Language is sometimes only words, even in the postmodern world. That’s encouraging. Jonathan critiques a Rae Armantrout poem for me (blogland is such a luckily accommodating world). And as I began reading the poem, my first reaction was a positive one, an appreciation of the wordplay and tightness of the first five lines. But I thought the succeeding lines slackened, as lines. And, come to find out, that was, for the most part, Jonathan’s analysis. So maybe he is right: “I object to the notion that you can't judge this by ordinary means, that you need some secret code to be able to talk about the extent to which this poem is effective or not.”
Jasper Bernes also examined some poems for me. I wasn’t enamored in the least with the poem he thought problematic. And in the poem he praised, I too had stopped at a particular word, “prolepsis,” but enjoyed the language otherwise. Although, as to meaning, well, I’ll reserve judgment.
Chris responded that there’s “some kind of appeal to the garishness, a kind of call for “all girl-on-girl action” in poetry criticism.” Well, that really wasn’t my intent. But I concur with his opinion that “one school criticizing another is too easy– all the arguments ultimately boil down to relatively unsupportable positions that are assumed to be self-explanatory.”
I appreciate Jonathan’s and Jasper’s time and effort here in responding to my public appeal. These are acts of intellectual generosity, and help me believe that the gap between poets of differing schools need not be such a grand canyon.
COLD AND SOLITUDE
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Freezing weather here after a snowfall. Here again is a winter hokku by
Hashin: No sky, no earth;Only snowCeaselessly falling. And here is Kimio
Eto playin...
3 months ago
2 comments:
If there are only subjective criticisms, then criticism really isn't anything other than a fancy way of saying "I liked this" or "I didn't like this."
I suppose one could say that different schools have different objective standards, but I don't see how that really changes the situation.
It's like Abstract Expressionism in the visual arts. There isn't any way to judge a work "good" or "bad" based solely on the work itself; one can like the artist's use of line or color, but--given only the work itself, and no critical analysis or artistic manifesto--is there a way of saying the artist has achieved what he set out to do?
Other than making a sale, I mean.
" But I concur with his opinion that “one school criticizing another is too easy– all the arguments ultimately boil down to relatively unsupportable positions that are assumed to be self-explanatory.”
As someone who occasionally earns a few bucks writing music reviews, this is the attitude I've taken all along. After all, who am I a white 48 year old rocker to think I might fully know or appreciate Rap or even Big Band-- one is too young for my personal taste, the other too old. I should think poetry critics should follow the same rules. As one who prefers lyric verse and rhyme, I would not consider myself compident to critique a hiaku, sonnet, or free verse except to say whether or not the first two were true to form.
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