Archive for November, 2009

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Entry 9 — Poetry Employing Irrational Language

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

I have always wondered why anyone would make much of most Dada works.  It was evident that a good number of reasonably intelligent, sensitive people have, though.   Including friends of mine who have shown themselves quite capable of fashioning works I think vastly superior to their Dada works.

Then I came upon Geof Huth’s

.              the car I didn’t notice                              isn’t there

in the recentest issue of Haiku Canada Review.   Not Dada, but certainly nonsense, or so I at first thought.  I would now term it nearsense.   As

.              the crab boils filge at blargets       in the goamy fludge

it would have been nonsense, or a literary work which uses irrational language in order to amuse (in the view of most knowledgeable people encountering it).  As

.        car didn’t (e time)s into                       bleep blegg bllllg you

it would be constersense,  or a literary work whose textual matter seems chosen for no other purpose than to cause consternation–by seeming to be nearsense but ultimately not making sense, or proving amusing.

Then there’s temporary nonsense such as Joyce’s “cropse,” which at first seems either nonsense or constersense (and will always seem constersense to Philistines) but, given time, will quite rationally if poetically say “corpse” and “crops” simultaneously in succinctly sum up all the important cycles of human existence.

I have more to say about this, particularly about why the poem by Geof Huth is nearsense, but I’m too worn-out from another tiring day to do so until (I hope) tomorrow.

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Posted in Geof Huth, haiku, James Joyce, Poetics | No Comments »

Entry 8 — Thoughts on Haiku

Monday, November 9th, 2009

A new Grummanism today, “constersense,” to go with an old one, “nonsense,” and one in between old and new, “nearsense.”

One item always worth taking a look at in the Haiku Canada Review is the page on which N. F. Noyes discusses haiku he likes.  One of them got me thinking about nonsense

.              the car I didn’t notice                              isn’t there

It’s by someone calling himself G. A. Huth.  About this Noyes says, “From a fourteenth century poet I quote: ‘Generally speaking, a poet requires some understanding of emptiness.’”

(An amusing comment to make in a discussion of the World-Expert in the praecisio.  See Geof’s blog for details on that if–shame on you–you don’t know what it is.)

Noyes goes on to say, “Here the sudden emptiness provides a strong “Aha!” experience, despite a seeming diregard for the haiku’s chief guideline of close observation, in ‘I didn’t notice.’”

(But I would contend that what the poet closely observed with his act of not noticing.)

Noyes was reminded of a haiku by Buson:

.                            Tilling the field:
.                       The cloud that never moved
.                            Is gone.

The other two haiku Noyes liked (as did I) are:

.                            a kicked can
.                            cartwheels
.                            into its echo                  –Jeffrey Winke

.                            transplanting
.                            four rose bushes
.                            transplanting bees       –Liz fenn


More on nonsense and related matters tomorrow, if I’m up to it.  (Final note: I at first mistyped Geof’ haiku as “the care I didn’t notice       isn’t there.”)

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Posted in Geof Huth, N. F. Noyes, Poetics | No Comments »

Entry 7 — My First Long Division Poem

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

FirstLongDivision

The poem above is my very first long division poem, composed around 1990. It’s on display here as an example of how complex a seemingly simple poem can be. According to the rules of long division, the poem says, on the surface, that spring divided by woods equals rain, with a remainder of robins. It further states that woods multiplied by rain equals green, and that robins added to green also equals spring. A set of rather simplistic metaphors, in other words. But is it? Certainly the idea of green as a near-simile for spring is about as banal as can be. As is the idea that rain is its cause. But the rain is not merely added to the woods it affects, it multiplies them. For me, this is a terrific metaphor, or was when I first used it. Multiplication. It’s so much more than addition. I, at any rate, get a sense of individual raindrops intricately interacting with limbs, and expanding the woods, not just lying on them.

More important, as one verbally experiences of Nature as rain, woods, greenery and robins–sensual and organic, careless and carefree, the poem’s structure should make one increasingly aware of the eternal mathematics underlying everything . . .

Posted in Bob Grumman, Mathematical Poetry, Poetics | No Comments »

Entry 6 — “Another Failure” (A Poem Poem)

Saturday, November 7th, 2009

I’m not up to returning to my “Nature of Visual Poetry,” and may not be for a while. So today only this poem about my continuing persona, Poem:

Another Failure

For half the night
Poem struggled mightily
to sing himself a sleep
that melted understandings into him
as intricately deepening as April rain
dislodging a woodland’s smallest wisdoms;
but all that came of it
was decimalless

It is now 13 November 2009. Since writing the above, I’ve had second thoughts about the final line. It now strikes me as too subtle. So I’ve come up with the following revision:

Another Failure

For half the night
Poem struggled mightily
to sing himself a sleep
that melted understandings into him
as intricately deepening as April rain
dislodging a woodland’s smallest wisdoms;
but nowhere in it did
anything extend beyond
its decimal point.

