences on a number of
issues, by describing what you perceive, hence
increased (sense-gerund) results. I was referring
to politics in the general sense, which I said
before, and now I guess I've been more clear by
what I mean by politics 'in general', namely the
struggle of multifacted wills for what they
perceive as favorable change according to their
perceptions. 



From: mmagee@dept.english.upenn.edu (Michael Magee)
Precedence: bulk

Luke sd: "I don't know what to think of the seperation of
the "hows and whys" from the poem's meaning.
Disuniting questions about function from the
poem's meaning is counterintuitive to me. The
"pretty little dilemma" releases you form the
responsibility to think. You just need to collect
information. Is this what you (as the pragamitist)
call useful? Something that permits you to stop
working and thinking?"

No, no, you’ve misrepresented me here: the pragmatist
doesn’t *separate* "hows and whys" *from* meaning, but
*integrates* "hows and whys" *with* meaning.  This is an
absolutely central distinction, which accounts for, among
other things, Creeley’s insistence on an integration of form
and content, or rather, his insistence that form is *a kind of*
content.  Likewise theory is a kind of practice.  I take your
discussion of Newton to be precisely to the point:

"Gravity and everything else worked without people's knowing
why it worked. Yet once calculus was invented, it
was such a significant advance, that *it enabled
people to see the same world completely
differently*. At the time it was invented, there
was little use for it."

"Enabling  people to see the same world completely
differently" is profoudly useful whatever the possibilites
of scientific application happened to be at the time.
Calculus changes our *vocabulary* almost immediately
and as Rorty would say, "large scale change of belief is
indistinguishable from large scale change in the meanings
of one’s words."  This is the principle reason John Dewey
was interested in the physics of his day.  He recognized that
among the many things they were doing, a Heisenberg or an
Einstein were creating a vocabulary: scientific shifts are
largely linguistic shifts, an observation which Thomas Kuhn
absorbs in theorizing about scientific paradigm shifts
(Kuhn being an assiduous reader of Dewey).  As I
said, your Newton example is quite to the point, particularly 
as it involved Blake: did Blake use Newtonian calculus to
invent a toater oven or something? Of course not; he used
it to expand the possibilities of his own linguistic logic.
The pragmatist doesn’t collect information, she *employs*
information, and in this way differs from the positivist, the
utilitarian.

Next: "So you're claiming that Pragmatists focus on the
poem's effect on its social context. You're
comparing the poem to the joke as a narrative
form. That's interesting, considering the your
excellent turns of wit in much of your poetry. I'm
trying to figure out what other potential effects
a poem can have, but I can't think one off the top
of my head that would introduce substantial
change, at least psychologically. Maybe you can
suggest something from your wide reading in this
philosophical/philological tradition."

I sense a little condescension here, which I take in     
good humor, humor being the subject anyway.  The
joke is only one narrative form that might be
considered as socially symbolic act.  I take most
humor theory, Bergson, Freud, et al, to be a bit of
a bore and too narrow (and not that funny!).  All
writing is rhetorical, the joke being one kind of
rhetoric: the combat myth, the dialogue, the "free-verse"
poem, the colloquial speech of subcommunities, all
of these represent vocabularies and grammars which
the culture(s) absorbs or disavows in a series of complex
negotiations.

Lastly: "I think you've already said something on this
listserv about your concern that you are
denigrating your poetry by your use of humor. If
you stick to a Pragmatist definition of poetry,
you aren't hurting your poetry. Your concern,
then, arises from your perception of Pragmatism's
shortcomings, does it not? I think you are looking
to incorporate more definitions of poetry into  
your writing simultaneously, and that's probably a
good way to go."

Glad to hear you feel I’m going in a good way, but
no, my perceptions of pragmatism’s shortcomings tend
to be cultural: which is to say I disagree with some of
the cultural conclusions someone like Rorty has drawn
from pragmatist theory, say, about ethnic diversity.  But
as far as pragmatism’s basic presumptions about language
go, I’m pretty comfortable with them.  And, no, I don’t
think I’m denigrating my poetry by using  jokes, not at
all.  I just like to keep the question of what I’m accomplishing
by using them an open question.  This and my fear of
becoming a one-trick pony keep me in a mode of more or less
constant reevaluation.

Thanks for the debate, I’m enjoying it.  -m.