hatstuck snarl

theoretically, a hairstyling salon

20050424

the fix

do we insist
or should we

that

a straightforward narrative is

better

because it is

easier to understand?

what's the opposite?

or maybe that

an insistence that the abstract

is inferior because
it's not consistent

with understanding?

(as if all writing weren't

abstract)

I must be missing something in this - a hole in my logik - I'm
positive that's true that I am missing somethink

I'm tired of that poem about picking tomatoes)

the danger in your argument in favor of making the poem easier for
the audience very much resembles Thomas Higginson's rationale when
revising/regularizing "normalizing" Emily Dickinson's poems after
her death to make them more accessible for readers

he meant well but ruined the poems

what would we have if everything were "fixed" so that readers or
listeners could avoid confusion

communication in the poem might deviate from the intent no matter
how skilled the maker

words say what they will despite us

1 Comments:

  • At 6:09 AM, Blogger Ann L.M. Barrett said…

    Hi Steve, hi Monica!

    Steve, this is so true.

    The insistence, especially in a workshop environment, that my writing be organized (logikal), linear even, is an idea I have ultimately rejected, but I am still off-balance and bedraggled from trying so hard yet unsucessfully to comply. My efforts at poetry since service in a workshop environment too often resemble soldiers--clean-cut lines of words arranged according to some standard that is not my own and striving to defend an "ideal" imposed upon me despite my most patriotic vote to the contrary.

    This is perhaps a political issue, or a symptom of such. It seems to me fear drives this urge toward logic, fear manifesting itself in a total lack of, and actually militant shunning of imagination.

    Alas ...

     

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