Structure in poetry

[TheRainMan]

. . . But when they do so interpret a work they are not in any sense co-creators of that work . . .

i can't speak for Senna (only he can do that), but when he said poetry is 50% writer / 50% reader, i do not think he meant that a reader is the co-creator of the poem.

they just interpret writing that (as Senna also said in his "goal" principle) goes far beyond the text (if the writer, presumably, has done his 50% well).

that is my interpretation, in the simplest terms i can muster, of that part of his theory.

and yes, it is off-topic, though i guess if it keeps being discussed, it will be the new topic. not that i want to discuss it further. i don't, particularly.

 

[Tathagata]

I think this talk about "frames of reference' is pretty much nonsense as well — though of a fairly widespread kind. The term comes from the theory of relativity and if you try to press the analogy it falls apart. Readers/writers have beliefs, preconceptions, prejudices, expectations: they bring these things to a work when interpreting it — and they can do that task well or badly (or very badly, as in the Macarena case). Call this a "frame of reference" if it makes you happy, or gets you laid, or both. But when they do so interpret a work they are not in any sense co-creators of that work. All of this crap — which has been around now for about forty years in the ghettos of academia— is just trying to make the role of the reader much more important than it is. It was fostered by critics who were eaten up with artist-envy.

A reader can only get out of a poem what he /she is able to understand.
How is that crap?
If I write a poem using biblical symbolism and analogy and the person reading it hasn't read the bible, perhaps is a Hindu or a Muslim, they obviously won't understand what I want them to will they?


I said nothing about co-creators by the way

It does make me happy, I'm not here to get laid nor do I need to use snobbish theoretical language to do so.



ghettos of academia?
artist envy?

someone piss in your Vegemite this morning?

 

[Eluard]

It does make me happy, I'm not here to get laid nor do I need to use snobbish theoretical language to do so.



ghettos of academia?
artist envy?

someone piss in your Vegemite this morning?

Yup — those who don't have a clue and aren't going to get one.

 

[Tathagata]

Yup — those who don't have a clue and aren't going to get one.

I'm sure they'll feel terribly deprived

 

[TheRainMan]

food fight.

 

[Tathagata]

food fight.

we can't waste food in the ghetto
we throw empty Big Mac containers

 

[FifthFlower]

food fight.

 

[EriAliSaa]

I holpe you don't mind me interjecting late. But something rang very false on the initial post.

Tzara you are being literal to a fault. By saying "I see structure therefore everything is structured and must be defined as having structure" is rather heavy handed with defining free form. Or even the color blue.

Here is the problem I have with your analysis. You find a hint of structure and point out that that alone denotes that it doesn't conform to the rigid definition of completely free. But then again what does? The supposition that true freedom does not exist has been put forth in all sorts of mediums and context. Which for the most part is correct. It is impossible to be completely free.

I will stick with this medium and deconstruct the structure theorem. You have put forth that because some structure exist therefore there must be structure in rhyme, meter, syllable count, etc. and because of that, no free form.

Ok but how far do we carry that argument? Well already you know I can get very silly here. I could argue all sorts of things about all the structure that allows us to communicate with each other to prove that even the most random acts of throwing words together actually have at least some structure.... and that means that there is no free form or free expression of any kind.

The problem is that definitions are written by people. People are fallible. Instead of saying free form doesn't exist, you need to question what free form is defined as. Rewrite the definition for such literal minded individuals like yourself.

free form poetry: a poetic writing style that doesn't have necessarily conform with any particular known poetic structure.

Btw I don't have any particular structure.

 

[EriAliSaa]

Sorry if I broke up the flow of conversation. I just sort of read through the first page before I posted.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Sorry if I broke up the flow of conversation. I just sort of read through the first page before I posted.

I don't think the conversation was so much "flowing" as "limping", or maybe "lumbering off into the dark woods like Sasquatch" or perhaps "crashing clumsily through the screen door with its metal walker and shouting at the goddamn kids to get the hell out of its yard."

Tzara didn't necessarily want to see a good game of "let's you and him fight" but I don't think he was altogether against it either. And besides, the Iceman has now wandered off and left us to our own poetic devices anyway.

Don't make me put up that giant meat AV again.

bijou

 

[EriAliSaa]

I don't think the conversation was so much "flowing" as "limping", or maybe "lumbering off into the dark woods like Sasquatch" or perhaps "crashing clumsily through the screen door with its metal walker and shouting at the goddamn kids to get the hell out of its yard."

That is quite a lot of imagery stuffed into one sentence

 

[unpredictablebijou]

That is quite a lot of imagery stuffed into one sentence

I have a very specialized form of Tourette's Syndrome.

bj

 

[Eluard]

I don't think the conversation was so much "flowing" as "limping", or maybe "lumbering off into the dark woods like Sasquatch" or perhaps "crashing clumsily through the screen door with its metal walker and shouting at the goddamn kids to get the hell out of its yard."

bijou

And those damned kids had better stay out of my yard too — or I'll make topiary hedges out of them!

