Yesterday, I went to a poetry reading in a cozy bookshop, where the deal is
a duo who reads, but the audience responds and interacts as the reading goes
on. Language poetry came up along with poetry that seems to lack poetic
devices, or so abtruse as to wonder if inaccessibility is supposed to be
some virtue. Is this poetry: L I GGG H T ?
John Ashbery is coming to Rochester June 2, and is considered one of the
pre-cursors of the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets (NY School, w/ O'Hara)… So I'll ask him. What is cool about Ashbery, is the overall impression his SOUND makes, and like a good haiku, allows the reader to elaborate on a poet's experience.
Most language poetry is at risk for self-absorbed abstraction. (I just made
that up — but that could work for a quote maybe.)
Last October we had 3 days of Black Mountain poets, another group of
pre-cursors, and well, and I can't say that many (rhymes with any) of the poems read have stayed with me.
I just received 23 pages of very cool tutorial from Ferris Gilli (The
Heron's Nest) about Haiku. Seems like LANGUAGE poets could benefit — as
"subtle" is neither absence of image, nor a grocery list crowding
associations. Juxtaposition is not something like strips of paper thrown
into a hat, and pasted on a page any old which way. And the show don't tell
rule might help shine some light into the murky corners Of personal experiment.
2 comments:
Thanks K.D. Rocking it. Besos.
another cool article about haiku in the Spring 2011 issue of American Poet --
how a haiku usually ends a Haibun "as a sort of whispery and insightful postscript".
(see Essay by Aimee Nezhukumatathil pp 3-5) She also speaks of "aware" -- the Japanese idea of certain objects able to stir up longing, sadness or immediate sympathy. L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets might consider some of the haiku requirements which allow a poem to fill the nose with an aroma which wakes up taste, delight, so every nerve in our body is eager to read it.
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