RE: Kafka and rilke and Perplexity State University

"Most poetry these days isn't heard, it's read..."

Actually, I'm not sure this is true at the moment. The country is full of
bars and bookshops and campuses that now host poetry slams. Competitive
poetry is present in almost any town that has a decent size university.
Cable television now has several spoken-word shows, including Def Poetry
Jam, that are not rap or hip-hop shows, but full-blown poetry readings. I
suspect as much poetry is being heard around this country today as is being
read, perhaps more.
John O.
 
You would think if the world was all urban univeristy cities and towns, and
those are the only places where poetry exists.
Daniel

And any number of pieces in almost all of those readings and slams would
challenge your distinctions about arrangement, I suspect.

And, by the way, Scottie's wrong. Discussing something is not the same as
killing it nor autopsying it. You can discuss it and still allow it to live
and breathe and flourish. We are in no danger whatsoever of killing the
patient. Poetry is alive and well and always will be, even amidst our
discussion of it and our discussion of such distinctions. The idea that
discussing a genre's characteristics or analyzing a distinction is the same
as killing the genre or taking the life from it or ruining it or even
dissecting it is a very old myth usually maintained and dredged up by those
who'd rather not do the work necessary to participate in the discussion but
want to have a say nonetheless. It's cheap and it's easy and it's just not
true.
John O.
 
There's that word again bring up the rear. Scottie your wrong again.
Scottie you old myth, your time has come and gone, I guess all that's left
is another coming. Maybe death of the genre won't result except in a Rodney
King style beating at least, all for the sake of being free from forms. I
am waiting for the 'poem' in the jar full of urine, or has that already been
done? I guess the new myths are what's available; what with supply and
demand or should I say slam and jam.
Daniel

 But thanks, Jim, for the thoughts. I suspect that there are more
"exceptions" than you think, almost enough to make you begin to doubt that
the rule is a rule.

In any case, for what it's worth, pieces like the one I offered, whatever
they might be generically, are widely accepted for entry at "poetry" slams.

Perhaps the word is evolving. Catachresis is one of my favorite tropes.
John

Catachresis cannot be catachresis without rule as a rule, without rules a
trope is no longer a figure therefore no longer a trope. The creative
departure from the rule is anchored in that rule. Is the appeal of all this
almost poetry the fact that it isn't poetry but called so anyway or that the
rule comes from some one else and therefore you are not subject to it?
Those dam poetry police, well, call it jams or raps or hyperprose or
whatever but slopping it all together as gruel, come on John O., word
smithing and word playing for shock effect? Poetry is poetry but we can
always abuse and catachresis away but if you want me to know what you mean I
would suspect you would be just as careful as a writer as you demand readers
to be. Hey, do whatever the hell you want but don't expect sympathy when
crying in your beer because no one understands, those are the reapings of
the rebel. It can be fun to mock the rules, thank God for rules.
Daniel
 

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Received on Tue Jul 1 12:07:06 2003