for a future treatise, part two
Most of the time I don't trust regular rhyme because as I write one, the aim of a poem is to capture or release the essence of something, and I believe the essence is the long shot in a contest of schemes. Notable exceptions excepted for a predetermined number of syllables or words a poem contains, but rarely for predetermined alignments of sound: What can be said can always (to a point) be said in fewer words, but not always in fewer or more regular sounds. This has been true of my experience and it may not generalize. But if I have to scheme with sound, I would rather do it retrodictively. I would rather the sounds be like pieces of a puzzle coming together somewhat, if they do.
You could say to my detriment, I don't believe anything is exactly trite. Unthinking, yes; over-thought, perhaps; thought-out without first surveying, the assumed self-sufficient monad too much trusted, very much so. But to believe anything is trite is to succumb to a view of language that it is ruled by fashion: Too much use means we have to flee to the new, rather than work our ways there at whatever pace we might and for whatever reasons. Who would avoid words because they have already been reached, as if each string of words is but the trace of a game of chess, one more sequence of moves for the annals to study? Who would avoid words for this and no other reason? Not because you have fallen on them and wish to get up; not because they have seduced you against your will or done the thinking for and without you. But because you have heard them or seen them n and one too many times. For some, n = 1.
Every use of words is whatever else, advocacy of their use, meaning they express, or both. Much advocacy work bears persistence; versions and versions. This fact is not alone a mark against it. The path to utter originality leads to utter loneliness, and often to incomprehensibility.
You should say what you need to say. You should also learn everything you can, aiming at the best command you can manage of what has been said in the way it was said, consistent with a healthy resting heart-rate and sense of peace. And if the time comes when you need to say, "the science of the night", I hope you won't shrink from your task. I hope you will resist wondering if it is trite, and instead wonder what is gained in the saying of it. You should say what you need to say. Look for your answers everywhere, edit them always, but trust them at last.
A Metaphysic for Poetry
Partly because we expect a symmetry between what they represent and the facts, we make them the way we do, and partly because we make them, technical concepts can be fixed. The natural numbers that are prime, for example, can be fixed: definitionalized into necessary and sufficient conditions for the concept of primality which while subject to refinement in congress with other concepts, is itself modular: self-sufficient: finished.
Many concepts, like poetry, are not fixed because even the essence of poetry (whatever that is and if even it exists) has not yet finished coming into being. Poetry is unfolding in every age and each of their moments bring new forms and refinements. Unfinished, poetry cannot be fixed. And thus it has no necessary conditions: We can't say what poetry invariably is if poetry is varying.
I believe this platitude is true: We must be content with poems as sufficient instances of poetry. If we are forced to a definition of poetry, then it can be defined as the whole grab-bag of sufficiencies: all the poems. Of course, everyone's bag has different contents, so take for the definition the whole Bag of all the individual bags. It will be too big for any of us (and part of whose contents only the future can supply), but that is alright. Here's the thing: When a piece of text has sufficient echoes to a poem in your bag and to your cut of the Bag (however much you can manage), it goes in both. The sufficiency of the echo is again individual, but we already knew that.
By all means, broadcast your principles (if you have them; and if you need to) according to which poems go in your bag: detail your sufficiencies. Just, if you would, don't call them necessities. That assumes poetry is done and you have surveyed every poem and you have found the beating heart of each.
You could say to my detriment, I don't believe anything is exactly trite. Unthinking, yes; over-thought, perhaps; thought-out without first surveying, the assumed self-sufficient monad too much trusted, very much so. But to believe anything is trite is to succumb to a view of language that it is ruled by fashion: Too much use means we have to flee to the new, rather than work our ways there at whatever pace we might and for whatever reasons. Who would avoid words because they have already been reached, as if each string of words is but the trace of a game of chess, one more sequence of moves for the annals to study? Who would avoid words for this and no other reason? Not because you have fallen on them and wish to get up; not because they have seduced you against your will or done the thinking for and without you. But because you have heard them or seen them n and one too many times. For some, n = 1.
Every use of words is whatever else, advocacy of their use, meaning they express, or both. Much advocacy work bears persistence; versions and versions. This fact is not alone a mark against it. The path to utter originality leads to utter loneliness, and often to incomprehensibility.
You should say what you need to say. You should also learn everything you can, aiming at the best command you can manage of what has been said in the way it was said, consistent with a healthy resting heart-rate and sense of peace. And if the time comes when you need to say, "the science of the night", I hope you won't shrink from your task. I hope you will resist wondering if it is trite, and instead wonder what is gained in the saying of it. You should say what you need to say. Look for your answers everywhere, edit them always, but trust them at last.
A Metaphysic for Poetry
Partly because we expect a symmetry between what they represent and the facts, we make them the way we do, and partly because we make them, technical concepts can be fixed. The natural numbers that are prime, for example, can be fixed: definitionalized into necessary and sufficient conditions for the concept of primality which while subject to refinement in congress with other concepts, is itself modular: self-sufficient: finished.
Many concepts, like poetry, are not fixed because even the essence of poetry (whatever that is and if even it exists) has not yet finished coming into being. Poetry is unfolding in every age and each of their moments bring new forms and refinements. Unfinished, poetry cannot be fixed. And thus it has no necessary conditions: We can't say what poetry invariably is if poetry is varying.
I believe this platitude is true: We must be content with poems as sufficient instances of poetry. If we are forced to a definition of poetry, then it can be defined as the whole grab-bag of sufficiencies: all the poems. Of course, everyone's bag has different contents, so take for the definition the whole Bag of all the individual bags. It will be too big for any of us (and part of whose contents only the future can supply), but that is alright. Here's the thing: When a piece of text has sufficient echoes to a poem in your bag and to your cut of the Bag (however much you can manage), it goes in both. The sufficiency of the echo is again individual, but we already knew that.
By all means, broadcast your principles (if you have them; and if you need to) according to which poems go in your bag: detail your sufficiencies. Just, if you would, don't call them necessities. That assumes poetry is done and you have surveyed every poem and you have found the beating heart of each.
posted by Christopher Phelps at 6/21/2006 04:44:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home