Exploring the Art of Generalisation: Songs vs. Poetry

What distinguishes a song from a poem? Is it the melody or the vocal delivery, the lyrics or the musical arrangement? Certainly, it encompasses all these elements. However, for me, the key difference lies in how songs tend to generalise, whereas many contemporary poems do not. When I refer to “contemporary poems”, I primarily mean anecdotal or descriptive pieces that lack ambiguity or mystery, which are often read by poetry enthusiasts. Such poems often fail to resonate personally with readers because they primarily serve as vehicles for straightforward information transfer—information that could easily be conveyed through prose. These poems aim to express the poet’s thoughts and emotions regarding specific events, situations or places, without necessarily inviting readers to connect personally. The focus is on clarity of communication, whether conveying a profound insight, a prosaic observation or a commentary on everyday life.

Songs go beyond mere description. They activate both the imagination and emotions, allowing listeners to delve into their own deeply personal reservoirs of images, memories and associations. There was a time when poetry achieved this too, similar to songs, by employing generalisation. However, since Wordsworth’s era—and largely influenced by him—poetry has shifted more towards novelistic and descriptive forms. Before Wordsworth, poets like William Blake or Thomas Wyatt adhered more closely to the traditions of song and ballad, avoiding extensive descriptive elements. It is widely acknowledged that songs pre-date poetry—or rather, songs transformed into poems once they were transcribed and read privately.

The limitations of poetry that does not generalise are plain to see if we compare some lines from one with those of a song. First the poetry—a stanza from Frank O’Hara’s ‘Cambridge’:

It is still raining and the yellow-green cotton fruit

looks silly round a window giving out on winter trees

with only three drab leaves left. The hot plate works,

it is the sole heat on earth, and instant coffee. I

put on my warm corduroy pants, a heavy maroon sweater,

and wrap myself in my old maroon bathrobe.

What we see here is straightforward and descriptive writing that leaves little room for the reader’s imagination. In contrast, let’s examine song lyrics, specifically those of Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan. In Cohen’s ‘Night Comes On’, we find this verse:

I said mother I’m frightened,

the thunder and the lightening,

I’ll never get through this alone.

She said I’ll be with you,

my shawl wrapped around you,

my hand on your head when you go.

And the night came on,

it was very calm.

I wanted the night to go on and on

but she said go back,

go back to the world.

In contrast to O’Hara, Cohen embraces generalisation in his verse, opening up a wealth of interpretive possibilities. Right from the outset, ambiguity dominates as listeners are left pondering whether the speaker addresses his literal biological mother or if ‘mother’ serves as a metaphor for God or Mother Nature. Similarly, the thunder and lightning that instil fear are ambiguous—whether they are literal or symbolic remains uncertain. This ambiguity enriches each listener’s experience, allowing them to interpret the nature of the speaker’s fear differently.

Furthermore, this ambiguity invites numerous inquiries. When the speaker’s mother assures him of her presence wherever he goes, the listener is prompted to question: Where exactly is he headed? Is he venturing into the fearful scenario symbolised by thunder and lightning? Could this be an existential ordeal akin to the “dark night of the soul” as described by Christian contemplatives? Is the “night” in ‘the night came on’ also metaphorical, perhaps representing a sense of comfort and reassurance? If so, does the speaker desire this reassurance to persist? Likely so, yet there’s a suggestion to ‘go back to the world’. Who issues this advice—the maternal figure or the night itself, in whatever symbolic form it represents?

The fact that this verse provokes such inquiries underscores its transcendence over the earlier quoted stanza by O’Hara.

Similar ambiguities and the questions they prompt can be found in the following verse from Dylan’s ‘Changing of the Guards’:

Fortune calls.

I stepped forth from the shadows, to the marketplace,

Merchants and thieves, hungry for power, my last deal gone down.

She’s smelling sweet like the meadows where she was born,

On midsummer’s eve, near the tower.

