Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.44.0211152359360.21068-100000@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>,
"WRYTING-L : Writing and Theory across Disciplines" <WRYTING-L@LISTSERV.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: Re: Poetry the Configuration of Truths (fwd)
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 23:59:43 -0500 (EST)
apologies, shd be 'refine our sentience' On Fri, 15 Nov 2002, Alan Sondheim wrote: > Poetry the Configuration of Truths > > > the sentiments in poetry are meant to be taken at face value, how shall i > hate thee, i'm heading towards heaven, i think i shall see, even language > poetry presents phrasing whose meaning can be taken literally or perform- > atively. so what you say. i say that by its very deflection into the > horrors of language, poetry tells truths, largely through diminution, or > the placing of facts in a problematic world. poetry is our great mirror; > we use it to express the world in its fullness, as in the totality of the > novel - the intensity of the language brings out anomalies. it goes down > sweetly; people often read poetry for its truths and exalted descent into > language. everyday language is never enough; we need examine it, bury > ourselves in it. every poem is innocent, every poem fetishizes the real in > pristine clarity. > > "O ever present in my view! My wafted spirit is with you, And soothes your > boding fears: I see you all oppressed with gloom Sit lonely in that > cheerless room-- Ah me! You are in tears!" (S.T.C) if ever present, then > the language is redolent of the truth of faithfulness, a second-sight or > ectoplasm. he has gained a spirit which enhances her own. she is captiva- > ted, enthralled; he is her primordial origin. this is the difficult truth > which only poetry can capture. think now of the fecundity of contemporary > poetry. surely it lives within the truth of performativity; everything > happens, everything has happened. poetry counteracts the engineering of > the concrete, revealing the truth beneath the surface of empty structure. > > poetry cultivates our morals, presents true sentiments, behaves as thera- > peutic infiltrating our body politic. Plato was wrong, not by virtue of > the Apollonian; it's the Dionysian truth that emerges, voluptuously, from > within. better to live in the world of poetic truth, than the falsities of > docudrama, contemporary news media, or popular novels. poetry allows all > of us to refine or sentience; if it were not for poetry, Coleridge, and > the rest of us, would have remained permanently mad. > > thus poetry is a cornucopia of truths, and should be read and practiced by > everyone, all of us who live in this world, with clear vision towards the > next. > > > > === > http://www.asondheim.org/ http://www.asondheim.org/portal/ http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt older http://lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html Trace projects http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/writers/sondheim/index.htm