Fwd: Re: [Wgcp-whc] WG/Poetics--minutes 10/29 (Palmer)

[richard.deming at yale.edu]

----- Forwarded message from Norbert Hirschhorn <bertzpoet at yahoo.com> --
---
    Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 00:28:25 -0800 (PST)
    From: Norbert Hirschhorn <bertzpoet at yahoo.com>
Reply-To: Norbert Hirschhorn <bertzpoet at yahoo.com>
 Subject: Re: [Wgcp-whc] WG/Poetics--minutes 10/29 (Palmer)
      To: richard.deming at yale.edu

May I add a note in electronic spirit, if in absentia?
 
The assumption behind the question, "What is poetry?" is that poems 
must create within themselves an emotional field.  Recall Emily 
Dickinson's famous rule, "If I feel physically as if the top of my head 
were taken off, I know that is poetry. 
If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever 
warm me, I know that is poetry."  

Hermetic as her work often is, she might not find Language Poets taking 
the top of her head off (though, I'll bet, Lynn Hejinian might).

But what if we decide to forgo this ecstasy, not all love must end in 
orgasm (pace St. Theresa), and treat the language poetry as a pure 
aesthetic field, devoid of meaning or even emotion in the quotidian 
sense of "I feel..." and then develop aesthetic measures that allow one 
to say, "good," "not good."

cheers,

beert

 
Norbert Hirschhorn MD
Nastolantie 6 A3, 00600 Helsinki, 
Finland
Tel/Fax 358-9-752-1819
----- End forwarded message -----


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