Similar to Cohen, Dylan embraces generalisation in his verse, blending various poetic registers to create a tapestry of language that both diversifies his expression and pays homage to his poetic lineage. He interweaves archaic phrases like ‘I stepped forth’, ‘smelling sweet like the meadows’ and ‘on midsummer’s eve’ with more colloquial language such as ‘last deal gone down’. This linguistic variety enriches the verse while acknowledging his poetic heritage.

The verse begins by declaring ‘fortune calls’, yet Dylan leaves it open-ended, leaving listeners to ponder: Is fortune beckoning the speaker, the audience or humanity at large? This ambiguity empowers the listener to interpret as they see fit. The introduction of a persona stepping forth from shadows adds another layer of intrigue—the identity of this persona remains ambiguous and unexplored, leaving ample room for interpretation. Even the term ‘shadows’, deliberately vague, invites myriad interpretations.

Moreover, Dylan employs phrases like ‘merchants and thieves’ and ‘hungry for power’ not only as specific symbols of corruption, decay and amorality but also as broader statements on the human condition. These phrases provoke further questions: Who is the woman ‘smelling sweet’ like the meadows? Why is “meadows” plural—does it symbolise something beyond its literal meaning? And what about the tower—does it hold symbolic significance as well?

In essence, Dylan’s verse, like Cohen’s, invites interpretation through its generalisations and poetic blending, making it a rich and layered piece that transcends simple description.

Similarly with Dylan’s song ‘The Wicked Messenger’, more questions are raised than answered:

There was a wicked messenger

from Eli he did come,

with a mind that multiplied

the smallest matter.

When questioned who had sent for him,

he answered with his thumb,

for his tongue it could not speak, but only flatter.

We note immediately the presence of ambiguity with the line: ‘from Eli he did come’. We are not told if Eli is a place or a person. The name has biblical connotations and can easily be a person. In the Old Testament Eli was the judge and high priest of Israel and although loyal to God, his reluctance to remove his two corrupt sons from the priesthood resulted in disgrace. Dylan’s lack of indication as to whom or what Eli is allows us to perhaps see a biblical reference in the name. If we take the name as referring to the biblical Eli then we have to ask the question: If the messenger was sent by Eli (who was a faithful servant of God) why is he seen as wicked? Is it because his mind ‘multiplied the smallest matter’ (possibly meaning he was neurotic) or that his ‘tongue it could not speak, but only flatter’ (possibly meaning he was a liar)? Are these common human failings sufficient grounds for someone to be designated as wicked? Alternatively, perhaps the messenger is wicked because there is a crudity about him—he ‘answered with his thumb’ (he gave the finger, perhaps?). For want of detailed information, we simply do not know.

So for me, each reader deserves the essential right to craft a personal meaning that encapsulates the essence of a poem. The poem itself serves primarily as a catalyst for this interpretive act. Embracing such an approach to poetry reading could potentially elevate poetry back to its rightful place as a significant and widely appreciated art form.

Is Poetry Still Stuck on the Bookshelf?

Tony Frazer of Shearsman Press said in a 2017 online discussion that ‘few poetry books sell 500 copies. I’ve been told that a sale of 500 is good going for a poetry small press in the USA’. Yet Tony, and many other publishers, have remained steadfastly loyal to the print book format as a means of disseminating poetry.

Perhaps the main reason why poetry print books don’t sell well is that the market for purchasable poetry has diminished since the 1960s. Several interrelated factors contributed to this decline. The rise of mass media, particularly television and later the internet, has shifted public attention away from traditional forms of literature, including poetry. Additionally, the educational focus has shifted away from arts and humanities subjects, resulting in fewer people being exposed to and appreciating poetry. The publishing industry’s commercial focus on best-selling prose fiction has also marginalised poetry, which is viewed as less profitable. Furthermore, cultural and societal changes have altered the way people engage with and consume literature, with a preference for more immediate and accessible forms of entertainment. These factors, coupled with the soaring cost of poetry print books over the past 30 years, have contributed to diminished sales.

However, this doesn’t appear to be the case regarding free poetry ebooks, which are becoming increasingly popular. Studies show that over 70% of poetry readers are receptive to digital formats for poetry, in the form of ebooks and audiobooks. My own experience of publishing free poetry ebooks since 2010 supports this trend, with each ebook receiving between 20 and 60 downloads a day.

