tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post3652365962075379350..comments2023-11-22T09:11:01.567+00:00Comments on George Szirtes: The idea of subject in poetry (5)- Town and CityGeorge Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08889600788146987089noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-4899258062316729552011-01-09T16:18:30.240+00:002011-01-09T16:18:30.240+00:00Angela , Mark. No, I haven't read Richard Hugo...Angela , Mark. No, I haven't read Richard Hugo. It sounds as though I should. I'll order it.George Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08889600788146987089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-231436123946923942011-01-09T12:19:56.472+00:002011-01-09T12:19:56.472+00:00'I have enjoyed these posts - and wonder wheth...'I have enjoyed these posts - and wonder whether you have read Richard Hugo's 'The Triggering Town'.<br /><br />Me too Angela. I was first introduced to that marvelous book during an MA course I did in 1995 in Antrim, and I have often recommended it to others.Mark Granierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09899629187771913398noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-55225412547576113942011-01-09T11:39:17.150+00:002011-01-09T11:39:17.150+00:00"The text as airport. Nothing stops here but ...<i>"The text as airport. Nothing stops here but thousands walk through everyday", Caroline Bergvall :)</i><br /><br />Yes, that's a lovely image, but, before that, text was railway station, bus stop, coaching inn. It's temporary all right, but we spend time there, and occasionally linger before moving on. Mostly we find ourselves back in such places when movement becomes necessary for our lives. <br /><br />And that still leaves text as Emily Dickinson's the <i>house that tries to be haunted.</i> My instinct is that the ghosts are there, the house chockful of them, packed to bursting, but they don't jump to command: we have to whistle them out of our very bones. Besides that, the house of flesh is also, we might feel, something of a transit lounge. It's just that there are probably no more flights leaving. Keep checking that departures board.George Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08889600788146987089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-31132436434962638622011-01-09T11:29:11.257+00:002011-01-09T11:29:11.257+00:00Technology brings the city to our desktop (zapping...<i>Technology brings the city to our desktop (zapping through channels/websites is like walking thru a bazaar, a flea-market - literally so with YouTube's tourist clips,..</i><br /><br />This is what I think of as the Postmodernist Fallacy, Tim. Technology doesn't bring the city to our desktop - it brings images of the city. The Fallacy is to propose that images and things are the same (extreme example: Baudrillard). We know they are not, you know they are not, so why do we say these things? (I have ideas about that, but welcome others.)<br /><br />What technology does in the non-image world is to take us to the city faster, and once we are in the city, to inform us in copious manner, modifying the experience of the city, as any knowledge is bound to modify the experience to which it relates.<br /><br /><i>In the city I guess people are more used to incongruous collisions: beggars on bank-steps, art in powerstations, chicken tikka pizza. Perhaps this mentality seeps into people's writing more now that the computer is both a tool for writing and a city gate.</i><br /><br />These collisions are not new. Where better for a beggar than on the steps of a bank? Why not the power station <b>as</b> art? Well, it was to the Victorians. What I do think does seep into people's minds and writing is the sense of simultaneity, and doubt about the truth of both representation, and the various claims of authenticity<br /><br />There is no doubt in my mind, or most people's minds, that the real city exists. Romantic love, for example, exists beyond the images of it. I have often quoted Le Rochefoucauld - 'Whoever would love did they not know the discourse of love?' - considering a degree of scepticism to be appropriate about emotions with a fancy superstructure, but my own answer to him would be: 'I don't know, but I suspect they might. It's just that the articulation of love might be different, producing a slightly different discourse, since everything we experience produces a discourse of one sort or another.' I do know the city exists.George Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08889600788146987089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-31467393254571995562011-01-09T11:05:21.704+00:002011-01-09T11:05:21.704+00:00I have enjoyed these posts - and wonder whether yo...I have enjoyed these posts - and wonder whether you have read Richard Hugo's 'The Triggering Town'Angela Francehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00039428389406819768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-69332595530196997732011-01-09T08:26:50.001+00:002011-01-09T08:26:50.001+00:00Technology brings the city to our desktop (zapping...Technology brings the city to our desktop (zapping through channels/websites is like walking thru a bazaar, a flea-market - literally so with YouTube's tourist clips, etc). <br /><br />"Where does this leave the poet ...?" - moreso than ever, the "retreat from the hurleyburley" needn't involve travel - just switch the TV/radio/broadcast off and listen to the silence. <br /><br />"We walk the streets of Modernism and keep arriving at one or other Place des Vosges" - Yes. In the city I guess people are more used to incongruous collisions: beggars on bank-steps, art in powerstations, chicken tikka pizza. Perhaps this mentality seeps into people's writing more now that the computer is both a tool for writing and a city gate.<br /><br />"Most poets, I suspect, inhabit towns rather than cities of the imagination." - Or "The text as airport. Nothing stops here but thousands walk through everyday", Caroline Bergvall :)Tim Lovehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00578925224900533603noreply@blogger.com