Oh and also. I've started a worldbuilding sketchbook and am sort of adapting this into my own reading and writing challenge. Using your sequences as a bit of a roadmap
My statement was sort of contrary to what you how you had said about rhetoric, imitation and context. I don't find context so enticing when reading poetry, it is more to be about understanding what of me relates to the words on the page, the imagining the author meant to speak to me alone, as he knew much about.. just what I need to here. Need, is key word. Not many people know what they need untill they ask themselves. Reading is just another form of asking. The poem becomes the process of exploration, or reflection, without forsight or impatience. I think we are most impatient in asking the important questions out of defense to what is truly out there. But in any case, I find poetry taken best without context, especially those poems who are meant to be ambiguous, those which have names that seem to explain them poorly, or no name at all. Definetly my type of poetry. I've not once read a speech with context in mind either, not unless for school. However I did enjoy the reading of your selection. Maybe I'll follow along with your own deconstructions. Add something to the story
This fires me up! Thanks so much for recovering the statement and sharing it here. There is a venerable tradition, or school of thought, that says poetry is best read without thinking about its context. Some poets write their poetry hoping for readers who will do just that. To take a simplistic example, pop musicians often write lyrics that are inspired by their own lives, but they write them vaguely, so that listeners can use them as expressions of THEIR own lives, without thinking about the biography of the author. So I recognize this reading practice as legitimate and common.
BUT, I think there is a way that context can help you achieve the kind of reading experience you describe. You want to hear something from the author, as though they are speaking to you. You want to ask the text questions and hear something helpful. YES! But here's the danger: how can you be sure that what you hear from the text really is coming from the author? How can you tell that what you're hearing isn't... just you? How can you keep the reading experience from becoming a long, loving stare in the mirror, a practice of selfish, isolated navel-gazing? (I'm not saying you do this. It's just a danger?) Context helps us ensure that we are not imposing ourselves onto a text in an undue fashion. Context ensures that what we hear from the text is coming from the outside, not just echoing our own sentiments.
I wonder how these reflections sit with you? I'm definitely not saying you're doing it all wrong. Just curious whether context has more to offer than at first meets the eye.
Honest when it comes to poetry, I find nothing wrong with the idea you might not understand what the poet intended, in fact exp rience is not meant to be copy-pasted from person to person, through a story even. Poetry lies on the extreme end of a distance from the context that would otherwise manifest as empathy. Who am I to say that The Mending Wall is a poem riddling the nature of humanity, and the evil of defending yourself from your own? Well... The one who was trusted by the poet to read it, ambiguous as it is.
As I said, poetry is the exception when it comes to ambiguous reading. Like abstract art, there is much purpose to find in the sentement: " Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
Before we seek to understand the world through the eyes of others, we must draw close to ourselves, come to terms with ourselves, and know ourselves. We might otherwise end up finding our selves living a shallow and unconscious parady of what our life should be... Easily impressionable and prone to a hyper-agreable state of mind. I know you weren't speaking of me specifically, but selfishness does not come from not understanding others. It comes from not putting yourself in there position, or even realizing that you have some amount of responsibility over there lives as well.... One good thing to ask is, who is this yourself that your trying to reposition.
Changing view points a bit here;)
When you change the vantage point of a drawing in perspective for example, saying you've found it unsettling, too simetrical, to bland... The whole composition takes warpage. We don't always think to ask wether the subject was ever of utmost important to us to begain with. There are many problems which grip us and these are the ones
Which we must attend to, as they are unique to us, perhaps nobody in the entire world sees it the way you do, and that means it's up to you to take it upon yourself. A strange burden it is to try and know, but these are ofc the later steps. There is knowlage (of truth) and action, in between lies a grand barrier of defense... That is the getting to you, the knowing yourself.
Poetry does all this for me, yet in the most guiding and gentle way. Like a friend or guardian figure. I write and draw as well. And when I do I wish to make it meditative and grounded in reflection.
I feel as a writer maybe implicitly as a viewer you can sense the urgency in the writing of a troubled mind, even one in only a troubling state of mind as they write, or a low day, anything that breaks there most adjusted and flexible ease.
Robert Frost, he knew a lot. I'm sure of it, many inferences to make but I've yet to know a poet who understands the mind in a way he did. With ease
Oh wait and do you know David Perells podcast How I Write. It's got Shukman, a poet who reminds me of Frost speaking of his own process. Must watch
I did not know that podcast. Looks cool!