I first became aware of the reach of free poetry ebooks when Geoffrey Gatza published my long poem Carrier of the Seed as an ebook, and I found out after a few months that it had over 8000 downloads. I was very pleased, as it garnered hundreds more readers than it would have had if it was a print book. For me, gaining lots of readers is preferable to holding a beautifully printed book in my hands that doesn’t sell well and remains largely unread.

I am aware, however, that downloads don’t necessarily indicate how many people actually read the ebooks, but downloads do indicate reach and potential engagement. The more downloads, the higher the chances of actual engagement. While I can only estimate the number of actual readers, if one of my ebooks is recorded as having 1000 downloads a week, I assume that even if not all of those people read it, there are still likely more actual readers than would buy a physical version of that ebook in a week. This can’t really be said about people browsing the poetry section in a bookshop, where most shops probably stock less than 30 copies of each poetry book they try to sell.

One common objection to ebooks is based on the assumption that there’s a difference in the quality of the reading experience between on-screen and in-print texts, with the latter being seen as more conducive to “deep” reading.

But I don’t necessarily see such a difference—at least not in terms of “quality.” There is, of course, a different physical experience between reading a book and reading on-screen. The most obvious being that you can feel the texture of a book in your hands while reading it. For some, this in itself is the sole reason why they buy books. As to the psychological experiences that the contents of a book induce in the reader while reading it and those induced while reading on-screen, I can’t say I’ve noticed a difference.

Moreover, now that devices for reading ebooks can replicate the look of printed pages (even in sunlight), their “on-screen” display is no different from that of a printed page. With PCs, the difference still pertains, but almost everyone now downloads ebooks to reading devices. Such devices also weigh less than a thick paperback book and are effortless to hold. I’ve read books whose enjoyment has been ruined because they are too thick and heavy. An example is The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. It’s so thick and heavy that reading it is unpleasant for me.

The Marginalisation of Poetry as a Significant Art Form

At one time, poetry was viewed as being the apex of literary accomplishment. However, in contemporary cultural discourse, poetry’s cultural significance and influence in the public sphere have diminished considerably. This decline can be attributed to several interrelated factors, including shifts in educational paradigms, the ascendancy of digital media and evolving cultural values.

The pedagogical approach to poetry has undergone a significant transformation in the past few decades. Historically, poetry was integral to the curriculum, forming the fundamentals of literary education and playing a crucial role in the cognitive and affective development of students.

In contemporary education, the emphasis is on teaching Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. While the importance of these fields is undeniable, the accompanying devaluation of the humanities, and poetry in particular, represents a worrying trend. As educational priorities shift towards utilitarian objectives aimed at economic productivity, the intrinsic aesthetic and intellectual value of poetic engagement is increasingly marginalised. Consequently, students are less likely to encounter poetry in a meaningful manner, leading to a generational disaffection from this once ubiquitous art form.

The digital revolution has fundamentally transformed the conditions of artistic consumption. In an era where visual and interactive media are dominant, the contemplative nature of poetry is at a disadvantage. Platforms such as YouTube, TikTok and Instagram have come to define contemporary cultural consumption, catering to shortened attention spans and a predilection for visually stimulating content.

The transience and immediacy characteristic of social media have redefined the value of language and expression. The emphasis on quick (and often cruel) wit and instant gratification, evident in tweets, memes and viral videos, contrasts with the meditative nature and intricate linguistic expression inherent in poetry. In this digital cacophony, poetry’s nuanced and introspective qualities are overshadowed, rendering it less accessible and appealing to the broader public.

Cultural values have undergone a transformation that further marginalises poetry. In a society increasingly driven by speed and consumerism, there is a propensity for art forms that offer immediate, tangible returns. Poetry, with its demands for patience, reflection and deep engagement with texts, is incompatible with these values. The modern imperative for productivity and efficiency leaves little room for the deliberate and contemplative engagement that poetry requires.

Within the literary world itself, poetry no longer commands a unified audience. The proliferation of diverse genres and styles has resulted in a fragmented poetic audience. Although the diversification of poetic expression is undoubtedly positive, it also means that poetry lacks a cohesive movement or collective voice capable of capturing widespread public attention in order to be viewed as culturally significant.

