Q. Mr. Williams, can you tell me, simply, what poetry is? Long ago, maybe four decades and more, introductory courses in poetry were often called Appreciation of Poetry. Weve lost that sense of wonder, that poems are things we can like and admire: today, in our very scientific and technical world, professors often think complex theorizing is the proper route to approaching literature. We are in a sense prepared for what follows by the title: a meditation [essaycomes from the French essayer, to try, and was first used by Montaigne] on a subject guided more by the minds deliberations than by an external form or a rigorous logic. Those in "Canicula di Anna" (literally, "the dog days of. I wake. The poem ends by pointing out that something has changed. But as you know the chief aim of philologyis to reduce all textual delightto an accident of history.And I am uneasy with any claim to know exactly"what a poet means to say,So lets leave the question mark there. In Carsons reading, by eliding the subject Alkman in a most economical fashion addresses the question of where the world we inhabit came from the world of not only seasons, but of hunger. From the age of ten she took piano lessons; Elektra took this very hard, so she and her brother Orestes plotted revenge against her mother and step-father. Is it the golden coin and the hosts of angels? When things are other than they seem, which of the two possibilities is the mistake? Want something changed in your paper? Metron is Greek for measure. If I were to grade Carsons writing using the portfolios goal, I would say she did a decent job. We can survive error, learn from it, make something new of it: not just a poem, but a life. . Essay on What I Think About Most is Carsons analysis of Alkmans five line lyric, the poem I cited at the start. A world of relative inaccessibility, Anne Carson, ART, ESSAY, LITERATURE, Mindfulness, Poetry, Reading to write, writing Essay on What I Think About Most Posted by Sigrun on November 5, 2012 November 5, 2012 Philologists may have their way, reason may have its way, but Carson here chooses to embrace error she chooses to read a fragment as an intentional whole in order to make the poem reveal far more than it would otherwise. And your expectation will turn out to be right! Things are not as they are seen, nor are they otherwise. But for now, she gives us Aristotles analysis of language, saying there are three types of language: the transparent and factual language of everyday life (ordinary language), strange terms (we might think of the specialized jargon of science, or engineering, or even haute cuisine), and metaphor. The poem "The Glass Essay" contains multiple interpretations of the word "glass" (Carson). And that may notbe so, we hear faintly maybe, or maybe not. O no, no, I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host crying Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty. Anne Carson was born in Toronto in June 21, 1950. Art allows the mind to experience itself, to make sense of the unexpected. From art a lesson can be learned, and through its mistake it blurts out the truth.. There are risks. It exists separately. Should we really not be ashamed of making an error? Except, as we have been learning from Aristotle by way of Carson, in metaphor. an interesting and valuable mental event. The mistake in arithmetic is similar to the error of hunger: the afterthought in the arithmetical sequence is similar to the poet left with nothing even though the year has ended and winter is over, a poor Spartan poet with nothing. Though, of course, we have already been softened up, we already have an inkling that in not knowing arithmetic, in making an error, the Greek poet may make sense, teach us a lesson to be learned, give us something true and valuable.. Sometimes poets plan elaborate architecture for their books, but that planning is, for most of us, irrelevant. Alkman remains, it appears, hungry. Maybe. In what does this freshness of metaphor consist? So a poet like Alkmansidesteps fear, anxiety, shame, remorseand all the other silly emotions associated with making mistakesin order to engagethe fact of the matter.The fact of the matter for humans is imperfection. He attended Yale and earned a Bachelors of Arts degree for Psychology (Benjamin Carson Biography par.17). Anne Carsons Essay on What I Think About Most concerns itself with a short poem, which she translated into English, by a minor Greek poet, [?] Perhaps the hardest thing about losing a lover is. [2] This footnote was originally a long parenthesis in the email I sent out. No need to read in order. For this reason people are not much taken either by obvious arguments (using the word "obvious" to mean what is plain to everybody and needs no investigation), nor by those which puzzle us when we hear them stated, but only by those which convey their information to us as soon as we hear them, provided we had not the information already; or which the mind only just fails to keep up with. Learn how your comment data is processed. Having been bound prematurely by the line ending, we find this reading to have been an error[7]. But then I took a second look at her work and realized there was much more to it than just crazy jumbled ideas. Creating unexpectedness through contriving willful error is what Alkman achieves, and he leaves us, his readers, richer for the process. His name was Law. Economical. It has been a while since I sent out a poem. For art imitates reality. that fits them the best. There is not much to say about this stanza[9], which provides Alkmans poem, nor about the next, which gives us the modest background we may need to situate the poem. I began with the first unstrapped