uTopianTurtleTop

Held a 12-hour-old baby tonight, new son of friends, the pink bony little thing asleep in my arms, occasionally squirmy, stretchy, tiny little creature -- baby! Congrats Dan & Vic; Welcome Zachary. A deep pleasure to meet you.

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A trusted reader writes to set me straight on a couple points regarding my recent rants against the poets associated with "L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E" magazine. First, the name of the magazine got smacked on them as a group of poets who weren't necessarily thinking of themselves as a group; two of them named the magazine, but people who didn't particularly like them transferred the name to the group of poets. I still don't like the name, but I'm wrong to blame the group for it. Second, regarding the "subject": my reader tells me, and I trust him, that the term comes from philosophy, "the epistemological subject, the irreducible self of Descartes' cogito," and not from grammar or politics. Good to know.

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Theory & lit -- I'm of two minds. Yeah, that theory-lovin' Francophile Shakespeare really sucked when he went around alluding to Montaigne. On the other mind, to paraphrase my (& lots of people's) beloved O'Hara, if people don't need theory bully for them.

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Suddenly reminded tonight of why I stopped writing poetry: My crisis of representation, age 19. Came to realize, from my own writing & reflecting, that any representation is a misrepresentation; at best a partial representation, a pale black-and-white 2-D still photograph of bustling ultracolor 3-D moving life. And so I stopped writing poetry. But didn't stop reading it. So I'm sympathetic to theory-hoppin' poetry bloggers who keep their daily lives close to their vest. Still, it was a shock to be reminded of why I stopped writing it -- I'd honestly forgotten.

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The theory v. life squabble reminds me of Hugh Kenner’s distinction between “a consciousness observing” and “a person speaking,” which I wrote about a while back. (By the way, I stole the title of the post in question from this terrific book, written by a poet, ba-da-bing, who's associated with "L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E" magazine.) The criticism against the theory partisans is that one rarely writes about one's reading with one's whole personhood (however problematic the notion of "one's whole personhood" may be). Not saying never, just urging people to be aware of Kenner's distinction, which he attributes to the change in consciousness that happened in the wake of Descartes' declaration, "I think, therefore I am." The worry that the radically dissociative, non-narrative, non-denotative poetry may be the ultimate destination of the "observing consciousness," Descartes' cogito futilely failing to efface traces of itself. The shorthand ideological descriptions in Christopher Nealon's essay made me feel that the attempt was in bad faith; now I'm not so sure; still, I can't help but feel a bitterness in the feeling-about-the-world from much of that poetry, a feeling I don't love, at least not in this form. I'll read more, try to open my mind/heart/fingers to it.