Furthermore, the specialised nature of contemporary poetry scenes can engender insularity, appealing predominantly to niche audiences rather than the general public. This insularity impedes poetry’s ability to maintain a significant presence in the broader cultural milieu. This specialisation may also be responsible for what some see as contemporary poetry’s innate inability to elicit as deep an emotional response as, for example, song is able to—song being, perhaps, the current successor to poetry.

While poetry has not yet been consigned to oblivion, its role as a significant art form has diminished. The shift in educational paradigms, the dominance of digital media, the evolution of cultural values and the fragmentation of the poetic audience all contribute to this decline. As cultural values shift towards immediacy and instant gratification, the patience required to appreciate poetry becomes rarer.

Paul Simister RIP

A good friend of mine, Paul Simister, died recently. I first met him in 1982 when I was 19 and he was 36. We were both studying at Mabel Fletcher’s College of Music and Drama in Liverpool, where he was studying music and I was studying drama. He had been playing the guitar for several years before I met him, having taught himself, but went to the college to learn music theory.

He played the guitar to a very good standard, even though he was self-taught, and could play most styles of guitar music, from blues to classical. In his late fifties, he taught himself to play classical piano to a fairly good standard. He was also a talented sketch artist and could draw life-like pencil portraits of people, having studied art before I met him.

In 1987, he taught me to play folk guitar, and I was able to learn some folk guitar picking styles within a few months. I didn’t have a guitar, so he gave me one of his. He had several guitars and lots of guitar equipment, like plectrums, capos, tuners and guitar chord songbooks. He gave me some of these too. I wouldn’t have been able to learn the guitar without his generosity.

In late 1987, we started going to folk nights at The Lion Pub in Moorfields, Liverpool, each month, where we would sing and play folk songs as part of the line-up. I stopped going in 1989 for reasons I now forget, but he continued to be involved in the local folk scene, attending various folk nights up until the late 2000s.

By 2019, his feet had become very numb due to diabetic neuropathy, which made it difficult for him to walk long distances. When I next saw him in 2022, after the Covid lockdowns, he was using a walking stick and walking very slowly. We didn’t meet much due to that and mainly talked to each other on the phone.

I will always remember fondly his flat, which had a cosy ambiance, especially on winter nights, with the dim glow of the low-wattage light bulb casting shadows in the corners of the living room. For some reason, I associated the ambiance of his flat with what I imagined to have been the atmosphere of the various apartments that folk musicians in Greenwich Village in the early 1960s lived in.

He was a remarkable person whose kindness and generous nature, I’m sure, left a mark on everyone he met, as it did on me. His friendship for 42 years has given me lasting memories that I will forever cherish. He once said to me in the summer of 1983 that he had a feeling he would know me for a very long time, and that feeling turned out to be true.

May he rest in peace, knowing he was deeply loved and will always be remembered.

A Reappraisal of The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry 42 Years On

Blake Morrison and Andrew Motion’s The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry, published in 1982, sparked controversy due to its perceived exclusions and attempts to redefine poetic styles. In their Introduction, Morrison and Motion claimed a lineage from High Modernism for the largely descriptive poetry in the anthology, which was met with scepticism in some quarters. This article aims to revisit their claims and explore the anthology’s impact, questioning its categorisations, and also Morrison and Motion’s assertions regarding poetic innovation, narrative preferences and visual perception, and also to reassess the anthology’s influence and its lingering effects on the poetic landscape.

As mentioned, when the anthology appeared, it caused controversy. Most of this was because of the anthology’s exclusion of a significant number of women and ethnic poets. While this is no doubt true, what interests me more is Morrison and Motion’s claim that the largely descriptive poetry contained in the anthology is, in some sense, a continuation of the experiments of High Modernism. It is this attempt by Morrison and Motion to “rebrand” the anthology’s descriptive poetry as non-descriptive, in order to suggest that the descriptive aspects of the poetry are merely apparent rather than actual, that I will deal with here.

