[Artist’s rendering above depicts “planets colliding in a sun-like binary system about
300 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Aries.” Click image for more info.]
From whiskey river:
Poetry
I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this
fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers
in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because ahigh-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
they are
useful. When they become so derivative as to become
unintelligible,
the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand: the bat
holding on upside down or in quest of something toeat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf
under
a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that
feels a flea, the base-
ball fan, the statistician —
nor is it valid
to discriminate against “business documents andschool-books”; all these phenomena are important. One must make
a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result
is not poetry,
nor till the poets among us can be
“literalists of
the imagination” — above
insolence and triviality and can presentfor inspection, “imaginary gardens with real toads in them,” shall
we have
it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry.
(Marianne Moore [source])
…and:
The wind blows hard among the pines
Toward the beginning
Of an endless past
Listen: you’ve heard everything.
(Shinkichi Takahashi [source])
Not from whiskey river:
Wind
Give it words,
Stick limbs on it,
You won’t alter essence.
Whereas the wind—I’ll live gently
As the wind, flying
Over the town,
My chest full of sparrows.
(Shinkichi Takahashi [source])
…and:
I mean, finding the real lyrics now would be like finding that some other long-cherished artifice of memory wasn’t strictly true, as if your dad wasn’t really that strong or your first girlfriend, really, wasn’t all that pretty.
All this may be literally true. But that’s the problem with the literal truth:
It has very little poetry. And it sure as heck ain’t got no soul.
(Paul Farhi, “Mangled lyrics say a lot about the manglers”: Chicago Tribune, 2008-06-16 [source])
Finally, well, there’s not much I can add to this:
marta says
Call me jealous, but I loved that last clip. Ha-ha-ha.
And that picture at the top is great too. My son loves talking about how galaxies can crash into one another or that we might have a black hole in our universe. Ah, kids.
Lots to ruminate on here–of course.
froog says
Ha! Love that article on mangled lyrics.
Do you know this one by Brian Patten?
A blade of grass
You ask for a poem.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You say it is not good enough.
You ask for a poem.
I say this blade of grass will do.
It has dressed itself in frost,
It is more immediate
Than any image of my making.
You say it is not a poem,
It is a blade of grass, and grass
Is not quite good enough.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You are indignant.
You say it is too easy to offer grass.
It is absurd.
Anyone can offer a blade of grass.
You ask for a poem.
And so I write you a tragedy about
How a blade of grass
Becomes more and more difficult to offer,
And about how as you grow older
A blade of grass
Becomes more difficult to accept.
John says
marta: Smart kid — he’s developing neuroses about all the right things! :)
I actually hesitated before including that Toyota commercial, because — to its makers’ credit — it’s SO tightly controlled right up to the very end; it seems so, well, classically male-chauvinist. Only in those last couple of seconds does it (potentially) redeem itself in the eyes of women, but I was worried people might not stick with it that far.
froog: One of my favorite things about your comments (as about your blog posts) is that you really can’t seem to help teaching me something new, every time. (Er, please don’t feel pressure to keep it up!)
No, I didn’t know that poem and — until reading your comment — am not sure I’d ever come across the name Brian Patten, either. After just a few minutes’ research — plus that poem — I can see it’s a gap demanding correction. Thanks!
Jules says
Trying to get caught up here since Friday, and I’m doing it very slowly. Anyway, thanks for this. I keep getting reminders in my life that I want to read more Marianne Moore. This is another one.
John says
Jules: One good thing about the Interweb’s tubes is that they’re always there, waiting, if we go back to pick up on something we missed.
Of course, that’s also the downside — since in the meantime, they’ve packed in and memorized even MORE of the things we don’t have time for…
I’ve always admired about 7-Imp how you’ve attracted and retained an audience which not only is not put off by lengthy, thoughtful posts, but actually seems (like me) to look forward to taking the time to read and respond to them. Love that.