tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3759353.post9046391318175055824..comments2023-08-29T02:42:23.063-05:00Comments on ¡Bemsha SWING!: Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3759353.post-59453657476392017542007-06-05T23:27:00.000-05:002007-06-05T23:27:00.000-05:00Oops -- hit the "post" button too quickly without ...Oops -- hit the "post" button too quickly without realizing it --<BR/><BR/>Antin isn't the only one to have pointed this out. Freudian theorists have as well, as well as the late Canadian literary theorist Northrop Frye, who observed that most people don't speak in prose. Antin took the leap and said that speech is closer to poetry. Regardless of whether that leap works for you, the "noise" of speech is perhaps worthy of more interest than it has usually received.<BR/><BR/>Dennis Tedlock too -- his transcriptions of Zuni stories into "orchestrated" verse rather than prose influenced Antin.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07000424514491809383noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3759353.post-33035900651041413092007-06-05T23:24:00.000-05:002007-06-05T23:24:00.000-05:00We don't know how to listen to speech because we a...We don't know how to listen to speech because we are constantly filtering out the "noise" of repetition, backtracking, and "um," in search of the "signal." If we listen for the noise as much as for the signal, speech becomes a really weird trip.<BR/><BR/>Check it out.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07000424514491809383noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3759353.post-26813008166446807642007-06-05T23:16:00.000-05:002007-06-05T23:16:00.000-05:00Acchh -- please forgive my overstatement.What I me...Acchh -- please forgive my overstatement.<BR/><BR/>What I meant was --<BR/><BR/>We don't know how to listen to speech. It's weirder than anybody gives it credit for. Take or leave Antin as a poet, but as a theorist, when he says that speech is closer to poetry than to prose, I agree. Speech is driven by association and rhythm. <BR/><BR/>If speech is more interesting than "most" speech-based poetry, that still leaves non-speech-based styles alone, and the best speech-based stuff as well. My point was -- and I didn't make this clear -- the reason it's so hard to emulate Myles (or Berrigan) is that tone is the hardest thing to catch in writing. ("it's tone I'm in love with" -- did Williams say that, or Oppen? I don't remember.) And even a wonderful poet like Berrigan (whom I love) has a tendency toward monochromaticism that captures only a thin slice of speech. What he accomplishes with the monochromaticism can be very beautiful and moving as well as witty and piquant and what-have-you. ("Train Ride" is a great example of something that builds to a very moving effect by using a "plain-spoken" style.) Sometimes monochromaticism is just the right thing.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07000424514491809383noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3759353.post-58529591396057649902007-06-05T21:20:00.000-05:002007-06-05T21:20:00.000-05:00Antin's practice is interesting & useful, but if i...Antin's practice is interesting & useful, but if it's true that "actual messy talk is almost always more musical and more polychromatic" than more formal poetries, that pretty much erases literature. And not just literature as high art, but folk songs & the blues as well.Joseph Duemerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07650314132179290321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3759353.post-53108080390813936562007-06-05T17:51:00.000-05:002007-06-05T17:51:00.000-05:00This is where Antin is so valuable: The colloquia...This is where Antin is so valuable: The colloquial style is usually as fictional as any, because actual speech is usually a mess, full of starts and stops and backtracking and "um." (I try to hear "um" as a variant of "om," a meditation-syllable.) <BR/><BR/>What passes as colloquial is often idealized middle-class prose-speech, either jaunty and boho, like Berrigan in his talky mode, or, heck, white collar and quietudinous, in the Silliman sense of quietudinous. <BR/><BR/>Both the the jaunty boho talky mode and the quietudinous meditative mode tend toward monochromaticism. Actual messy talk is almost always more musical and more polychromatic.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07000424514491809383noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3759353.post-442425262250689062007-06-05T17:48:00.000-05:002007-06-05T17:48:00.000-05:00Yes, Joseph. Any single poet, or poem, would be l...Yes, Joseph. Any single poet, or poem, would be limited in relation to this idea of "fullness."Jonathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3759353.post-6892879255104305652007-06-05T13:27:00.000-05:002007-06-05T13:27:00.000-05:00What you say seems true, Jonathan. I agree that po...What you say seems true, Jonathan. I agree that poetry as a whole ought to cover the "fullness of language," though of course any given poem presents a limited range, or selection of diction(s).Joseph Duemerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07650314132179290321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3759353.post-49058002292648032692007-06-05T13:11:00.000-05:002007-06-05T13:11:00.000-05:00If you teach that course, can you do it on-line, s...If you teach that course, can you do it on-line, so I can take it?Andrew Shieldshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02804655739574694901noreply@blogger.com