In their Introduction, Morrison and Motion assert that the poets showcased in this volume demonstrate ‘greater imaginative freedom and linguistic daring than the previous poetic generation’. However, it is unclear to whom they are referring as the ‘previous poetic generation’. Are they alluding to the Movement poets, the Group, the British confessional poets (such as Hughes and Plath), or a combination of these? It seems unlikely that they mean the Movement, as Morrison and Motion state that, ‘the new spirit in British poetry began to make itself felt in Northern Ireland during the late 1960s and early 70s’, undoubtedly referring to the Belfast cell of the Group, overseen by Philip Hobsbaum at Queen’s University.

We can confidently assert this because several attendees of this group are featured in this anthology: Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon and Michael Longley. Philip Hobsbaum, the mentor of these three poets, was critical of Eliot, Pound and Modernism in general. Additionally, Heaney emphasised truthfulness and clarity in poetic expression. Therefore, it is curious that Morrison and Motion describe the majority of poets in the anthology as exhibiting ‘a literary self-consciousness reminiscent of the modernists’.

However, it is not evident from the majority of poems in this volume that this is actually the case. It would be inaccurate to credit much of the poetry in the anthology as particularly exemplifying a literary self-consciousness (or a postmodernist playfulness, for that matter). In any case, the claimed innovativeness is undermined by Morrison and Motion when they qualify it by stating of the poets: ‘this does not imply that their work is frivolous or amoral’. With this caveat, we see an echo of the liberal humanist view of poetry as needing to possess “worth” or “value”.

The poets in this anthology are lauded by Morrison and Motion for ‘making the familiar strange again’. However, it shouldn’t go unnoticed that the practice of defamiliarisation relies on vision, aiming to refresh our perception of the world and focus our attention on its objects, making it essentially descriptive. Another aspect praised by Morrison and Motion is the outlook that ‘expresses itself, in some poets, in a preference for metaphor and poetic oddity over metonymy and plain speech; in others, it is evident in a renewed interest in narrative—that is, in describing the details and complexities of (often dramatic) incidents. [These poets are] not poets working in a confessional white heat but dramatists and storytellers’.

Several points should be noted about this passage. Firstly, the term ‘poetic oddity’ is left undefined by Morrison and Motion, who also fail to provide examples of it in this anthology, so I will consider it a red herring. Secondly, a preference for metaphor is hardly new; Ted Hughes heavily depended on it. Thirdly, metonymy is a legitimate poetic device and one of the few that is non-descriptive; however, Morrison and Motion also fail to cite instances of it in the anthology’s poetry. Fourthly, the use of narrative and plain speech in poetry to describe dramatic events is something that conservative writers such as Edward Thomas, Robert Frost and Philip Hobsbaum would advocate. As an explanation for this anthology’s poetic approach, this passage leaves much to be desired.

What is most telling about the anthology’s Introduction is its emphasis upon visual perception and the act of witnessing. Morrison and Motion point out that most of the poets have developed procedures ‘designed to emphasise the gap between themselves and their subjects’; and that these poets are ‘not inhabitants of their own lives so much as intrigued observers, not victims but onlookers’. The poet who most embodies this in the anthology is Craig Raine, whose “Martian” poetry typifies the poetic outlook of the anthology’s Introduction with regard to its championing of visual perception, simile and defamiliarisation.

Morrison and Motion apologise for Martian poetry by claiming that far from its being the cold, arid, visually-based entity that it is usually taken for, it is in actuality imbued with emotion: ‘It would be wrong to think that the Martians’ ingenuity prevents them from expressing emotion: their way of looking is also a way of feeling’. However, like most of the assertions made by Morrison and Motion in this Introduction, it is not instanced by textual examples or any other evidence—it is to be taken on faith.

After 42 years, the influence of this anthology’s aesthetic still permeates contemporary mainstream poetry. The pervasive belief that reality exists independently of perception and that poetry’s primary role is to describe material phenomena has led to critiques of poems solely on these grounds. As a result, much of today’s celebrated poetry conforms to this critical perspective.

