James Joyce « POETICKS-

James Joyce « POETICKS

Archive for the ‘James Joyce’ Category

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.

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

Jack Moscovitz « POETICKS

Archive for the ‘Jack Moscovitz’ Category

Entry 83 — MATO2, Chapter 1.05

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

About a week later I heard from one of my California writer friends, Moya Sinclair, who called me a little after eight in the evening sounding very cheerful and energetic. She, Annie Stanton, quite a good linguexpressive poet, Diane Walker, well-known as a television actress under her maiden name, Brewster, who had literary ambitions and was quite bright but never to my knowledge broke beyond the talented dabbler stage, and I had been a few years earlier the main members of a little writers’ group at Valley Junior College in the San Fernando Valley presided over by Les Boston, a professor there. Technically, we were doing independent studies with Dr. Boston, but in reality we friends who met weekly to discuss one another’s writing, mine at the time plays. Annie and Diane were about ten years older than I, Moya close to eighty by the time of her phone call, and she was in a convalescent home. Her circulatory system had slowly been wearing out. I fear she died there, for I never heard from her again. Both Annie and Diane died around then in their early sixties, huge unexpected losses for me.

Moya reported that Annie had been over for a visit and had left my book with her. Moya said she’d been reading parts of it and found it beautifully written, etc. She had a few adverse comments on it, too–on Geof’s word for one-word poem (“pwoermd”), for instance, but that was to be expected. Moya, for years working on an autobiographical novel, was pretty wedded to the old standards. We had a fine chat that boosted my spirits a good deal. She represented one of the main kinds of readers I hoped would like my book.

A day later I got a very positive letter from Jack Moskovitz about my book, and a lukewarm one about it from Geof. Geof, as I remember, felt I should have lightened up on the Grummaniacal coinages. I think he was right. I believe one of the things I tried to do in my two revisions of the book was to cut down on them.

The next day, according to my diary, I got lots of letters, mostly from people I sent my book to, and for the most part complimentary though Jody Offer, a California poet/playwright friend of mine, felt I got too advanced in parts–I’m sure in part because of my terminology. I was finding out, though, that my book was not as geared for non-experts as I’d hoped.

Posted in Autobiographica, Bob Grumman, Geof Huth, Jack Moscovitz, Jody Offer | No Comments »

Robert Fitterman « POETICKS

Archive for the ‘Robert Fitterman’ Category

Entry 1207 — The Experioddicist, July 1993, P.4

Sunday, September 8th, 2013

Note: I consider Geof’s poem a masterpiece–one of more than a few he’s done I wish I’d done.

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Posted in Bob Grumman, Geof Huth, language poetry specimen, Poetry Criticism, Robert Fitterman | No Comments »

Eugen Gomringer « POETICKS

Archive for the ‘Eugen Gomringer’ Category

Entry 1553 — Back to “Silencio.”

Friday, August 29th, 2014

Another simple post so I can quickly go to one of my Major Projects. It’s from Kalligram, the one at the top being Eugen Gomringer’s famous “Silencio”:

It is slowly inspiring as many variations, including several by me, as Basho’s “Old Pond.” Definitely one of the world’s majorest visual poems.

Posted in Eugen Gomringer, Geof Huth, Visual Poetry Specimen | 7 Comments »

Entry 740 — The Special Value of Solitextual Visual Poems

Wednesday, May 16th, 2012

In my taxonomy a solitextual visual poem is a poem consisting solely of textual elements that are significantly visioaesthetic–that is, what their text is visually is necessary to the poem’s central aesthetic effect. A famous example is this, by Eugen Gomringer:

I’m posting it again to illustrate two points. One is that is has always been considered a “concrete poem,” because it consists of nothing but words, yet has a visual component absolutely necessary for it to have any appreciable aesthetic value–the visual appearance of the absence of text in one part of it. That, of course, is what makes the poem a classic by depicting a silence greater than the silence of printed words–by, that is, surprising one encountering the poem (with the ability to appreciate it) with a sudden poetic understanding of something central to existence.

My other point occurred to me when recently reading something by Richard Kostelanetz in which he speaks of finding “that with words alone (he) can make the most powerful images available to (him).” In context, he seems to be suggesting that these images are more powerful than those others get with works combining verbal and graphic elements. I can’t go along with that. However, on reflection, I saw how solitextual visual poems like Gomringer’s and Kostelanetz’s can be said to have a unique aesthetic punch compared to poems mixing graphics with text. That’s because of the increase in the unexpectedness of whatever it is a solitextual visual poem does visioaesthetically compared to what the other kind of visual poem does. I claim that both kinds of poems will, if successful, put an engagent in Manywhere-at-Once, or a part of the brain neither a conventional poem or conventional visimage (graphic image) is likely to put one, but the engagent will already be partway into that location upon first encountering a poem combining the visual and the verbal whereas he will only be in the verbal part of his brain until the pay-off in a purely solitextual poem, so the pay-off will come more forcefully, and probably be more intense. The mixture of graphics and text, however, will be able to make up for the reduced intensification by increased richness–by going to a larger Manywhere-at-Once or inter-connected Manywhere-at-Onces. Equal but different.

