Just an effort to stir the dialogue

Love after love

The time will come
When, with elation,
You will greet yourself arriving
At your own door, in your own mirror,
And each will smile at the other's welcome,

And say, sit here, Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
To itself, to the stranger who has loved you

All your life, whom you ignored
For another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

The photographs, the desperate notes,
Peel your image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.


Derek Walcott

Do you consider this a "relieving" poem? Why?

...Bukowski in Zapopan Lectures...

Keith Jarrett, the improvised Paris Concert

I'm posting here a part of Keith Jarrett's Paris Concert, one of his totally improvised piano solo concerts. As I said yesterday, his stance about improvisation seemed to me very similar to that of Olson, I mean, fidelitiy to the work for the sake of the work (poetry or music): image leads to a further image almost like a causal necessity, and, for Jarrett, music blossom for itself so he just need to follow the path the music itself dictates. Again, necessity, continuous and anonymity of the author. All this idea as oposed to that of the totally preconceived en closed work of art. Hope this could be useful (and correct) Garrett.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVgkiVWeiSU

On form and matter (again)

In 1939, José Gorostiza published one of the most interesting poems ever written by a mexican poet, "Muerte sin fin". It has been studied ever since by thousands of writers and philosophers to be.
In the first part of the poem, appears the connection between matter and form: water and vase.

(...)me descubro
en la imagen atónita del agua,
que tan sólo es un tumbo inmarcesible,
un desplome de ángeles caídos
a la delicia intacta de su peso,
que nada tiene
sino la cara en blanco
hundida a medias, ya, como risa agónica,
en las ténues holandas de la nube
y en los funestos cánticos del mar (...)

(...)No obstante -oh paradoja- constreñida
por el rigor del vaso que la aclara
el agua toma forma.
En él se asienta, ahonda y edifica,
cumple una edad amarga de silencios
y un reposo gentil de muerte niña,
sonriente, que desflora
un más allá de pájaros en desbandada.
En la red de cristal que la estrangula,
allí, como en el agua de un espejo,
se reconoce;
atada allí, gota con gota,
marchito el tropo de espuma en la garganta
¡qué desnudez de agua tan intensa,
qué agua tan agua, (...)

(...)¡Más qué vaso -también- más providente
éste que así se hinche
como una estrella en grano (...)

(...) tal vez esta oquedad que nos estrecha
en islas de monólogos sin eco,
aunque se llame Dios,
no sea sino un vaso
que nos amolda el alma perdidiza,
pero que acaso el alma sólo advierta
en una transparencia acumulada
que tiñe la noción de El, de azul.

¡Poet!

Lecture 3: The Form of Poetry (the Laws of the Art—Auden & Olson)

We assume that a writer has something to say—does he or she? We assume that there is a content, message, or meaning to a poem, to poetry, and to poetic endeavor—what is meaning? what is poetic endeavor? what is a poem? But while engaging the question of meaning and intention in relation to the art of poetry, we will assume that there is motivation on the part of the individual poet to write, and hence we are going to focus on writing as such, as an art.

We begin with the premise that poetry is first of all an art which uses language as its medium—that is, that poetry is not a thing for ornamenting thoughts, feelings, or sentiment. Hence we’ll be looking into the laws of the art and the techniques of poetry. The emphasis of this lecture, then, is going to be on craft, but not on the traditional sense—this will not be about verse forms (prosody) and poetic language, poetic “images,” or the poetic turn of phrase, but rather about ideas of poetic form and, as Charles Olson wrote,

“FORM IS NEVER MORE THAN AN EXTENSION OF CONTENT.”