There's about to be some talk about elevated language, and it might not be a page-turner. It might not make your day. It might be soporific.
So, rushing in, as always, where angels fear to tread--that is, rushing to the rescue, I wonder if this video clip is this another kind of prayer (notice the girl's demeanor, as if you could avoid it), or at least a language so intense that, if someone called it poetry, I'd hesitate before arguing. But the video is also a bit of comic relief preceding a bunch more old-fashioned words from visitors and me. I'll sprinkle in some photos too.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=4e8_126367235
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| Field Hockey, Intensity, CT, Oct. 2010 |
Last week’s post was another occasion for visitor comments
that were too thought-provoking to get only a quick response from me. So here
again is Andrew Hudgins’ poem, “Praying Drunk,” along with your comments and, in italics, my responses.
I like what you say about the perils of classifying things
you don’t like and then finding an example of one you like, thereby changing
(or at least challenging) your world view.
Except for a few accidental whiffs of Billy Collins, I’m not familiar with any
of these poets you mention. I suppose it’s not news to point out that the poem
you refer us to violates every traditional precept of poetry: it uses demotic
rather than poetic language, it has no form or recognizable music, it has no
point (metaphysical, emotional, intellectual or otherwise), and its shaggy-dog
structure is so discursive you probably couldn’t even pull it off in
conversation in a bar without being accused of being totally incoherent. Maybe
I’m not appropriately amused, but I haven’t learned anything about prayer or
being drunk or being human from this exercise other than deer look like enormous
rats on stilts (which is funny enough to willfully suspend my disbelief at the
utter lack of verisimilitude in the simile). Maybe I’m old school, but I want a
reason to know why it’s important that elephants clean each others asses, or
why someone would feel like Wile E. Coyote without even a speck of dust to mark
his fall.
The danger of letting readers do all the work is that not every reader has the
self-esteem and attention-span issues of this narrator. Lurching from metaphor
to metaphor as a form of prayer? Isn’t this the kind of stuff that gives poetry
a bad name in the first place?
September 10, 2012 4:53 PM
William, Comment #1: The only point I might disagree with is your last one about
metaphor to metaphor as prayer. A full response would take forever, and I don’t
know if I could bring it off anyway. So here’s this: over the years, I’ve
become more and more concerned about a widespread sense of the divine that’s
too tied to received wisdom and texts.
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| Egret, Alarmed, Kensington, 9/16/12 |
My hunch—and it’s only
that—is that any godhead(s) that might be there can be perceived only
obliquely, indirectly, intuitively. The other choice SEEMS to be literal
acceptance of the literal words of ancestors’ sacred texts, in many languages
translated by many scholars, some competent, some not, in which the godhead is
a great big Uncle Billy in a rocker on a porch in the sky, offering wisdom and
condolence in one breath, deathly might in the next.
So, while I may have
never thought consciously of the godhead or prayer as metaphor, Hudgins led me
to realize that metaphor is another kind of indirection (“telling it slant”)
that might be the way I’ve been thinking about divinity for some years now.
If I’m misrepresenting
your point, please let me know.
And if I know neither sports nor poetry?
It's a good story and very accessible.
September 10, 2012 5:10 PM
JEAN – Glad you thought
so. Yes, I bet most readers would
find the plot, if we can call it that, at least kind of interesting.
I didn’t know it was
legal to live in Texas and not know sports . . . . I’ve never thought of this before: maybe you artists who are not sports fans should become fans
just for the color and other kinds of imagery. (That began as a smartass comment, but there might
be something to it). I won’t assume you’re someone who’s acerbic and
condescending about sports, but there surely are some, about whom I’ve often
said, or thought, “You mean you don’t see the ballet? Wow. You don’t see the metaphor for war as something to
respond to?”
But you’re being nice
and mellow, not acerbic and condescending. And I, by the way, have been acerbic and condescending about
hockey. Just a little. More than once. From time
to time . . . And maybe golf just a little.
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| Young Buck, Unalarmed,StageNatureCenter, June 2012 |
YAY, Andrew Hudgins! He's an OSU professor (and is very
beloved by his students).
Interestingly, he's known around these parts as being extremely skilled with
form. I see Bill wasn't a huge fan of the poem included here....but consider
this one from Hudgins (which kills me):
In the Well
Andrew Hudgins
My father cinched the rope,
a noose around my waist,
and lowered me into
the darkness. I could taste
my fear. It tasted first
of dark, then earth, then rot.
I swung and struck my head
and at that moment got
another then: then blood,
which spiked my mouth with iron.
Hand over hand, my father
dropped me from then to then:
then water. Then wet fur,
which I hugged to my chest.
I shouted. Daddy hauled
the wet rope. I gagged, and pressed
my neighbor's missing dog
against me. I held its death
and rose up to my father.
Then light. Then hands. Then breath.
September 11, 2012 3:27 PM
HANNAH Thank you! I have a feeling that “In the Well” is one
of those poems that’s immediately accessible, but will be worth many return
visits for subtleties of image and idea. I’m surprised I haven’t seen it before
– which probably means I’m surprised it’s not much-anthologized, it seems so
classroom-friendly, so teachable.