Anny Ballardini RIP

I just heard that Anny Ballardini died a few years ago. I hadn't been in contact with her since around 2013. She was a great supporter of the Argotist, and always defended it. I first came in contact with her in the mid-2000s when she published some of my poems on her website, Fieralingue. She also had a blog called Narcissus Works. Here is a poem I found that is a eulogy to her:

https://franzmagazine.com/2021/01/11/anny-ballardini-your-last-translation/

Rest in peace, Anny.

Kent Johnson RIP

I found out recently that poet and translator Kent Johnson had died. I was last in contact with him last month, and though he was ill due to cancer, he seemed in good spirits. I found out he had died when I next visited his Facebook. His family reported it there.

Kent was a loyal supporter of The Argotist Online, and was always helpful in putting me in contact with poets and academics who he thought would be interested in publishing poems or articles there.

I interviewed him in 2009, and he mentioned to me recently, that he thought it was his best interview:

https://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20221018122326/http://www.argotistonline.co.uk/Johnson%20interview.htm

And here is an appraisal of his El Misterio Nadal: A Lost and Rescued Book by "Roberto Bolaño" by Richard Blevins, which I published last month at Kent's request:

https://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20221018121955/http://www.argotistonline.co.uk/Blevins%20Essay.htm

Rest in peace, Kent.

"Argotist" Now in the Lexicon

Good to see that the name of The Argotist Online ("argotist") has now become part of the lexicon. It is a portmanteau word, created by the editor of the The Argotist Magazine, Nick Watson, in 1996. He said he had combined the word "argot" with the "ist" from the title of the 1914-1919 literary magazine The Egoist, which Ezra Pound was involved with. I don't recall it as a word existing before then. 

Michelle Greenblatt RIP

Just heard that Michelle Greenblatt, a poet and editor friend, died last Monday. She was only in her early thirties. I hadn’t had contact with her for some months, and assumed that this was due to her fibromyalgia, which she suffered from terribly. I’m very shocked and saddened. My thoughts are with her husband and family. Rest in peace, Heavenly. 

Nothing New under the Sun

Here is an article written by Kenny Goldsmith praising Richard Prince who has made a facsimile copy of The Catcher in the Rye, inserting his own name in place of J. D. Salinger’s.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2012/04/richard-princes-latest-act-of-appropriation-the-catcher-in-the-rye/

Goldsmith writes:

“A few months ago, a friend pulled off her bookshelf a new appropriation work by Richard Prince, one so radical and so daring, that I almost couldn’t believe it was by the same artist. The premise of the book was achingly simple: a reproduction of the first edition of The Catcher In The Rye, identical in every way except the author’s name was swapped from J. D. Salinger to Richard Prince. The production value of the book was astonishingly high, a perfect facsimile of the original, right down to the thick, creamy paper stock and classic typeface.”

It is peculiar how Goldsmith forgets to mention his own book Day (another work of “unoriginality”) being similarly appropriated (though in a far more ironic and conceptual manner) by Kent Johnson, a few years ago, who, I think, might have been the first person to do this sort of thing with a published book.

It appears nothing is original in conceptual art anymore, even when it’s trying to be unoriginal.

Rachel Lisi RIP

A dear friend of mine, Rachel Lisi, has passed away. I am deeply shocked and saddened. She was a great visual artist, with her photography and graphics, and also wrote poetry. She was also one of the cover illustrators for Argotist Ebooks. She was working on her third cover for Argotist Ebooks but was unable to continue due to her illness. 

I’d known her since 2003, and over the years, she had been a true and loyal friend to me. She was always friendly and upbeat, never complaining about anything. 

Her website of artwork, photography and poems can be found here:

http://www.kundavega.com/

From her introduction to her site:

'My name is Rachel Lisi. This small corner of cyber space allows me to share different things with you. For some time I have been following the crafts of photography and poetry finding many hills and valleys along the way. I am still trying to find the right path, but surrendering to the guidance of the day and night and every turn of my imagination. As always, I continue to evolve and learn within this circle of creating.'

I have asked her family if it is ok if I do an ebook of her poems and artwork as a tribute.

