Re: kafka and rilke

Hi Kim,

Yes, as far as we know, for as long as there have been poets there has been
music nearby or with them or by them.

And, to be fair, in the case of Tom (and Bob, really) the music is sometimes
only a score behind spoken word pieces (take the long, live spoken pieces on
*Nighthawks at the Diner* or even the title track from *Small Change* or
"Potters Field" on *Foreign Affair*). So although I don't think he's in any way
canonical, I think some of Tom's writing most definitely can be called, in all
senses of the hedgehog term, poetry.

But I'm not sure that these categories or such labels matter all that much.

'Course, it's always good to be perplexed.

All the best,

--John

PS: For more on poetry the question of what is and isn't and hedgehogs, see
"Che Cos'e la Poesia?", translated by Peggy Kamuf in "Between the Blinds: A
Derrida Reader." There is this:

"Not the phoenix, not the eagle, but the herrison, very lowly, low down,
close to the earth."

and this:

"The poem can roll itself up in a ball, but it is still in order to turn its
pointed signs towards the outside. [...] It's event always interrupts or
derails absolute knowledge.... This "demon of the heart" never gathers itself
together, rather it loses itself and gets off the track (delirium or mania), it
exposes itself to chance, it would rather let itself be torn to pieces by what
bears down upon it."

And finally this, concerning the question "What is a poem?" or "What is
poetry?"

"Recall the question: 'What is...?' (ti esti, was ist..., istoria, episteme,
philosophia). "What is...?" laments the disappearance of the poem -- another
catastrophe. By announcing that which is just at is, a question salutes the
birth of prose."

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Received on Fri Jun 27 21:32:37 2003