Posted in Linguexpressive Poetry, Of Poem | No Comments »

Entry 5 — The Runaway Spoon Press Catalogue

Friday, November 6th, 2009

catalogue

Today: The Runaway Spoon Press Catalogue

Why? Because (1) I had a busy day; (2) I realized that I started my attempt to determine the maximally adequate definition of visual poetry too far into my poetics taxonomy; I need to start with the definition of poetry, if not earlier. That means a lot of work, work that will have to wait for another day.

Anyway, the catalogue is now on one of my “Pages.”  A link to it should show to the right.   Its “cover-page” illustration (above), incidentally, is a Picasso-inspired pencil–and maybe charcoal–drawing of mine from thirty years ago that I loved making and still like, and have always believed should have inspired more and better similar drawings but never did.

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Entry 4 — The Nature of Visual Poetry, Part 2

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

Note to anyone dedicatedly trying to understand my essay, you probably should reread yesterday’s segment, for I’ve revised it.  Okay, now back to:

The Nature of Visual Poetry

As a visual poem, Biloid’s “Parrots” is eventually processed in two significantly different major awarenesses, the protoceptual and the reducticeptual.   In the protoceptual awareness, the processing occurs in the Visioceptual Awareness, to which it directly proceeds.  In the reducticeptual awareness, it first goes to  the Linguiceptual Awareness, which is divided into five lesser sub-awarenesses, the Lexiceptual, Texticeptual, Dicticeptual, Vocaceptual, Rhythmiceptual and Metriceptual.  The first is in charge of the written word, the second of the spoken word, the third of vocalization, the fourth of the rhythm of speech and the fifth of the meter of speech.  Of these, the linguiceptual awareness passes “Parrots” on only to the first, the lexiceptual  awareness, because “Parrots” is written, not spoken.  Since the single word that comprises its text will be recognized as a word there, it will reach its final cerebral destination, the Verbiceptual Awareness.

The engagent of “Parrots” will thus experience it as both a visioceptual and a verbiceptual knowlecule, or unit of knowledge–at about the same time.  Visually and verbally, the first because it is visual, the second because it is a poem and thus necessarily verbal.  Clearly, it is substantially more than a conventional poem, which would be processed entirely by its engagent’s verboceptual awareness.

Okay, this essay, only about a thousand words in length so far, is already a mess.  Yes, way too many terms.  And I keep needing to revise it for clarity.  Or, at least, to reduce its obscurity.  I have trouble following it myself.  My compositional purpose right now, though, is to get everything down.  Later, I’ll simplify, if I can.

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Posted in theoretical psychology, visual poetry | No Comments »

Entry 3 — The Nature of Visual Poetry, Part 1

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

bgfavorites2

The image above is from the catalogue of a show I co-curated in Cleveland that Michael Rothenberg was kind enough to give space to in Big Bridge #12–with two special short gatherings of pieces from the show, with commentary by me.  I have it here to provide relief from my verosophizing (note: “verosophy” is my word for serious truth-seeking–mainly in science, philosophy, and history).  It’s also a filler, for I’ve had too tough a day (doctor visits, marketing, phoning people about bills) to do much of an entry.

It’s not a digression, though–I will come back to it, as a near-perfect example of a pure visual poem.

Now, briefly, to avoid Total Vocational Irresponsibility, back to:

the Nature of Visual Poetry

The pre-awareness is a sort of confederacy of primary pre-aware- nesses, one for each of the senses.  Each primary pre-awareness is in turn a confederacy of specialized secondary pre-awarenesses such as the visiolinguistic pre-awareness in the visual pre-awareness and the audiolinguistic pre-awareness in the auditory pre-awareness.  Each incoming perceptual cluster (or “pre-knowlecule,” or “knowlecule-in-progress,” by which I mean cluster of percepts, or “atoms of perception,” which have the potential to form full-scale pieces of knowledge such as the visual appearance of a robin, that I call “knowlecules”) enters one of the primary pre-awarenesses, from which it is sent to all the many secondary pre-awarenesses within that primary pre-awareness.