book, parts of which I had encountered before. My wife accompanied me to the huge, 5000-strong convention of the AWP, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. [From an interview with Mike Wallace, published as part of William Carlos Williams epic poem, We are in a sense prepared for what follows by the title: a meditation [essaycomes from the French, So she steps back, and asks us poet and reader alike to look into this. Being herself a classicist, she thinks back to Aristotle, who apparently thought error an interesting and valuable event. She has recourse to his, A brief stop to look at metaphor. Furthermore, she tells the readers of substitute techniques of achieving the same ends. Poets plan elaborate architecture for their book, but that planning is, for most of us, irrelevant. jeopardize grammar, mess things up, to draw us into this fact: that hunger reigns, that we will not be satisfied by reality itself, that we need error in order to understand the world we live in. By so doing, it penetrates into the heart of our engagement with the strangeness that marks human existence. Third that it manages to put into playsome major metaphysical questions(like Who made the world)without overt analysis.You notice the verb made in the first versehas no subject: [? It is clearly announced in the first line of the poem: Many of Carsons poems are about error, about mistakes she works in a vein somewhere in the indeterminate territory between autobiography and fiction, although (following Freud) one could easily claim all fiction is at base autobiographical, and we know in our own day that as a narrative and sense of identity is imposed on autobiography, all autobiography is in some sense fiction, a made thing. [From an interview with Mike Wallace, published as part of William Carlos Williams epic poem, Paterson:]. And here is where the mind has that moment when it can experience itself: How true [this metaphor is], and yet I mistook it.. The imperfect is our paradise, wrote Wallace Stevens in his wonderful meditation on a bowl of carnations, The Poems of our Climate. What he writes in the poems conclusion is exactly what Anne Carson is saying when she writes The fact of the matter for humans is imperfection. Here is Stevens conclusion to his poem: The imperfect is our paradise.Note that, in this bitterness, delight,Since the imperfect is so hot in us,Lies in flawed words and stubborn sounds. Anne Carson and I first met in 1988 at a writers' workshop in Canada, and have been reading each other's work ever since. Nor is this syllogism just Western logic, Carson points out: an ancient Chinese proverb tells us a thing must be itself, and not another. is surely a fragment broken offsome longer textand that Alkman almost certainly didname the agent of creationin the verses preceding what we have here.Well that may be so. Parallelism parallelism uses repetition of earlier versions are first played out and rapidly found the second term in the sense that it may provide such a list of concepts, phenomena, and methods of organisation. Sample Career Objectives Essays. ]. It is as if I could dip my hand down. So here is Anne Carson, telling us what she likes about this short poem: Not hard, that stanza above. Here is the poem, Essay on What I Think About Most, a poem that that uses another poem Alkmans to penetrate deep into a role that error can play in our lives. But art, because it allows the unexpected to arise in consciousness, provides us with a new relation to reality. These two kinds do convey to us a sort of information: but the obvious and the obscure kinds convey nothing, either at once or later on. One aspect of the truth told by the poem is that, in the words of the opening line of what may be the twentieth centurys greatest poem T. S. Eliots The Waste Land, April is the cruelest month. The land springs forth anew, and we do not: we grow older, we have hungers, we continue without a similar rebirth. Before the enjambment the answer is that metaphor causes the mind to experience itself. It appears, at this juncture, that metaphor is a kind of self-consciousness. 2000-2007 BookRags, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. It gives a view of what the poet is. The lyrics gathered in "The Life of Towns" offer three dozen different lines of perspective on the phenomenon of a collective character. Some of Carson's works have become Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) totems, in which the LGBTQ community views her as an advocate for desire, eroticism, and intensity. Little Anne was constantly moving from town to town. But no, that is error. At first it looks odd, contradictory or wrong. Can that be true? It is called an Essay. It is in fact an essay, but it is more and other: it is a remarkably fine poem. This view of Alkmans five lines transforms the uncertain opening into a major gambit. Most of these shorts journals are looking at nature for not only for what it is, but what it offers, for example in the short The Marginal World written by Rachel Carson she portrays "The Shore is an ancient world, for as long as there has been an earth and sea there has been this place of the meeting of land and water. . So I availed myself of a perk of working in the Senate complex, which is that we can take books out of the Library of Congress. Anne Carson's Short Talks is a series of short reflections on different subjects that at first do not seem to be related, but through her use of cyclical images and consistent use of historical facts in fiction, the piece gains a cohesive quality that unifies the work. Note that, in this bitterness, delight, Since the imperfect is so hot in us, Lies in flawed words and stubborn