Entry 416 — Me an’ Marton
Clark Lunberry, who took the picture, too (at the college Clark teaches at, the name of which I’ve forgotten, on Saturday, 2 April 2011):
.
.
I’m the taller one. Marton is trying in vain to convince me of some idiotic idea of his that certain kinds of semantically meaningless texts that somehow act like language are a form of visual poetry. Actually, we came close to agreeing, I assigning such poems tentatively to the borblur between visual poetry and textual visimagery–until I can see examples of what Marton was talking about, and bounced their author’s name off my head, without any a trace of it getting inside. I think his over-all position on the definition of visual poetry is fairly close to mine. Anyway, we’re still friends!
.
Note: I guess I should add for the sake of those uninitiated into the way my sense of humor works, that the “idiotic” above is a joke on myself. I automatically react with hostility to any idea I disagree with (as, I believe everyone else does), so over the years I’ve developed a habit in person of displaying a violent rage at having to deal with an idea I don’t like that’s is so excessive, it can only be taken as a joke. I’m conveying, I hope, the fact that I do disagree but don’t take myself or my disagreement seriously. Meanwhile, I’m letting off steam. Because I do take everything seriously–and completely unseriously. The “idiotic” is the print version of that.
“certain kinds of semantically meaningless texts that somehow act like language are a form of visual poetry.”
what’s wrong with that?
actually, id be more interested in a report of marton’s presentation during his stay in this country.
As you ought to know by now, Nico, I have this absurd idea that poetry is a literary art, and therefore must have a semantic meaning. But I might have to accept certain kinds of “semantically meaningless texts that somehow act like language are a form of visual poetry” as poetry if there’s no other category for it. If it does something aesthetically interesting visually, then I’d call it “visimagery,” my word for visual art. If it is strictly textual but averbal, then, perhaps, “asemic poetry” would be the proper category for it. Justified by its having “near-words”–and having to have some category.
As for what I put in my blog, there’s a lot of stuff I’d like to see in it but am habitually too tired to post. I should be up to saying more about my day with Marton (and Clark) eventually, but not about Marton’s presentation, because I could only afford to stay a day, so missed it. It may have been recorded, though. By now he has probably given a second presentation in Chicago. His tour includes a third city–Milwaukee, I think. Anyway, he’ll be meeting Karl Young.
–Bob
–Bob
i know i stepped in your definition field, but wouldnt a “foreign” language be considered meaningless to someone without the semantic keys. though, of course, it would still be language.
im glad to hear marton’s visiting mr young..
thanks,
n
My impulse was to joke that all poems have to be in English. But in a way, that’s true: a poem is FOR ITS ENGAGENT a collection of wrods (and perhaps other elements) that he can read. A text in Spanish is not a poem for me, but can certainly be one for a person who speaks Spanish. Just as a painting can be a work of art for someone who can see but not for someone who is blind.
I maintain that everything has a personal definition and social definition. For me, a poem has to be in English. For the world, a poem has to be in some language more than one person can read.
It reduces to the silly philosophical question about whether real things exist where no conscious mind can witness them. I say they do simply because it’s easier to think things are stable, and don’t disappear when no one is looking at them. But the latter could happen. It doesn’t matter, though. Existence stays exactly the same regardless of what happens.
–Bob