Here is a photomontage tribute to her on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xbL4R0CS34

Thank you Rachel for your friendship and generosity of spirit. I will miss you greatly.

Another Day for Kent Johnson

A new book by Kent Johnson is now available. It's called Day and is published by Blazevox. It has had some good reviews, including the following by Juliana Spahr:

'If the 836-pp. Day established Kenny Goldsmith as without a doubt the leading conceptual poet of his time, the 836-pp. Day by Kent Johnson may well be remembered for nudging the politics of Conceptual Poetry out of blithely affirmative, institutional framings, and into truly negational critical spaces'.

Commendation indeed, if Spahr had actually said it, but it is a fabrication by Johnson, in keeping with the parodic tone he sets for the book, for indeed, Johnson’s Day is an exact reproduction of Kenny Goldsmith’s “work” of the same name. I’ve put “work” in quotes because Goldsmith would readily agree that the work in question was not “created” by him in any authorial sense. He describes his working procedure for the book as follows:

‘I am spending my 39th year practicing uncreativity. On Friday, September 1, 2000, I began retyping the day's NEW YORK TIMES word for word, letter for letter, from the upper left hand corner to the lower right hand corner, page by page’.

http://www.geoffreyyoung.com/thefigures/day.html

His term for this procedure is “uncreative writing”, which is,

‘a constraint-based process; uncreativity as a creative practice. By typing page upon page, making no distinction between article, editorial and advertisement, disregarding all typographic and graphical treatments, Goldsmith levels the daily newspaper. DAY is a monument to the ephemeral, comprised of yesterday's news, a fleeting moment concretized, captured, then reframed into the discourse of literature’.

http://www.geoffreyyoung.com/thefigures/day.html

However, this arduous undertaking of retyping the whole newspaper is not all it appears to be, for he later contradicts himself by saying:

'But in capitalism, labor equals value. So certainly my project must have value, for if my time is worth an hourly wage, then I might be paid handsomely for this work. But the truth is that I've subverted this equation by OCR'ing [scanning] as much of the newspaper as I can'.

http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/goldsmith/uncreativity.html

Johnson’s appropriation of the “work”, therefore, can be seen as a logical extension of Goldsmith’s procedural stratagems, and perfectly within the ethical scope that Goldsmith has allowed for himself (and presumably others) in the publishing arena. Indeed, if Johnson, or anyone else, for that matter, had not done this, it could be argued, convincingly, that Goldsmith had proclaimed his aesthetic in vain.

However, such a compliment that Johnson has paid to Goldsmith’s aesthetic could be seen as something of a poisoned chalice, in that it has painted Goldsmith into a corner. For if he were to sue Johnson, he would be seen as something of a hypocrite, and thereby lose some artistic credibility. But if he doesn’t sue Johnson, he will leave his other “works” open to the same fate as has been visited on Day in this instance.

Of course, Goldsmith could have avoided such a dilemma by simply publishing the book anonymously, but that is, perhaps, too much a council of perfection that not even his aesthetic could countenance.

Incidentally, it could be said that Johnson’s appropriation of Goldsmith’s “work” is, perhaps, the more innovative and audacious act in comparison to Goldsmith’s “original” gesture, which, I think most will recognise, was based on an already established artistic precedent.

Day by Kent Johnson is priced at $30, plus shipping and handling. ($300 for each of ten numbered copies signed by the “Author”, no charge for shipping and handling.) All copies come with specially designed, affixed stickers (on cover, back cover, title page, spine, etc.) to impart authorship, copyright, blurbs, and co-production. It can be purchased at Blazevox:

http://www.blazevox.org/bk-kj4.htm

The Dissembling Poet: Seamus Heaney and the Avant-garde

I came across an interesting interview with Seamus Heaney (a recent recipient of the David Cohen prize for literature, being awarded £40,000) by Dennis O'Driscoll (‘Beyond All This Fiddle’ ) where Heaney says about the avant-garde:

