(Untitled)

[wwidsith]

Someone who knew of my admiration for Clive James pointed me to an interesting piece in the Independent from a few weeks back in which Johann Hari talks up James's poetry. It's nice to see him getting some recognition, especially at a time when most modern poets seem content to knock off early drafts and call them free verse.

Here is one of his I

Comments

[desayuno_ingles]

I looked for, but could not find, a link to the Pretty & Twisted song Singing Is Fire. You may know that that's a Bukowski poem, and a very good song (if you like that sort of thing).

[wwidsith]

Ah, I know the poem but not the Pretty & Twisted version....I'll look that up, thanks.

[desayuno_ingles]

Well, P&T is a side project of Johnette Napolitano (Concrete Blonde) from about '95. Hard to find the album now, I gather, but I have it and I highly recommend it.

[noramay]

three cheers for meter, rhyme, and form! there's something so satisfying in a poem that stays within a set structure.

[wwidsith]

Satisfying, and much more powerful, I always feel. It's like the Stoppard line:

Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.

For "modern art" read "free verse".

[muckefuck]

I don't understand his complaint. He honestly thinks is should be "Windows are shutting down"? Would he also say, "The Brothers Karamazov are making a better reader out of me."? "Neighbours are being rerun on Channel 5."?

[wwidsith]

Well I am more charitable. I don't think he seriously objects to the message; I just think he suddenly realised that to analyse it literally would make a fun jumping-off point. But maybe he is more conservative than I would like to recognise.

[muckefuck]

Maybe it's only my mood this morning, but I don't find the poem "fun"; it just sounds cranky to me. I don't get a feeling of "Subject agreement isn't necessary any more so wheee! Look what we can do!" It's more, "See how annoying this is? If not I'll prove it to you by writing a whole poem that way so there."

[wwidsith]

heh, sorry...I don't know why it keeps coming up because, although he's overrated, I do actually like him a lot. Anyway I think he got the last laugh here with those pseudo-Emerson lines..

[ruakh]

Hi, I ran across a comment of yours on Language Log, with your handle being a link to your journal (and I see now that your en.wikt user-page links here, too, but I'd never noticed that before), and unsurprisingly, your journal's really interesting! So, I've friended it, I hope you don't mind. :-)

-Ran ("Ruakh" both here and on en.wikt)

P.S. My commenting is as excessive on LJ as on en.wikt. I hope that's O.K. :-P

[wwidsith]

Awesome! Great to have you around here. Pleased you like the journal -- now you can enjoy the locked posts too!