From: n2412@cray.com (Joe Green)
Subject: Re: The Business of Poetry
Organization: Cray Research, Inc.
Date: 14 Apr 92 11:10:12 CDT

In article <1992Apr13.224607.15440@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov> sharon@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov (Sharon Hopkins) writes:
>In article <1992Apr13.115804.2349@hemlock.cray.com> n2412@cray.com (Joe Green) writes:
>>In article <1992Apr11.045934.2059@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov> sharon@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov (Sharon Hopkins) writes:
>>>In article <1992Apr10.131536.28619@hemlock.cray.com> n2412@cray.com (Joe Green) writes:
>>>
>>>The cry of the dull, doomed youth of the '10s, wanting war, action,
>>>heroism, escape from the banality of bourgeois burgher life.  Getting
>>>the Great Machine instead.  Trenches, stalemate, industry as war hero
>>>and chief general.  Dead piled in heaps at the Somme, over ground
>>>abandoned in a tightening of lines.  Half a million, my recollection
>>>(too many books ago).  What is the alternative?  They envisioned one
>>>escape, found none.
>>
>>Of course.  War is always staged as adventure and escape from banality.
>>What is more banal than war?
>
>Yes, the point I attempted to make.  (The discovery that was made then,
>previous proofs having been ignored or rejected.) 
>
>>The Great machine a consequence of
>>capitalism and of the values of a military aristocracy -- the great
>>machine transforming real bodies to metaphor.  This is the
>>"transformation" r hardin claims he can find everywhere that is 
>>therefore without consequence, interest, or meaning.  Is that what
>>you mean, John Wesley? 
>
>No:  I don't buy the "transformation".  The "great machine" transformed
>real bodies into real fertilizer, and longs lists of names on church walls.

Yes.  But to reproduce itself it then transformed them into metaphors
of the usual sort -- it used them to insure a fresh supply of bodies.
May I offer my own little poem on the Vietnam Memorial?


	This is for all of you whatchamacallums
	Dead in your ranks, your names on these columns
	Praised lately by Senator Saurian Solemn
	He said he was sorry you dumb shits had "fallen."

	Here's to you all.  Randomly called
	And by no man to die.
	So we'll let you boys lie.
	And here's a last kiss.
	And a last beer as well.
	Now -- into the dark with you.

	Ding. Dong. Bell.

The pun on lie not accidental.  The nursery rhyme recalled.
Never anything but whatchamacallums -- symbolic markers and
not real bodies to the "machine."  A last beer and forgotten
forever by the "machine" because never anything but that which
exists to be forgotten. 


>Also various social, economic, and demographic problems stemming from,
>among other things, the useless death of almost unimaginable numbers of
>young men.
>
>The poets transformed the real bodies into metaphor -- it's easy, and
>even hard to avoid ("longs lists" -- nice ring to it).  But they'd expected
>glory  -- notice the changing tone of the poems over those few years.
>
>That war was staged partly in an attempt (failed) to escape the
>banality of capitalism, war as escape from commodification, from tedious
>exchange.  If war doesn't work (so far no banana) what will?

Perhaps these were the sentiments of some -- the old glory, the loss
of self in something greater but the war was nothing but
tedious exchange -- our thousnads in front of the trenches, their
thousands in front of the trenches.  Wilfred Owen -- but what
did his poetry prevent?  maybe saved a few.  Yes.