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Posted in Eugen Gomringer, Poetics, Richard Kostelanetz | No Comments »

Entry 48 — Full Effectiveness in Poetry

Saturday, December 19th, 2009

I’m skipping ahead to old blog entry #796 today to make a point about my recent cryptographiku. #796 has Cor van den Heuvel’s poem:

. tundra

I go on in the entry to say I believe Eugen Gomringer’s “Silencio,” of 1954, was the first poem to make consequential visiophorically expressive use of blank space:

.                      silencio silencio silencio  .                      silencio silencio silencio  .                      silencio          silencio  .                      silencio silencio silencio  .                      silencio silencio silencio

I finish my brief commentary but then opining that van den Heuvel’s poem was the first to make an entire page expressive, the first to make full-scale negative space its most important element. Rather than surround a meaningful parcel of negative space like Gomringer’s masterpiece, it is surrounded by meaningful negative space. I’m certainly not saying it thus surpasses Gomringer’s poem; what it does is equal it in a new way.

I consider it historically important also for being, so far as I know, the first single word to succeed entirely by itself in being a poem of the first level.

Then there’s my poem from 1966:

. at his desk
. the boy,

. writing his way into b wjwje tfdsfu xpsme

This claim to be the first poem in the world to use coding to significant metaphorical effect. Anyone who has followed what I’ve said about “The Four Seasons” should have no trouble deciphering this. I consider it successful as a poem because I believe anyone reasonably skillful at cyrptographical games will be able (at some point if not on a first reading) to emotionally (and sensually) understand/appreciate the main things it’s doing and saying during one reading of it–i.e., read it normally to the coded part, then translate that while at the same time being aware of it as coded material and understanding and appreciating the metaphor its being coded allows.

I’ve decided “The Four Seasons” can’t work like that. It is a clever gadget but not an effective poem because I can’t see anyone being able to make a flowing reading through it and emotionally (and sensually) understanding/appreciating everything that’s going on in it and what all its meanings add up to, even after study and several readings. Being able to understand it the way I do in my explanation of it not enough. This is a lesson from the traditional haiku, which must be felt as experience, known reducticeptually (intellectually), too, but only unconsciously–at the time of reading it as a poem rather than as an object of critical scrutiny, which is just as valid a way to read it but different.

Posted in Bob Grumman, Cor van den Heuvel, Eugen Gomringer, infraverbal poetry, minimalist poetry, Poetics, visual poetry | No Comments »

Entry 598 — “Fifty” « POETICKS

Entry 598 — “Fifty”

This is from Geof Huth’s blog:

I liked this when I first saw it although I didn’t find it saying anything verbally. When I finally realized it said, “fifty,” I thought it accidental because I couldn’t see why it would say that. My slow mind eventually remember that Geof is now fifty-years-old, which makes this image a particularly effective representation of his present strange combination of freedom and awkward incompleteness . . . straining, yearning for something. With his ego (“I,” as Karl Kempton would be sure to notice) lost or transcended.

Diary Entry

Sunday 18 December 2011, 6 P.M. Another unproductive day. Tennis in the morning, a fine meal at Linda’s in the afternoon. A blog entry for today just taken care of a little while ago. A little work done on my “Mathemaku for Scott Helmes” to count as “work on preparation for the A&H exhibition.” And now I’d like to go to bed, but will probably read instead.

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This entry was posted on Monday, December 19th, 2011 at 12:00 AM and is filed under Geof Huth, Visual Poetry Specimen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Entry 409 — Thoughts on Poetics « POETICKS

Entry 409 — Thoughts on Poetics

The following is from Geof Huth’s ongoing “Poetics”:

84. Lie

Does the voice make a lie of the poem? Because a good voice can make a weak poem seem strong and a poor voice can ruin a great poem. Is the poem isolated on the page (the screen) the most accurate version of the poem, true to itself, or does the voice we use to read it in our heads also ruin great poems and resurrect the dead ones?

It comprised his blog entry for Friday. Here’s my reply:

Interesting question. I lean toward considering any poem on paper to its completion as the printed score of a musical composition is to its completion.

