From: bob@netxcom.netx.com (Robert Thralls)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: RE: Business of Poetry
Date: 13 Apr 92 19:50:05 GMT
Organization: NetExpress Inc., Vienna, VA, USA

The views contained herein must be validated or altered by another poseur...

OOooops, 
	I cannot agree with you entirely on this point. 
	I think you are either off the beaten track or just "fuzy" 
	in your wording, at any rate, some points are drastically
	unclear to me.
	Let me breifly outline why:

>   There are so many poseurs, false prophets and wannabe guides
>   to poetry these days (at Phu Bai or Chu Lai we we would have
>   fragged him) that I find it refreshing to take a backwards
>   glance (cigarette butts in a bottle of Tiger beer) past the
>   autosodomizing (burning bright) mind-pageants (if he was in-
>   country, it was Saigon surrounded by nurses, whores and stews)
>   of the neo-gothic-post-punk-decon-revivalists-inna-dadaist-
>   kinda way donkey-doodoo (or playing tennis at Bien Hoa) to a
>   great poet's view of things (fear in a handful of dust) and
>   the relationship of poetry to those things (word, he ain't
>   never was there).

	A: Poseurs
		Great! let anyone shed their views upon me so that I 
		may learn from them;
	B: false prophets
		One must weed the good from the bad based on his judgement
		alone, and never judge a prophet from his past, only what
		he feels at present. Who knows what changes have occured 
		in him since the last time his was evaluated by your eyes;
		and only you know what your eyes have seen since you last 
		cast them upon his work. If you rely on others to show you
		what is good or bad, then you end up with the ice skating
		judge's problem.

	C: wannabe guides
		everyone has their view, even you.

	D: neo-gothic-post-punk-decon-revivalists-inna-dadaist-kinda way
		I'm glad to see that someone is taking others' views into
		consideration and melding them with his own. Expanding,
		if you will, his own universe of diverse thought patterns.
		One could never expect that any one particular view could
		possibly be correct. For every view contains a mixture of 
		the following:
			1. valid points
			2. invalid points
			3. unverifiable points
		Clearly point 3 is somewhere between 1 and 2, but that's
		what makes us individuals and thats why Poseurs exist,
		to affect others with thier own number 3. This is also
		why people change, when their own water is muddied by 
		other peoples' unverifiable thoughts.
		(although the transaction usually consists of people
		 either rejecting number 3 as a number 2 OR accepting
		 -dangerously- a number 3 as a number 1 -as in "-punk-") 


	E: great poet's view of things (fear in a handful of dust) and
	   the relationship of poetry to those things
		a great poet would hardly relate *poetry* to anything.
		You have not said anything by this. What about this?
		Tell me more, don't leave me hanging, am I to read your
		mind about HOW a great poet views things (according to you)
		or am i to assume that the following poem will suffice as
		an example? - let's assume the latter for the moment.

>           'The Beauty of Things'

>   To feel and speak the astonishing beauty of things-
>       earth, stone and water,
>   Beast, man and woman, sun, moon and stars-

	The choice of symbols here eludes me, they do not form patterns
	in my mind, very little contextual continuity.
	try this: 

    	beast, man and machine, 
    Earth, stone and water, system, stars and space-

	We have now added the element of thought, the one characteristic
	that makes our whole greater than the sum of the parts. We have
	added proximity, movement, and change. These three elements together 
	give us true MAGIC (here). This is what poseurs want! to change.
	In other words, we give relevance, mode of change, and result.
	Water, machine, and space serve as our transport media, but no matter
	the vehicle [stone,man,star], the concept of change remains the same.
	We end up with Beast, Earth and System. (it takes all types to
	make the world go round). No matter our walk of life, no matter
	what our machine (automobile, political - physical or logical) we
	are all beasts on this planet, a part of yet a greater part, 
	an addend of yet a higher sum.

	Is this making sense to anyone else but me?

>   The blood-shot beauty of human nature, its thoughts,
>       frenzies and passions,
>   And unhuman nature its towering reality-

	good but unclear. 
	This brings out the greater than the sum of the parts,
	but only hints at change and how one part affects the other
	part. The use of "towering" implies linear - the stacking of
	building block upon another. I believe reality to be caotic - 
	the branching of one thought to another in seemingly unconnected
	ways - context switching - dream like. We are but intwined in
	the branches of the tree of life.

>   For man's half dream; man, you might say, is nature
>       dreaming, but rock
>   And water and sky are constant-to feel

	also unclear.
	What you are telling me is that I must imagine myself a rock
	unable to move, and that constants (water and sky) that I 
	always associated with change, like the weather, happen to me from 
	the outside. Am I a victim of my environment? or must I be molded
	from it? When do I get to affect the rock beside me? Why am i shielded
	by the rock above me, and how may I learn from his mistakes?

	You are telling me that my thoughts are not my own and 
	that change comes only from outside influence. 

	I must disagree, I feel that I am the changing weather and
	that the water and sky are my thought patterns. I change the
	landscape, I create change from pounding the surf into rock
	to make the beach that makes my vacation enjoyable.
	What happens to me is someone else's reality, how I interpret
	what is happening to me is my own.

	A more traditional approach might be a bit better....
	thoughts are fluid  (water, transport medium)
	feelings are associated with physical stimuli (rocks are like 
	memories of pain, moving through space on ordered matrix that 
	can be gotten to by means of thought, and can be left by 
	means of growth).

>   Greatly, and understand greatly, and express greatly, the
>       natural
>   Beauty, is the sole business of poetry.

	If that is all it is; we have grossly restated the obvious.
	most of what a poet has to say is meant to cause change
	and that, my friend, is not very pleasant nor is it beautiful.
	What is beautiful about it is the spell which is cast to 
	provoke the beauty to emerge. The words chosen to cause the 
	change in us, in our thought patterns. The swizel sticks that
	keep a logical universe in orbit. The end result should be more
	beautiful than what we started with. The final thought more pure
	than the last. The cream better blended with the tea.

>   The rest's diversion: those holy or noble sentiments, the
>       intricate ideas,
>   The love, lust, longing; reasons, but not the reason.

	philosophy, religion and emotion. What are decisions based upon
	anyway? I say yes, indeed, these are the reasons for thought 
	pattern change, the basis for decision, and most certainly the
	creative process that is ever changing, transforming the world
	around it, and being altered by its own environment.

	F: It doesn't work for me.
	Where is the "beauty in the business of poetry?"

	G: Perhaps I've missed the point completely.

	the beauty of the business of poetry seems only skin deep.
	Have I made a point? I don't mean to trash your work, but
	it is very fuzzy to me. Seemingly though, I think you
	have a valid point, but it is coming across like a fuzzy,
	unverifiable thought pattern. Did that make sense? I'm
	not sure, so I'll just stop here.

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