Criminality and Poetry
More thoughts on criminality in relation to poetry: poetry is itself a form of "getting away with" something, a ruse or scam. It must be "taken on faith" to a degree unparalleled by the non-verbal arts. A painting can be used to deceive, but only in very narrowly circumscribed contexts (a picture of a tunnel on the side of a solid wall used to trick motorists into crashing, for example, or less outlandishly, a portrait that makes the subject more attractive than in real life). Dance, music, needlework--it's nearly impossible even to conceive what deception might entail in such cases.
The apparent difficulty of metrical composition and rhyme might seem to suggest one objective standard by which poetry can be judged as "legitimate," but even here the difficulty in question is one that amounts to the poet's ability to engage in "smooth talking." Aesthetic competence in this field is directly proportionate to one's capacity for--potentially at least--engaging style over substance.
"But I know truly good poetry when I see it, even if some people are fooled by inferior work." Sure, maybe. But such a claim in itself is further evidence of spurious claims to expertise based on subtleties of linguistic nuance rather than verifiable standards or truth claims. In this sense, the poetic "expert" (the critic, the scholar, the enthusiastic reader) is complicit in poetry's general shadiness.
Poets are fakes. The "better" they are, the more fake they are (a reversible equation).
By saying this publicly, of course, I am like the professional safecracker who reveals the tricks of the trade to the establishment and ordinary people (same thing), and thus risks getting whacked.
Except that most poets are too wimpy to actually whack anyone (knock on wood).
13 comments:
"(a picture of a tunnel on the side of a solid wall used to trick motorists into crashing, for example,[...)]"
also, i am reading *infitte jest* by DFW (david foster wallace), in which quebecer separatists (canadian terrorists, yes) torment the american populace by placing mirrors on windy mountain passes to cause accidents. coincidence factor here equalling whoa + red wine.
To add to the general coincidentality, Shanna, I am drinking red wine as I read your comment.
Listen, K - we're all friends here. We known each otha for a long time. You got you're beef, unnastan - take it to the chief. Don't go blabbin so much the m-f- litwo cops come aroun, know what I mean? This time, I'm gonna let it go. But watch your mouth, aright? You got a problem with lip, everyboddy knows dis from a long time. Keep it in the fambly, OK? You know I doan have to say dis twice. You KNOW I doan have to say "dis" twice.
- "Cheesy"
A painting can be used to deceive, but only in very narrowly circumscribed contexts (a picture of a tunnel on the side of a solid wall used to trick motorists into crashing, for example, or less outlandishly, a portrait that makes the subject more attractive than in real life).
am i missing something? for example, renaissance perspective seems to be deception in painting. not until you get painters with the desire to focus on what their medium is, applying color without regard for depicting anything, isn't the entire history one of deception?
Do you know David Mamet's movie "House of Games"? It's a movie about con-men that makes very clear that movie directors are con-men. And I'll accept that poets are also involved in a confidence game of a kind!
I can see that many artists are outsiders to some extent. Also see that some poets hide behind artifice and/or extreme competency, but other than that, I just don't see the "all poets are fake" idea as accurate. Unless you say that all artists are fake, and all people who use language are fake--an idea with which I'd be much more apt to agree. And do, some days.
Like Phan, fake vs true seems beside the point to me.
I have trouble, also, with somehow careening from "fake" to "criminal." Criminal is a strong word. I think you *are* sort of romanticizing poets when you use that word.
I disagree with you in that I think perhaps all art is deception. The reordering of materials to resemble something else is always at its most basic a lie, and if we are effectively tricked into responding to a work of art with the intensity with which we react to the *real* then the artist is getting away with it, for real.
Also, some degree of confidence game must be played in order for one group of people to convince others that they are the ones who should be making art. Making art is fun, and many human activities are not fun, so whoever separates out and says "everyone uses language, but I use it in a magical, kick-ass way, listen to me and maybe even buy me a drink after" better have a bit of con in her to get by, and another con to keep from being attacked for presuming to do something others would like to do but have decided against, or can only do poorly.
You might be romanticizing criminality a little but poetry itself always deserves romanticizing. Anyone not born to the leisure classes is stealing something so that they might be a poet -- time mostly (time from capitalism, time from love & family, time from community), but also stealing resources and attention, not to mention CULTURE and HISTORY. The farmer makes food and the office worker makes capitalism but the poet makes strange combinations of words, feeds no one, destroys or distorts the past, claims to be the future, and is, (here I'm paraphrasing Tsvaetaeva) the shit on the hem, capable at most at provoking an affective response.
oh let me add, KSM, that it is true that language is particularly prone to deception, in that language is generally the first human medium of deception, so art made of language
is a bit more conniving.
I know a poet who is a trained killer. Just saying. ;)
I want to be true.
According to the copyright laws, when you write the sentence or the song, as long as it is within the limits for derivation without being a copy, you would own the work. Is the manuscript the artifact? It is true however that there are modes or writing based on acquistions, or that might be how they exchange the money for the work. You can publish the work on your own though, in a democracy, and own the work. Some of the industry types might be competitive about it, though.
Some of the poets might be doing the "circling" thing on purpose? Some of them might be trying to be original though, so one might shun the idea of making one broad categorical statement for all of them? Socially stealing is other than necessarily a legal argument in the United States of America. It is true that there are surly people that think of it that way, so a risk to consider.
Some poets might unentionally be part of a "circling" by playing into influences in a school. Some weirdly, migth have been the ones "circled" however they get how other people would fail to do that on purpose or know about it, and the work might be outside of derivation, enough. Some of them might work in a simular motif knowing the editors go with that at a certain age, and other poets do likewise. Now, again, as long as it's outside of derviation, the social stance on it, however, is a different matter. A "gray" issue, for some.
Some of them have an unoriginal pastiche phase, and then go elsewhere, at different times. Post-modernism does confuse things.
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