From: n2412@cray.com (Joe Green)
Subject: Re: The Business of Poetry
Organization: Cray Research, Inc.
Date: 7 Apr 92 09:51:08 CDT

In article <702392616.0@mdf.FidoNet> Joe.Barr@f46.n382.z1.FidoNet.Org (Joe Barr) writes:
>
>    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) 

Here's an example.  Joe (feeling a bit inadequate since his encounter with
me and a bit put off because his declaration that we are entering
the "information age" was mocked {how can such stuff be written?} 
indulges in Vietnam as metaphor.  Perhaps Joe is claiming that
the "we" of this sentence in fact means that he was at these obvious
places and he and his buddies would have "fragged" the poseuer etc.
He means that he would have murdered the poor poseur.  This is easy
enough to say if you don't take this stuff seriously -- perhaps
have never encountered it.  These words and this attitude are the
stuff of public discourse.  This kind of pretense is
rather vile.  You would have "fragged" him, Joe?  And then you want
your declarations of your aesthetic to be believed?  




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)


You are watching too much TV, Joe -- and have become part of the problem.




>    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).
>

And then Robinson Jeffers and another declaration (misread by you, the
little red wheelbarrow becoming heavy).




>
>
>            '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 blood-shot beauty of human nature, its thoughts,
>        frenzies and passions,
>    And unhuman nature its towering reality-
>    For man's half dream; man, you might say, is nature
>        dreaming, but rock
>    And water and sky are constant-to feel
>    Greatly, and understand greatly, and express greatly, the
>        natural
>    Beauty, is the sole business of poetry.
>    The rest's diversion: those holy or noble sentiments, the
>        intricate ideas,
>    The love, lust, longing; reasons, but not the reason.
>
>
>                                        Robinson Jeffers, 1951
>
Presumably "fragging" is part of the beauty of things.

Have you just discovered Jeffers, Joe?  I entered a few of his poems
in here not long ago -- the one about his longing to be devoured
by a hawk and "enskyed"  (made part of the rocks, trees, stones, Lucy.)
particularly relevant here.  Jeffers especially disgusted by war and
would have been disgusted with your fragging reference had he ever
condescended to encounter you.

You were what he wanted to get away from -- a little guy frustrated
and inadequate longing for "beauty" and pretending to understand him.
Jeffers would never have written about "fragging."  His disgust
was genuine and the beauty he wants is not human.

This is a familiar gesture in a way.  Longing for the transcendent
and the hope of oblivion.  The rhetoric familiar -- but Jeffers had
certain scruples -- a certain sense of honor that would never allow
him to tolerate your gestures.   

I am kinder.  You can't help it.

     






>


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