Oh and also. I've started a worldbuilding sketchbook and am sort of adapting this into my own reading and writing challenge. Using your sequences as a bit of a roadmap
Exiting. Wish you enjoy it
I had written a full response and bit of a log on my own statement to set intentions and discuss different ideas in reading, however
my phone died. BRB
AH! So sorry to hear that. Please do get back to us, if it’s convenient!
My statement was sort of contrary to what you how you had said about rhetoric, imitation and context. I don't find context so enticing when reading poetry, it is more to be about understanding what of me relates to the words on the page, the imagining the author meant to speak to me alone, as he knew much about.. just what I need to here. Need, is key word. Not many people know what they need untill they ask themselves. Reading is just another form of asking. The poem becomes the process of exploration, or reflection, without forsight or impatience. I think we are most impatient in asking the important questions out of defense to what is truly out there. But in any case, I find poetry taken best without context, especially those poems who are meant to be ambiguous, those which have names that seem to explain them poorly, or no name at all. Definetly my type of poetry. I've not once read a speech with context in mind either, not unless for school. However I did enjoy the reading of your selection. Maybe I'll follow along with your own deconstructions. Add something to the story
This fires me up! Thanks so much for recovering the statement and sharing it here. There is a venerable tradition, or school of thought, that says poetry is best read without thinking about its context. Some poets write their poetry hoping for readers who will do just that. To take a simplistic example, pop musicians often write lyrics that are inspired by their own lives, but they write them vaguely, so that listeners can use them as expressions of THEIR own lives, without thinking about the biography of the author. So I recognize this reading practice as legitimate and common.
BUT, I think there is a way that context can help you achieve the kind of reading experience you describe. You want to hear something from the author, as though they are speaking to you. You want to ask the text questions and hear something helpful. YES! But here's the danger: how can you be sure that what you hear from the text really is coming from the author? How can you tell that what you're hearing isn't... just you? How can you keep the reading experience from becoming a long, loving stare in the mirror, a practice of selfish, isolated navel-gazing? (I'm not saying you do this. It's just a danger?) Context helps us ensure that we are not imposing ourselves onto a text in an undue fashion. Context ensures that what we hear from the text is coming from the outside, not just echoing our own sentiments.
I wonder how these reflections sit with you? I'm definitely not saying you're doing it all wrong. Just curious whether context has more to offer than at first meets the eye.
Honest when it comes to poetry, I find nothing wrong with the idea you might not understand what the poet intended, in fact exp rience is not meant to be copy-pasted from person to person, through a story even. Poetry lies on the extreme end of a distance from the context that would otherwise manifest as empathy. Who am I to say that The Mending Wall is a poem riddling the nature of humanity, and the evil of defending yourself from your own? Well... The one who was trusted by the poet to read it, ambiguous as it is.
As I said, poetry is the exception when it comes to ambiguous reading. Like abstract art, there is much purpose to find in the sentement: " Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
Before we seek to understand the world through the eyes of others, we must draw close to ourselves, come to terms with ourselves, and know ourselves. We might otherwise end up finding our selves living a shallow and unconscious parady of what our life should be... Easily impressionable and prone to a hyper-agreable state of mind. I know you weren't speaking of me specifically, but selfishness does not come from not understanding others. It comes from not putting yourself in there position, or even realizing that you have some amount of responsibility over there lives as well.... One good thing to ask is, who is this yourself that your trying to reposition.
Changing view points a bit here;)
When you change the vantage point of a drawing in perspective for example, saying you've found it unsettling, too simetrical, to bland... The whole composition takes warpage. We don't always think to ask wether the subject was ever of utmost important to us to begain with. There are many problems which grip us and these are the ones
Which we must attend to, as they are unique to us, perhaps nobody in the entire world sees it the way you do, and that means it's up to you to take it upon yourself. A strange burden it is to try and know, but these are ofc the later steps. There is knowlage (of truth) and action, in between lies a grand barrier of defense... That is the getting to you, the knowing yourself.
Poetry does all this for me, yet in the most guiding and gentle way. Like a friend or guardian figure. I write and draw as well. And when I do I wish to make it meditative and grounded in reflection.
I feel as a writer maybe implicitly as a viewer you can sense the urgency in the writing of a troubled mind, even one in only a troubling state of mind as they write, or a low day, anything that breaks there most adjusted and flexible ease.
Robert Frost, he knew a lot. I'm sure of it, many inferences to make but I've yet to know a poet who understands the mind in a way he did. With ease