‘It’s an old-fashioned term by now. In literature, nobody can cause bother any more. John Ashbery was a kind of avant-garde poet certainly and now he’s become a mainstream voice. The work of the “Language Poets” and of the alternative poetries in Britain—associated with people in Cambridge University like J. H. Prynne—is not the charlatan work some perceive it to be; however, these poets form a kind of cult that shuns general engagement, regarding it as a vulgarity and a decadence. There’s a phrase I heard as a criticism of W. H. Auden and I like the sound of it: somebody said that he didn’t have the rooted normality of the major talent. I’m not sure the criticism applies to Auden, but the gist of it is generally worth considering. Even in T. S. Eliot, the big, normal world comes flowing around you. Robert Lowell went head-on at the times—there was no more literary poet around, but at the same time he was like a great cement mixer: he just shovelled the world in and it delivered. Now that’s what I yearn for—the cement mixer rather than the chopstick.’

Several things about this statement need to be addressed, so I will go through it step-by-step to do so. When Heaney says that the term “avant-garde” is old-fashioned, what does this really say regarding the term’s significance in relation to his own poetic ideals? Indeed, many critics have accused Heaney’s poetic, itself, as being distinctly old fashioned, a sort of neo-Georgian retrogressive “poetic” utterance. It is as if Heaney recognises the accuracy of this criticism, and in an effort to deflect its force feels the need to reflect it back at his detractors. That he is sensitive on this point is suggested by his saying (as if an afterthought) that ‘in literature, nobody can cause bother any more’. This is a curious thing for a man of letters to say in the absence of a defensive posture. What does he mean by “bother”, anyway? Is he referring to poetic innovation as being troublesome, or simply referring to personal “bother” caused by negative views of his poetry by observant critics? Whatever the case, to say that the term “avant-garde” is old-fashioned is beside the point, as Heaney, practised in casuistry and dissembling, knows all too well.

His citing of Ashbery as a belated mainstream voice also makes little sense outside of Ashbery being published in the UK by Carcanet. Certainly, he can’t be referring to Ashbery’s poetic which has yet to receive unreserved approbation by mainstream criticism, at least in Britain. Regardless of the truth of the matter, even if Ashbery was now part of the mainstream this does not demonstrate the emasculation of avant-garde concerns, which is the stated thrust of Heaney’s argument. Interestingly, if Ashbery is a mainstream voice this would imply that he and Heaney are both writing poetry. To re-position Ashbery within the boundaries of mainstream verse, all Heaney seems to be doing is to flatter his own poetic practice by association.

When he says of the alternative poetries in Britain that it ‘is not the charlatan work some perceive it to be’, who are the “some” he is referring to? No doubt, the main body of the mainstream, but I think, also, Heaney himself. His acknowledgment of Prynne, here, seems to be little more than an attempt to distance himself momentarily from the “some” he alludes to. If it were not this, then his saying that, ‘these poets form a kind of cult that shuns general engagement, regarding it as a vulgarity and a decadence’ recoups the generosity he grants Prynne. It seems not to have occurred to Heaney that any “cult” status these poets have acquired was, perhaps, the consequence of being marginalised by the mainstream. It is certainly not true that they shun “general engagement”, if he suggests by that term an aspiration for their work to be read and for it to communicate with a significant readership. In this respect, there is very little dissimilarity between mainstream and avant-garde poets.

Heaney’s appropriation of the criticism he sees as inappropriate regarding Auden (‘that he didn’t have the rooted normality of the major talent’) and conferring it upon the avant-garde, implies that major talent can only be an outpouring of an unadventurous character. If the history of art tells us anything, it is that this is categorically not the case. That Heaney uses Eliot, of all poets, to argue his point is another instance of his use of misdirection and redefinition, similar instances of which can be seen littered throughout his The Redress of Poetry. Whilst it is certainly true that Eliot was a conservative figure in both temperament and ideology, and that his later work was not as effervescent as that of his major period, Heaney’s suggestion that Eliot’s poetry evinces the ‘normal world’ is only accurate regarding content, the treatment of phenomena in Eliot, however, is seldom “normal” and usually problematical.

An expanded version of this blog has been commissioned by Jacket magazine and can be found here:

http://jacketmagazine.com/37/heaney-side.shtml

Responses to it, both positive and negative, can be found on the right of the page.