 

[champagne1982]

And those damned kids had better stay out of my yard too — or I'll make topiary hedges out of them!

Can I be a unicorn? Can I? Huh? Please?

 

[Eluard]

Can I be a unicorn? Can I? Huh? Please?

I thought you already were!

 

[EriAliSaa]

Carrie that is incredibly phallic of you....

 

[champagne1982]

I thought you already were!

OOOh no no no. Having a horn and being horny are two very different things.

Carrie that is incredibly phallic of you....

Well, it's all a measure of my needs and, quite frankly, the thought of a well-formed stallion to ride is flowing my juices this week.

 

[EriAliSaa]

Well, it's all a measure of my needs and, quite frankly, the thought of a well-formed stallion to ride is flowing my juices this week.

This week?!? If that is a euphemism, then a well formed stallion should get your juices flowing every day! However if it is literal....

Isn't funny how beautiful yet vulgar a a bearded iris can look? Not as vulgar as skyscrapers or phallic memorials. But still. I know that you can grow irises from seed.... though not sure they have sex because their ovaries are in the root. Regardless they seem so in your face feminine don't they?

Maybe thats why my flower gardens are so filled with them

 

[Tathagata]

Isn't funny how beautiful yet vulgar a a bearded iris can look?

Wasn't she between The Human Blockhead and Arturo the Seal boy in the sideshow?

 

[EriAliSaa]

Wasn't she between The Human Blockhead and Arturo the Seal boy in the sideshow?

Of course she was!

 

[foehn2]

ok, it's just another blog thread. topic was lost at the first stoplight. thass cool, thass cool. i'm cool with it.

 

[twelveoone]

I think this talk about "frames of reference' is pretty much nonsense as well — though of a fairly widespread kind. The term comes from the theory of relativity and if you try to press the analogy it falls apart. Readers/writers have beliefs, preconceptions, prejudices, expectations: they bring these things to a work when interpreting it — and they can do that task well or badly (or very badly, as in the Macarena case). Call this a "frame of reference" if it makes you happy, or gets you laid, or both. But when they do so interpret a work they are not in any sense co-creators of that work. All of this crap — which has been around now for about forty years in the ghettos of academia— is just trying to make the role of the reader much more important than it is. It was fostered by critics who were eaten up with artist-envy.

Did you know it is illegal to teach the "theory of relativity" in West Virginia?

role of the reader? artisit-envy?

The reader completes the transaction.

Think of it this way, you go a resturant because you read a review on it, you have a good meal. Who has chef-envy?

Back to structure, the structure on paper is two dimensional. A drawing of a house by a child. It is the verbs that define physics of the relationship of the words.* This becomes the added lines that give the illusion of depth, a defining distance. This "distance" in a picture is most often three dimesional. But with words this distance can exist across time. Past tense, present tense, all that grammer crap.
Tath's "frame of reference" exists in four dimensions.

Now optical illusions - the "face-vase" picture you cannot see both at the same time, one or the other, the viewer detemines at that moment. Such is the case with ambiguity of words**; the reader at the time of reading choses how he reads it. A great poet knows this. He plays it. He hopes the reader comes back for another path. The critic being a reader who goes back. Not unlike the food critic, who gets paid to eat.

You read Frost
I read Frost
Tath reads Frost

we all walk away with something different - "frame of reference". we come back it changes ***

Structure is just a sense of proportion, there are formulas for that.

It is with the words, dear Degas...

1.)How is that? 2.)Am I a fucking genius? 3.)Does it get me laid? 4.)Do I even care?

or should I return to Jokeville, WV

Role of the reader
give us our bread
our daily bread
interbred
with jam






*Steve Pinker's The Stuff of Thought
**Empson 7 Types of Ambiguity

*** Derrida I forget

 

[Eluard]

Did you know it is illegal to teach the "theory of relativity" in West Virginia?

role of the reader? artisit-envy?

The reader completes the transaction.

Think of it this way, you go a resturant because you read a review on it, you have a good meal. Who has chef-envy?

Back to structure, the structure on paper is two dimensional. A drawing of a house by a child. It is the verbs that define physics of the relationship of the words.* This becomes the added lines that give the illusion of depth, a defining distance. This "distance" in a picture is most often three dimesional. But with words this distance can exist across time. Past tense, present tense, all that grammer crap.
Tath's "frame of reference" exists in four dimensions.

Now optical illusions - the "face-vase" picture you cannot see both at the same time, one or the other, the viewer detemines at that moment. Such is the case with ambiguity of words**; the reader at the time of reading choses how he reads it. A great poet knows this. He plays it. He hopes the reader comes back for another path. The critic being a reader who goes back. Not unlike the food critic, who gets paid to eat.

