6 oct 2005

I am increasingly interested in language as it actually already exists rather than language as it is dressed up for various "poetic" uses. That is, I like poems that make use of the ways in which language is already alive and poetic, rather than those that view ordinary language as insufficient and attempt to remedy this situation.

I do like artificial poetic languages too. That is, languages that set themselves up deliberately in opposition to ordinary speech and would never be confused with it. But I like them exaggeratedly artificial. I don't like, so much, a poetic language that excludes the vitality of speech by being more "formal" in register, yet still pretends to a sort of "naturalness." Poetry with a lot of markers of poetic genre (similes and the like). To me that's the worst of two worlds. In other words, I like Creeley and Keats, but not so much Wordsworth.

3 comentarios:

Jess Mynes dijo...

Once again spot on. Nice post.

Jonathan dijo...

I meant Wordsworth's general approach to poetic language. Of course "The Prelude" is wonderful in all sorts of ways.

Jess Mynes dijo...

"The Prelude" is WW at his least florid.