I can’t see a bad reading spoiling a good poem or good reading rescuing a bad poem, for me, but that’s because the conceptual area of my brain is much stronger than its auditory area. So, for me, what a poem is on paper is something like 95% of what it is, completed. For others the percentage will be lower or higher.

Since I can’t read music very well, a musical composition on paper is likely less than 15% of what it is, completed, for me. For Beethoven, in his final years, it would have been 100%.

Similar thinking applies to the font-shape and color of a poem’s print, and the color and texture of the paper.

All this is out the window for sound poetry and visual poetry–well, not all of it for those of us for whom poetry is a verbal art requiring completion by being spoken, whether internally by the poem’s engagent or externally by either the engagent or someone else. No more than half out the window, I would say. For me, a verbally effective visual or sound poem can be neither completely spoiled nor completely rescued by its extra-verbal visual or auditory components–but it could be one or the other by its verbal content–as a poem.

Hey, thanks, Geof. I’ve just written my blog entry for Sunday.

–Bob

Still later comment: I wonder if it’s possible for a bad poem to be read so well it becomes, or seems, a good poem. It seems to me that if it can be read in such a way that its sounds good, it must be good–it had whatever is needed to be beautifully voiced.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 27th, 2011 at 12:00 AM and is filed under Geof Huth, Poetics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Entry 409 — Thoughts on Poetics”

karl kempton says:

27 March 11 at 2:24 PM

at least for me,

the voice has nothing to do with it is the ear drums, how sharp the listener is and his/her attention span and as bob sez, the mind’s discriminating abilities as well as experience.

a good voice can can sway an ignorant mind

karl

Entry 61 — 2 Poems by Geof Huth « POETICKS

Entry 61 — 2 Poems by Geof Huth

They’re from #721:

This entry was posted on Friday, January 1st, 2010 at 12:00 AM and is filed under Geof Huth, Visual Poetry Specimen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Entry 9 — Poetry Employing Irrational Language « POETICKS

Entry 9 — Poetry Employing Irrational Language

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

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.

Tags: haiku

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 12:00 AM and is filed under Geof Huth, haiku, James Joyce, Poetics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Entry 161 — A Huthian Fidgetglyph « POETICKS

Entry 161 — A Huthian Fidgetglyph

In one of his recent mailings to me, Geof Huth sent a folded card with the interior of ther First reformed Church of Schenectady, New York, shown on its 300th birthday in 1980. I’m showing it here because it sets up the fidgetglyph Geof had drawn across the inside of the card and given the title “The Fervent F.” I’m showing that because it seems to me how good a calligrapher Geof is at his best. The original is much better than the image shown here, by the way.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 17th, 2010 at 12:00 AM and is filed under Geof Huth, Textual Designage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Entry 10 — Nonsense, Etc. « POETICKS

Entry 10 — Nonsense, Etc.

Okay, back to Geof Huth’s haiku and why I consider it a specimen of nearsense, and what that means:

. the car I didn’t notice isn’t there

This could be temporary nonsense, or a text that at first seems not to make sense but later does. Its speaker may simply have driven his car past another car without noticing the other car. At that point a companion’s remarking, “Hmmm, that car must be over fifty-years-old,” might cause the speaker to look in the direction where the old car should be and seeing no car–because it has moved. He never noticed the car but knows it was there although it has gone.

The problem with this is that no companion is mentioned. Moreover, the incident seems too minor to form the basis of a poem. So I take it to be a paradox: one can’t notice that one has failed to notice something. One can’t think there is a car somewhere that one did not notice since to do so indicates one noticed it. Or can one notice not noticing? It’s very confusing–coming close to making sense but never quite doing so. It’s not pure nonsense (as a form of literature meant simply to amuse) nor is it willfully and sadistically completely meaningless the way constersense is. There is thus something about it that gives pleasure–the way an optical illusion does, or the paradox, “This sentence is a lie.”

My tentative explanation for the pleasure is that we like reminders that existence is not wholly rational, wholly predictable. The paradox performs a variation on the theme of reason. It makes enough sense to prevent anger, but not enough to be fully satisfying in the long run–as a paradox. But Huth’s poem is more than a paradox: it captures a human feeling we all have of suddenly being discontinuous with Existence–lost. The universe has gone left while we were continuing right.

The difference between nearsense of this kind and constersense is that we share the feelings of the creator of nearsense but are the victims of the creator of constersense (unless we share his contempt for those who want existence to be reasonably reasonable and enjoy thinking of the pain he is inflicting on them).

Tags: haiku

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 2:51 PM and is filed under Geof Huth, Poetics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Category: Geof Huth