The secondary pre-awarenesses, in turn, screen the pre-knowlecules entering them, accepting for further processing those they are designed to, rejecting all others.  The visiolinguistic pre-awareness thus accepts percepts that pass its tests for textuality, and reject all others; the audiolinguistic pre-awareness tests for speech; and so on.  More on this tomorrow, I hope.

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Posted in Paloin Biloid, theoretical psychology, visual poetry, Visual Poetry Specimen | No Comments »

Entry 2 — The Ten Knowlecular Awarenesses

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

Okay, today the first installment of my discussion of the nature of vispo, which begins with a summary of my theory of “awarenesses”:

A Semi-Super-Definitive Analysis of the Nature of Visual Poetry

It begins with the Protoceptual Awareness. It begins there for two reasons: (1) to get rid of the halfwits who can’t tolerate neologies and/or big words, and to ground it in Knowlecular Psychology, my neurophysiological theory of psychology (and/or epistemology).  The protoceptual awareness is one of the ten awarenesses I (so far) posit the human mind to have.  It is the primary (“proto”) awareness–the ancestor of the other nine awarenesses, and the one all forms of life have in some form.  As, I believe, “real” theoretical psychologists would agree.  Some but far from all would also agree with my belief in multiple awarenesses, although probably not with my specific choice of them.  It has much in common with and was no doubt influenced by Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences.

The protoceptual awareness deals with reality in the raw: directly with what’s out there, in other words–visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, gustatory stimuli.  It also deals directly with what’s inside its possessor, muscular and hormonal states.  Hence, I divide it into three sub-awarenesses, the Sensoriceptual, Viscraceptual and Musclaceptual Awarenesses.  The other nine awarenesses are (2) the Behavraceptual Awareness, (3) the Evaluceptual Awareness, (4) the Cartoceptual Awareness, (5) the Anthroceptual Awareness, (6) the Sagaceptual Awareness, (7) the Objecticeptual Awareness, (8) the Reducticeptual Awareness, (9) the Scienceptual Awareness, and (10) the Compreceptual Awareness.

The Behavraceptual Awareness is concerned with telling one of one’s behavior, which this awareness (the only active awareness), causes.  For instance, if someone says, “Hello,” to you, your behavraceptual awareness will likely respond by causing you to say, “Hello,” back, in the process signaling you that that is what is has done.  You, no doubt, will think of the brain as yourself, but (not in my psychology but in my metaphysics) you have nothing to do with it, you merely observe what your brain chooses to do and does.  But if you feel more comfortable believing that you initiate your behavior, no problem: in that case, according to my theory, your behavraceptual awareness is concerned with telling you what you’ve decided to do and done.

The Evaluceptual Awareness measures the ratio of pain to pleasure one experiences during an instacon (or “instant of consciousness) and causes one to feel one or the other, or neither, depending on the value of that ratio.  In other words, it is in charge of our emotional state.

The Cartoceptual Awareness tells one where one is in space and time.

The Anthroceptual Awareness has to do with our experience of ourselves as individuals and as social beings (so is divided into two sub-awareness, the egoceptual awareness and the socioceptual awareness).

The Sagaceptual Awareness is one’s awareness of oneself as the protagonist of  some narrative in which one has a goal one tries to achieve.

The Objecticeptual Awareness is the opposite of the anthroceptual awareness in that it is sensitive to objects, or the non-human.

The Reducticeptual Awareness is basically our conceptual intelligence.  It reduces protoceptual data to abstract symbols like words and numbers and deals with them (and has many sub-awarenesses).

The Scienceptual Awareness deals with cause and effect, and may be the latest of our awarenesses to have evolved.

Finally, there is the Compreceptual Awareness,which is our awareness of our entire personal reality. I’m still vague about it, but tend to believe it did not precede the protoceptual awareness but later formed when some ancient life-form’s number of separate awarenesses required some general intelligence to co:ordinate their doings.

I have a busy day ahead of me, so will stop there.

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Posted in theoretical psychology | 1 Comment »

Entry 1 — My Blog Starts Anew

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

7:30 P.M. 2 November 2009

Thanks to mIEKAL aND, I am now blogging again. My vague intent at the moment is to tackle what I think visual poetry is, from the point of view of a wacked-out (extremely uncertified) theoretical neurophysiological psychologist. By which I mean that I intend to use the effects on the brain (according to my theoretical psychology) of what I consider visual poetry to define visual poetry. Starting tomorrow.

Warning. Blogging here using WordPress is new to me, so expect even more than the usual foul-ups.

Posted in Autobiographica, Bob Grumman | 2 Comments »

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