Saturday, December 10, 2005

CP4 Reactionary Poetics

Note to self: so what am I saying besides poetry doesn’t make the jump-shot anymore? Sure it’s politics without any democratic checks and balances. And yes, it no longer provides an arena where true greatness can grow. And that’s a very vicious cycle to be caught up in. But which came first? Who asks such a question when you’re caught up in a such a whirlpool?

This I know. Sometimes someone prescribes the wrong prescription for the right disease. Take postmodernism. The diagnosis is spot on. The Newtonian Cartesian universe that spawned this hyperreal world we all live in now has been overthrown by science itself, in the epitome of self-incrimination. So rather than slowly retrace the wrong road to find the vital wrong turning so as to return to the right road, postmodern poetry persists in barrel-assing down the wrong road with its right idea and wrong-headed scream. On the other hand, formalism knows the current road is all wrong (I’m not even going to mention the poetry that’s unaware the road is wrong to begin with), but doesn’t have a real clue why. So it blames the scream. And rather go back all the way to that fateful crossroad, it just ambles back down the road a piece, where it shan’t hear that terrible scream any longer. And tries to start all over again. Down the same damned wrong road.

Poetry screams its painful screech. Or turns hopelessly nostalgic. Both are reactionary. In other words, poetry fails to lead. Because it’s created a world for followers.

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