You read Frost
I read Frost
Tath reads Frost

we all walk away with something different - "frame of reference". we come back it changes ***

Structure is just a sense of proportion, there are formulas for that.

It is with the words, dear Degas...

1.)How is that? 2.)Am I a fucking genius? 3.)Does it get me laid? 4.)Do I even care?

or should I return to Jokeville, WV

Role of the reader
give us our bread
our daily bread
interbred
with jam






*Steve Pinker's The Stuff of Thought
**Empson 7 Types of Ambiguity

*** Derrida I forget

Thanks — that clears the matter up nicely!

 

[twelveoone]

Thanks — that clears the matter up nicely!

You're welcome - just a matter of putting in terms you understand.
Role of the reader
give us our bread
our daily bread
interbred
with jam

Or should we return to the ghetto, with our gelato?

So why are YOU here Eluard?

To point out that "frame of reference" outside of physics has been around for 40 years? I was exposed to it in sociology, did tath misappropiate it in reference to a poem?

SHOW ME how the analogy falls apart, how is that rolleyes?

Do you wish to look at how important the reader is, in relationship to marketforces? Or is that too simple for you?

And this artist-envy:

But when they do so interpret a work they are not in any sense co-creators of that work. All of this crap — which has been around now for about forty years in the ghettos of academia— is just trying to make the role of the reader much more important than it is. It was fostered by critics who were eaten up with artist-envy.

What the critic does at best is create something different, a way of looking at the work. In which case we extend it 50/50; 50/50; 50/50, and another 50/50.

Envy if you want to call it that, may have played a apart in Eliot's What Dante Means to Me I'm sure he was green, and I'm sure Dante would have been pissed to see his sales go up 700 years after his death.

So why are YOU here Eluard? To show us smart and sarcastic you can be? Duh. Guess what? People have said that about me, but at least I serve a function in the feedback loop, and I realize how important the reader is, and you just seem to be preening yourself for ascension to academia that you so despise.
academia-envy?

Now come back with some statement about how I am pandering to the reader, so I can really laugh my ass off.

 

[Eluard]

You know I was just going to call you a stupid motherfucker who has clearly taken too many drugs in his lifetime, but I won't. It would be like getting mad at the drunk who stumbles into the bar and shouts abuse. Something you seem to do often.

You're welcome - just a matter of putting in terms you understand.
Role of the reader
give us our bread
our daily bread
interbred
with jam

Or should we return to the ghetto, with our gelato?

be my guest

So why are YOU here Eluard?

I've answered this question from you before. That answer still applies.

To point out that "frame of reference" outside of physics has been around for 40 years? I was exposed to it in sociology, did tath misappropiate it in reference to a poem?

SHOW ME how the analogy falls apart, how is that rolleyes?

Finally, a perfectly reasonable request, and you are the first one to bother to make it. See following post.

Do you wish to look at how important the reader is, in relationship to marketforces? Or is that too simple for you?

Well, of course the reader is important in that respect. Pity it isn't the respect we were talking about.

And this artist-envy:

What the critic does at best is create something different, a way of looking at the work. In which case we extend it 50/50; 50/50; 50/50, and another 50/50.

Envy if you want to call it that, may have played a apart in Eliot's What Dante Means to Me I'm sure he was green, and I'm sure Dante would have been pissed to see his sales go up 700 years after his death.

What the critic does, is try to understand the work's meaning. Not create something different. To think that the critic is creating something different is to give the critic an importance that he/she just doesn't have. Artist-envy seems like a better and better description for that.

So why are YOU here Eluard? To show us smart and sarcastic you can be? Duh. Guess what? People have said that about me, but at least I serve a function in the feedback loop, and I realize how important the reader is, and you just seem to be preening yourself for ascension to academia that you so despise.
academia-envy?

Now come back with some statement about how I am pandering to the reader, so I can really laugh my ass off.

So much here that makes no sense, so little time. You know what I am doing right now: I am arguing a point about the artist's responsibility in creating works of art. But you and Tath haven't liked seeing someone doing that, so you've ignored what I've said and pretended that what you are saying is to the point, when it isn't. And that remark about artist-envy seems to have really stung both of you. Must hit close to home.

Do you know why you don't like someone questioning your view about the importance of the reader or critic: because you are conformists. You want to say what everyone else says.

There was no need for this issue to be such a big deal: it's something that reasonable people should be able to discuss.

But oh no, not here on this forum. Certain ridiculous claims are just not up for rational discussion here.

So to be clear, yet again: yes, the reader of a work has an importance. The issue was to try to conceptualise the different roles that the author and the reader have. That was the issue. My initial point was that they cannot be regarded as having a percentage role in the creation of one thing. If you disagree, fine. Tell me then what the one thing is that they are jointly responsible for. But don't just tell me that readers interpret works, and can interpret them differently, because I've already agreed with that, right at the outset.

See below for the answer to your one reasonable question.