>
>> [Joe's arguments deleted in agreement, not rejection.]
>
>>>But there is Thomas' answer:
>>>
>>>	"Not for the proud man apart
>>>	 From the raging moon I write
>>>	 On these spindrift pages
>>>	 Nor for the towering dead
>>>	 With their nightengales and psalms
>>>	 But for the lovers, their arms
>>>	 Round the griefs of the ages,
>>>	 Who pay no praise or wages
>>>	 Nor heed my craft or art."
>>>
>>>Yet what is that but perhaps the commodification of banality:  grief
>>>paid-for but not owned, not shared?  The gift ignored, unwanted; but the
>>>grief a gift (a theft); the dead, dead.  (But borrowed with nightengales
>>>and moonlight, another theft, even a deceit -- it is for the dead, who care
>>>no more than the lovers.  Less, being dead.)  What's the alternative, or
>>>must we seek one?  The living live, grieve, love, join the dead:  even
>>>the poets.  Gift, theft, or exchange.  Even we who are "seared with trade;
>>>bleared, smeared with toil"?
>>
>>Thomas again typical.
>
>Yes, why I selected that example.  (Hopkins perhaps less typical.)
>
>>What does the "what's the alternative" question mean?
>
>When I asked it first:  what's the alternative to war as an escape from
>the banality of capitalism?  The second time:  what's the alternative, for
>poets, to borrowing the dead to make nice poems?

Oh, the alternative is wonderful.  The alternative is to save the dead.

>
>>The alternative is to refuse bondage.  The alternative is political action --
>>not a poetry corrupted by murders.
>
>Are we not *all* corrupted by murders?  How can poetry that is not corrupted
>still speak?  (Refuse bondage to what?)

To that which would make it just another commodity.  No, we are not
all corrupted by murders and the corruption that is there can
be overcome.  


>
>Crud, I left the Millay book at home.  The last line of the
>poem I'm wanting:  "this tall, oblivious gaoler eyed with stars."

No -- not the universe as gaoler -- that is a familiar projection.
The gaoler is within, I think and hope.

>
>I'll ditch (for now) the pretty language, and try to ask my question straight
>(in gratitude for your straight answer, above).
>
>When has political action achieved anything poetry has attempted?
>
>(There is overlap, certainly.  I'm thinking of Cardenal, "In Cuba".  One of
>the poets he quotes: "Don't forget it, poet:/in whatever place or time/you make
>or endure history,/there will always be lying in wait/some dangerous poem.")
>
>The self-reflexive, this-and-that sort of poetry may be free of blood,
>but will it make anyone yelp to read it?  Will they read it again?  Clip
>it and mail it to friends?

Self-reflexive doesn't mean ironic and timid.  What it means is
human all to human -- a poetry willing to question itself and
to call attention to its own techniques of domination.  Change
poetry to "art" in general and there is a chance that it
can help with a tiny transformation.

I'll anwer your other question later.

>
>My poetry is sentimental, often overly-timid.  Pretty sometimes, usually
>harmless.  It has little fire I have not borrowed, little life, less
>death.  Even the pain I borrow -- I haven't had much, and most of that not
>very interesting.  But sometimes, just sometimes, I know I've managed to
>speak even to one or two people, make them say "Yes, that's how I felt,
>but didn't have words for."  Or just produced a smile, or an "Ow!".  There
>is the gift I would give, even if their pleasure is also repayment.
>
>Not a large or particularly noble endeavor. 

Why not?  Large does not mean noble.  Maybe the fact that meaning is
always found in the big and last things is part of the sickness.
I think so.  Two things fill me with awe/ The starry sky above/
The tea-cozy in my hand.


 I don't always try even for
>that, but just to meet the criteria I set for myself, to succeed in
>an attempt and hope also that someone likes it, or is moved in some
>direction they don't mind going.  Once in a while, to create thought:  to
>cause pain that might be needed, to cause a less-wanted change in thinking.
>
>Political action.  
>
>I don't attempt it often, with poetry, unless to suggest that people live,
>and love, and hope, and hurt, and eventually die (one way or another).
>Even icky people.  A very conservative, measured, quiet sort of politics.  

Yes -- and maybe the gift you intend is really a gift.  This is what I
mean and this is what happens in a gift economy.  The everydayness
of it all, the smallness are part of what I admire.



>
>("icky" chosen with care)
>
>>>"Consider the lillies of the field, how they grow..."
>>>
>>>Is there, ought there to be, more than this?
>>
>>If the lily wants to avoid the mower, there better be.
>
>Heh.  Point to you.
>


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