sw00431a-inthefar.b eyond
Autobio (galaxies and avant-garde poetry) Earlier I was in the Archive of Astronomy Picture of the Day where I looked at a photo of the Globular Cluster M13. In the explanation/ mention was made of a yet more distant galaxy, a presence which moved me to say to myself interiorly: The existence and persistence of the universe obliterates my comprehension. - I then went to Reginald Shepherd's Blog where I encountered a piece on the nature of language. It was posted on Friday, May 18, 2007. It's entitled: "A Few Words About Language". Reginald Shepherd's Blog is here. In one sentence he says: ". . . language is not a discrete entity the way sound and color and shape are: . . ." I agree. As T. S. Eliot wrote in Burnt Norton: . . . . Words . . . / . . . / . . . slip, slide, . . . / . . . / Will not stay still. - Mr. Shepherd indicates that the purview of the poetic avant-garde is that space where language is nearest to losing its identity as language, but he does not pursue this. Through examples from my own compositions I am going to pursue this, but not tonight. It is nearing 11:30, and I have other concerns. - 23MAY07: I am not in general an avant-garde poet. I am, however, in my own way, a poet who believes as Stanley Kunitz did: that a poem comes to one as a kind of blessing. Therefore, even though I often do chose a form first (such as the sonnet), I tend to allow a poem to develop an interior form. A poem is an it: a made thing. This its construction, however, does not need to be predetermined in its form and content. This its construction can issue from the sense and sound of its initial word or meta-word or non-word. The levels of formality and informality to which a poem can rise (or descend, if you will) are endless. Poem-making is not an exact science, however intensively a particular maker is craft-centered. To begin with, each maker is a being who is constantly changing and being changed by da-dot-da-dot, da-dot-da-dot, da-dot-da-dot, rigida, rigida, ü ee ee ü ah ah ah. And, in the riddledon- going, a foreign object in one's eye can suddenly flip "everything". So, the so-called content of an object made with words always engenders an interior form, a form which can rigidly mimic an exterior form/ or which can so aggressively counter an exterior form it replaces that form with the form inherent in itself, or exist in some degree between/ wherein it serves as a tone master. - The following are varyingly avant-garde compositions of mine: - See 2007/02/25/sw00237s for "Day Five blue" from my Birthday Ribbons set - See 2007/02/13/sw00207tdp for "As the Desk Lamp Flickers" - See 2007/05/01/sw00357ut for "E v e n i n g" - See 2007/04/25/sw00348v for "U" - See 2007/05/10/sw00385jt for "Incantation" (see near bottom of entry) - for copyright information see homepage Brian A. J. Salchert
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