Competence Follow-Up
I've appreciated the thoughtful responses in my comment box to my "Competence and Wit" post, even the anonymous ones, which always make me nervous (who are you, "a"?). I also want to point you to Nathan Austin's blogpost, as well as his entire blog, which is one of the best out there now in my opinion.
There's a lot to respond to in the comments so far, and I know I won't get to even half of it, but I want to clear up one potential misunderstanding that I think is crucial. As Anne points out in her last comment, when either of us frames contemporary poetic competence as the ability to make a poem "fit in" among other poems in a related aesthetic milieu, we are expressly not conceiving this ability as unproblematically a good thing. We're trying to be descriptive, not prescriptive. In fact, I think we would both agree that we have huge problems with the idea that an evaluative poetics should be based on such a crudely chameleonic approach. That's part of what sparked the conversation in the first place.
To reiterate my earlier position, I was thinking of competence as a baseline condition, one that is necessary but (emphatically or otherwise) not sufficient. This might cause confusion, as in some ways sufficiency and competence are close in meaning. But I'm considering competent to mean "possessing all the mechanical and superficial skills without which (it is supposed) important poetic work cannot proceed," and sufficient as "actually using those qualities effectively."
Even here, however, things get more complicated. As one or two commenters have pointed out, there is a lot to be said for deliberately and programmatically resisting notions of competence as a poetic baseline. The question is whether such resistance does not introduce an alternate model of "competence," one which has yet to be defined in coherent terms--which may be where I wanted to begin asking questions in the first place. I put "competence" in scare quotes here because whatever takes its place would have to negotiate the association with "competition" and its overtones of aggression. Is such negotiation possible? Or is any evaluative model doomed to perpetuate the invidious dynamics of oneupsmanship?
7 comments:
Interesting speculations, Kasey. I guess my question would be : if the issue of poetic value is so murky & difficult now, wouldn't it be better to start by asking yourself, what is really great? What really moves/inspires/impresses me? Ie., what poetries, for me, constitute the real benchmarks? And why? If you can answer those (difficult) questions, then perhaps the characteristics of "competence" would fall more easily into place (or be seen as not so important anyway).
Kasey:
Thanks for the "mad props"! I am flattered, and blush!
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Competence.. if we're talking specifically about what makes a Colorado Review poem a Colorado Review poem we probably ought to deal Stephanie G'Schwind into the discussion, no?
That is, I think there are two separate issues: 1) the friendships and reading history of the screeners and final selectors for any given magazine as transformed by their frames of mind on the given day they see a poem; and 2) poetry (all art, really) is profoundly imitative. I'd say those are both live issues.
Unless what we produce has some degree of overlap with art that already exists it will automatically be set aside -- as incompetent, if you will.
Unless what we produce has some degree of overlap with art that already exists it will automatically be set aside -- as incompetent, if you will.
or an authentic version of madness. i'm thinking specifically of derrida's criticism of foucault's history of madness
and, while i'm about in the french folks, this:
We're trying to be descriptive, not prescriptive.
reminded me of ionesco who wrote that the role of the critic is to describe not prescribe.
that's it
hi kasey, interesting post. thanks for the clarification. how do you determine a base-line? perhaps you may elucidate this in a future post, or perhaps i should read your essay more closely. alas, i dont have time at the moment, as i currently have dogs propogating in my basement.
i ask myself as i review a poet who avoids poetic schools: who, for example draws his aesthetics from readings from kristeva, foucault, derrida, levinas rather than poetry, as she rightly 'distrusts poetry.' there's something healthy in that--especially as the propogation of aesthetics in the usa often seems runs alongside the mfa industry (this too is vague, i know and needs nuancing). so this is a question that engages me, as i work through this poet's work (several books) and see that at every turn, he is resisting all such notions of histories of poetry. he is more engaged with philosophy and current event than a-g, soq, or third way (so narrow, so boring). poetics doesn't necessarily draw solely from schools, or from the petty politics of poetry in the usa. right? there may be engagement with different systems of thought which absorb into someone who has the ability to hold two thoughts at once, different epistemologies which of course is not to advocate for a meaningless relativity in ascertaining 'value.' i do think it may help if you applied the question to texts.
Earlier today I read Ron Silliman's
The Chinese Notebook where
in speaking about words and how the
use of them relates to the viewed
world, he wrote in 217.: "Anything
we say, descriptively, is partial.
At best one constructs an aesthetic
of implication."
Kenneth Brecher, an astronomer,
has said: "Color is in the eye of
the beholder." Similarly, I say:
competence is in the mind's eye.
I believe every poem has a demon-
strable exterior form, but also has
an interior form which may or may
not be easily shown. There are
further ramifications of this be-
cause of the biologicial and other
complexities of each human mind.
A certain poem that appeals to me
may also appeal to you, but the
fact of such might surprise both
of us; and it is likely that poem
would be perceived differently by
each of us. I still fail; but if
I hadn't early on been willing to
broaden and deepen my ability to
appreciate, works by humans such as
Stravinsky, Dali, G. H. Hopkins
I might yet find unaccessible.
Search sw00431a (if you wish) to
read a related brief entry of mine.
-
Brian Salchert
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