More technically, I’m impressed that Hudgins’ rhymes are obvious and
strong, yet feel natural and do not at all cause an oversimplifying sing-song
effect. Thanks again for this nugget.
OK, I got around to reading the "What is Poetry?"
post and comments. It's an argument probably as old as poetry itself,
exemplified by the intriguingly unresolved dialogue between B52 and Brenda's
Arizona. I’m big on the hypnotic power of poetry myself, which consists
precisely in the systematic repetition of rhythms and sounds, as well as an
elevated (or condensed) diction that would not be appropriate for prose or
speech. I'm drawn more and more to this quality because it seems more of an
entrée to me into the ideas specific to poetry, which tend to be deeply felt,
boundaryless and fleeting. But it is the ideas I am concerned with, not the
métier; whatever “catapults the propaganda” (in George W. Bush’s immortal
words) is probably legit.
“The Well” I think works because the steady rhythm and rhyme mimics the feeling
of being lowered into a well. While the language itself is plain, it has a
stateliness that elevates it (as much if not more than its narrative does)
above the typical “traumatic childhood memory” poem growing like weeds in all
the journals.
I am tempted to take a more fair-minded approach to the drunk poem now. If
Hannah can survive such influences yet write so much better and differently, I
should have nothing to fear.
September 11, 2012 5:23 PM
WILLIAM #2: I like your comments about “In the Well.” “Stateliness” is a good word. Ditto
“’traumatic childhood memory’ . . . growing like weeds.”
In both your comments
you make a point (or is it two, or
a few) about the language and ideas that are apt for poetry. I’m okay enough
with the contemporary scene to worry about that, to think that most kinds of
language can work – if, as you say,
it reinforces what’s being said, and if what’s being said is worth being
said.
Of course the “what” there
leads us to your point about “ideas specific to poetry,” and I question just
how many ideas cannot be made “specific to poetry.” Very few, I’d say.
Yes, I cautioned
students about their slim chances for success in a piece that apotheosized a
door knob. (I also said, if you’re convinced and determined, go ahead and try.
Who knows?).
On the flip side, I’ve
said two of the very best poems in the English language are Roethke’s “The
Waking” and Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” To my ear and mind, both are elevated
and musically hypnotic, both respond to your desire for “systematic repetition
of rhythms and sounds, as well as an elevated (or condensed) diction that would
not be appropriate for prose or speech,” and both address subjects almost
everyone would find elevated and appropriate for poetry.
So I think it’s risky
to say that only certain kinds of elevated language and subject matter are
suitable for poetry, especially from about 1900 onward, into the major
democratization we’ve seen in literature. Surely hate-mongering, bigotry, bullying,
cheering for battlefield gore, and some other “ideas” aren’t likely to make
worthwhile poems; otherwise we might attribute to Hitler’s “hypnotic” oratory
the label of great poetry.
You’ve heard my unease
(euphemism noted) about too many weeds in the journal-gardens out there, so I
doubt we’re too far apart. But I’ve been moved and provoked into deeper thought
by some poems that I initially heard as prosaic and simplistic, so I can’t
pretend a complete agreement with you. We’d probably need to compare specific
poems, or even specific passages, lines and images, to see just how near or far
apart we are. But I thank you for elevating the discussion here. I hope others are drawn in . . .
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| Redwing, Meditating, Kensington, 9/16/12 |
Favorite SOA poet: Robert Frost. Favorite SOA poem: Home
Burial.
Banjo, there is a lot to digest here. I fear I have to do it in increments...
like good poetry, your posts aren't prose. Pure poetry...
September 12, 2012 12:09 AM
BRENDA – Thanks for the
compliment. I did worry about length here, both Hudgins’ and my own, but if
you’re offering that I’m not a pretentious windbag, just too richly lyrical and
profound to be digested quickly . . . should I decline in favor of modes
posturing? Hudgins? Hudgins
who? (But, Brenda, I do hope you
return for more bites).
I like the concept: that of Praying Drunk; my favorite part
being the paragraph about the sin of despair. Maybe we've all been there? I
know I have. Other than that, I can't say I am going to be a huge fan. That is
to say, I don't feel compelled to track down more work by this author so as to
gobble it up.
Loved the photos though; the selections, subjects, order of appearance.
Especially the monks and the 2 church images. The images always enhance your
posts!
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Mid-September, SE Michigan
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STICKUP - Thanks for the support on the photos. I
still never sure I know what I’m doing, or what makes a photograph good, but
I’ll admit I do like some of my own. And yes, I wonder how many of us even think
of despair as a sin. Doesn’t that idea deserve a pause, some consideration,
hard-nosed though it is?
As for Hudgins, I say
again, we can’t all love all the authors, photographers, painters we’re
supposed to. That would be like lying down for the Uncle Billy mentioned above.
I’ve always thought a fun—or
serious—game is to ask oneself, “Can I have a lasting friendship or romantic
relationship someone who adores _________?” (In my case, it might be Milton. Or Dryden.). That may sound extreme and
self-important, but think about it. Could I love a head-banger, or vice versa?
Could I get married in a mosh pit?
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