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Katlin Profile
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Vertigo


I have often enjoyed and learned from Tony Hoagland's essays on contemporary poetry, especially articles in which he tackles the "bifurcation of motives among poets," so it was with interest and anticipation that I turned to "Recognition, Vertigo, and Passionate Worldliness," his recent essay in Poetry. I was not disappointed.

After briefly outlining what two camps of readers want from poetry and delineating the "two different kinds of poetic meaning: Perspective versus Entanglement; the gong of recognition versus the bong of disorientation," Hoagland focuses his essay on the latter, i.e., the poetry of "resistance" and "derangement." He does so by analyizng, with emphasis on intention rather than on surface technique, a series of contempory poets/poems.

Hoagland writes, "Intention matters," which put me in mind of something Tere often quotes Ms. P as saying: "What does it speak to motive?" Likewise when Hoagland writes, "One question we can usefully ask in regard to a particular style or poem is, "What is the range of feeling or sensibility in this poetry? Is it narrow or broad? Is it merely whimsical, merely disjunct, merely antagonistic, or can it also be friendly, entertaining, deep, and spacious?" I hear echoes of Joyce via a quote Tere often cites, "The measure of a work of art is from how deep a life does it spring."

It is often rejoinder-ed, "No on can judge his comptemporaries," but in this essay, Hoagland offers some parameters upon which, I think, contemporaneous evaluations might tenatively be made. He also asks the pity, pertinent question, "If the Plath generation was obsessed with psychological extremity, and the eighties generation with narratives of self, the generation of the oughts has been obsessed with exposing the fallibilities of perspective. But what comes after?"

This quick summary of Hoagland's essay leaves out much of the nuanced thought it contains, so take a read:

http://poems.com/special_features/prose/essay_hoagland2.php
Sep/13/2010, 9:34 am Link to this post Send Email to Katlin   Send PM to Katlin
 
Terreson Profile
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Re: Vertigo


A quick thought, Kat, before eventually getting around to reading the Hoagland essay.

~It is often rejoinder-ed, "No on can judge his comptemporaries," but in this essay, Hoagland offers some parameters upon which, I think, contemporaneous evaluations might tenatively be made. He also asks the pity, pertinent question, "If the Plath generation was obsessed with psychological extremity, and the eighties generation with narratives of self, the generation of the oughts has been obsessed with exposing the fallibilities of perspective. But what comes after?"~

Here is my dirty little secret. Through all three generations (but I suspect he must mean decades) poetry's grail has remained what it was in the beginning, before I knew nothing about nothing. It is the reenchantment of the world, and a world revolving around nature, all of nature, and not around the anthro-centric, through a poetry cellularly engaged to sensual perception, to all the senses, and to all the perceptions our senses lead us to. That is what should come after, but likely will not. A poetry bringing us to our senses. Rimbaud called for a "disorganization of the senses." I am convinced that is where the grail quest begins, but that it is only the beginning of the process. Getting tethered again to the earth. That is what should come after and probably will not.

Tere
Sep/13/2010, 7:06 pm Link to this post Send Email to Terreson   Send PM to Terreson
 
Katlin Profile
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Re: Vertigo


Hi Tere,

Ah, I concur with your dirty little secret:

Here is my dirty little secret. Through all three generations (but I suspect he must mean decades) poetry's grail has remained what it was in the beginning, before I knew nothing about nothing. It is the reenchantment of the world, and a world revolving around nature, all of nature, and not around the anthro-centric, through a poetry cellularly engaged to sensual perception, to all the senses, and to all the perceptions our senses lead us to. That is what should come after, but likely will not. A poetry bringing us to our senses. Rimbaud called for a "disorganization of the senses." I am convinced that is where the grail quest begins, but that it is only the beginning of the process. Getting tethered again to the earth. That is what should come after and probably will not.

I recently started a thread "Returning the Soul to Poetry":

http://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/t1049

What I neglected to say in that thread but should have, is that returning the soul to poetry does not involve leaving the body and transcending the earth but entering into the one more fully and reconnecting to the other more deeply. Like all good dirty little secrets, yours is a doozie. So I agree with you "That is what should come after." Perhaps not immediately but someday, if there is to be a someday for earthy, eartlhy humanity. I hadn't made the connection between the two threads, but happily your post provided the missing link.

Oct/1/2010, 8:13 am Link to this post Send Email to Katlin   Send PM to Katlin
 
Terreson Profile
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Re: Vertigo


Connection comes through, Katfriend. I think I get what you are after.

Tere
Oct/2/2010, 10:03 pm Link to this post Send Email to Terreson   Send PM to Terreson
 


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