Openness Contra Gated Communities

7 Comments

  1. Joseph Hutchison
    Joseph Hutchison January 27, 2009 at 2:27 pm .

    Excellent point, Andrew. Hadn’t thought about the opening irony provides. Hmmmm….

  2. Joseph Hutchison
    Joseph Hutchison January 27, 2009 at 2:23 pm .

    "[G]et out in the world, write, be curious about other people’s experiences, and read other work–not so much to further my intellect, but that dopey Platonic ideal of becoming a better person."<BR/><BR/>File me under "dopey" too, Joseph—though I’ve never been too sure about how much poetry improves anybody. It didn’t keep Heidegger from being a Nazi, or save Neruda from genuflecting to Stalin.

  3. Joseph P. Wood
    Joseph P. Wood January 27, 2009 at 2:01 pm .

    <I>I’m old enough to remember when New Formalists and Free Verse Poets wouldn’t sit together at lunch tables during writers conferences. Silly stuff….</I><BR/><BR/>The more things change, the more…well, you know.<BR/><BR/>I had a laugh at this, though. When the worms are going through our bodies, what will all this bickering amounted to? Writers in 30 years will look back at the current &quot

  4. Andrew Shields
    Andrew Shields January 27, 2009 at 1:59 pm .

    In the sense that the persona is very clearly defined, Levine’s poem is surely "closed" in an important sense. But that does not mean that it is not "open" in other senses. The poem tells us how to interpret the persona, but as is always the case with personae, the persona’s quirks reflect back on and ironize other elements of the poem, calling the poem’s straightforwardness into question.<BR/><

  5. Joseph Hutchison
    Joseph Hutchison January 27, 2009 at 1:24 pm .

    Hi, Joseph—thanks for the thoughtful comment, and of course you’re right. Art develops outside the public vocabulary (maybe that’s too strong; it uses that vocabulary in new ways, maybe? often with the intention of subverting it in one way or another?) and takes time to find acceptance in the public consciousness. I’m all for that kind of change. But when it starts hardening into positions, no

  6. Andrew Shields
    Andrew Shields January 27, 2009 at 9:41 am .

    As I just noted on Adam’s post, I found it interesting that his discussion of Levine’s "What Work Is," though utterly dismissive of the poem, does inadvertently admit that the poem successfully creates a vivid persona for the speaker.

  7. Joseph P. Wood
    Joseph P. Wood January 27, 2009 at 1:57 am .

    Upon reading your blog (via Adam’s), I thought about the case of the art museum: at any given day in many art museums across the land, hordes of people walk through floors of contemporary art and ask, "What the fuck?" (or some variation on that).<BR/><BR/>And I get that it’s frustrating to not really have any lens to understand a piece save for the few who studied "X" theory.<BR/><BR/>But,

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Verified by ExactMetrics
Verified by MonsterInsights