Re: What little I know - poetry between the lines
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Sat, 06 Jun 1998 18:56:48 +1000
Some good points here - I've always observed that the biggest trouble with
creating these poet-seer geniuses in literature is the rather touchy
business of providing these works of `genius' for proof. I liked the
approach in `The Inverted Forest' best - I think hearing *any* of Seymour's
poetry is kind of ... desanctifying's not the word, but ... actually, if
any of you ever read Nabokov's `Pale Fire' it's kind of a parody of this
phenomena. He actually duplicates the whole poem, and lets you choose
whether it is a work of genius or rubbish (I had a whole list of
Seymour/`Pale Fire' parallels I was going to post but I thought it'd be
getting too esoteric) But it's true - in Salinger the poetic spirit is
tangibly celebrated more than is poetry
It interests me though that Aaron said it made him like poetry better. To
me, the poetry of Salinger lies somewhere between the lines - the ultimate
haiku, the one that needs no words at all. I think, for example, of the
sequence at the beginning of `A Perfect Day for Bananafish' where Muriel
gets ready. If you read it objectively, it's just straight description. But
somewhere there, in between the lines, is this incredible, ineffable
poetry. It's between every line of Catcher, it's hiding between the cracks
in The Laughing Man, unseeable but *there*.
Perhaps this is where the poetry of Raymond Ford or Seymour Glass lies (or
should lie) - in this poetic space which something in our subconscious
responds to. It's interesting that this is the first assertion I've heard
practically anywhere that Seymour is anything but an unassailably great
poetic genius; we've all been led to accept that and maybe we are reading
this invisible poetry somehow.
It's true though that he does tend to confuse the roles of poet and saint;
the performer of unexplainable, invisible miracles (I wrote `mirrors'
first, an interesting Freudian slip!). But that interested me too - for
haven't I said before how frequently Salinger and Deity tend to become
intermixed on this listserv? I wonder sometimes also if Salinger's exile
from the world doesn't have something to do with his equating his artistic
and spiritual quest - it seems the best explanation for a pretty
inexplicable thing. I think the reason we admire the poetry, the poet and
the saint is that we conflate them into one entity in our minds.
Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
@ THE ARTS HOLE
www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442
Maybe he should have called it `The Invisible Forest'!
> So, I humbly propose that we come away from these works more enamored
> of poets than of poetry. Of course, since these great men were able
> to distil their wisdom into holy runes it certainly seems a good idea
> to read their poetry, even if it means learning a foreign language.
> So, if we come away with such an inspiring vision of poetry, I think
> is largely due the simple assertion that the poet is related to the
saint,
> when it is really the saint whom we truly admire.
>
> By the way, I really do feel that an appreciation for poetry, and the
> development of poetic skills can lead to an awakened sensitivity
> to spirituality, I only mean to point out that in this subject,
> Salinger has asserted his point rather than demonstrated it.
>
> All the best,
> Mattis