sounds. Perhaps because hunger is so contrary to the self-preservation which runs so deeply in a Darwinian sense, most deeply in us. And neither numbers nor logic control reality, the reality which brings us things as uncontrollable as hunger, error the subject of this poem and inexplicable facts. For I know that many of you reading this are not committed readers of poetry, or that some of you may even be like many of my students, who arent at all sure how much they like poetry or how capable they are of reading it. So she steps back, and asks us, poet and reader alike, to look into this. Being herself a classicist, she thinks back to Aristotle, who she claims thought error an interesting and valuable event. Carson has recourse to his Rhetoric, bringing into the poem a classical citation; in the next stanza she will provide both a quotation and an actual scholarly reference as we encounter a footnote in the middle of the poem, a strange circumstance. But adding on, as an activity, to what I thought I had already finished, proved more intimidating than I thought. Q. Mr. Williams, can you tell me, simply, what poetry is? Having been bound prematurely by the line ending, we find our reading is in error. The mistake in arithmetic is similar to the error of hunger: the afterthought in the arithmetical sequence is similar to the poet left with nothing even though the year has ended and winter is over, a poor Spartan poet with nothing. Nor is it hard to see that a poem about spring even if it speaks of hunger also suggests something like pale green. The simile, as has been said before, is a metaphor, differing from it only in the way it is put; and just because it is longer it is less attractive. Lots of people including Aristotle think error. Or could the them be the everyday, the ordinary, which we mistake because we consume it without looking at it no, no, it is just the sun. Id hazard that the ambiguity is resolved in the next line, since the mistakenness is valuable indicates that there is much to be seen and felt by seeing the sun as a host of angels, or even a disk of fire. and messes up the metrical form of his verse. When I first read Anne Carson's "Short Talks", I was seriously confused. that is exactly what a good mistake does. They mystery of spring, its oddness, is reflected by the error: there are three seasons, and yet in the series he names, Alkman adds spring as a fourth, as disconcerting as hunger. Even before we leave the first stanza, Carson indicates that we may already have been in error, asking of what she has just said: Or does it? Maybe error is not the occasion for shame and remorse? The label clearly makes some sense, at least superficially: think of her genre-bending book Short Talks, for example, or the arbitrarily end-stopped lines in her early sequence The Life of Towns. He acquired a M.D. Anne Carson is a very intelligent and well rounded writer. A brief stop to look at metaphor. When the sun rises, do you not see a round disc of fire somewhat like a guinea? She cites an ancient Chinese proverb that tells us a thing must be itself, and not another. Well, not entirely, but there will be quite a bit less of my words in it. The downtown was a city of glass skyscrapers, a gathering of post-modern palaces. In a metaphor, which is which? Except, as we have been learning from Aristotle by way of Carson, in metaphor. Besides, it does not say outright that "this" is "that," and therefore the hearer is less interested in the idea. I decided my wife, Buff, was right, and that I had to add more. "Essay on What I Think About Most" is Carson's analysis of Alkman's five-line lyric. of blurting out the truth in spite of itself. Essay? Too often, far too often, poetry seems to most of us like something only for initiates, or only for the smartest kid in English class. Unexpectedness emerges., This cannot be, the mind exclaims, again according to Aristotle. Customer Reviews. . Your order is written Before any paper is delivered to you, it first go through our strict checking process in order to ensure top quality. Before the enjambment metaphor causes the mind to experience itself. It appears, at this juncture, that metaphor is a kind of self-consciousness but no, that is error. The subject Carson thinks about most? The example I always use to myself of a metaphor (actually, two metaphors) is from the late 18th century poet William Blake. Any poem that has worth expresses the whole life of the poet. And here is where the mind has that moment when it can experience itself: How true [this metaphor is], and yet I mistook it.. . There are three things I like about Alkmans poem,First is that it is small,lightand more than perfectly economical.Second that it seems to suggest colors like pale greenwithout ever naming them. In the book Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson, the protagonist Geryon, is a unique type of person that is trying to do just that. ], It is very unusual in Greekfor a verb to have no subject, in factit is a grammatical mistake.Some philologists will tell youthat this mistake is just an accident of translation,and the poem as we have it. Two metaphors for the price of one: the sun is not the sun, but to us (in terms of a comparison to the everyday) it looks like a bright, bright golden coin; to the mystic Blake, it looks like a choir of angels singing in praise of the creator. Or, as we used to say, words are not things that do real things in the real world: Sticks and stones will break my bones/But words will never harm me. Or that old saw, You cant eat words. Even with this poem, Alkman is still hungry. As I was reading happily, although on occasion in confusion at her postmodernism, in the third Carson book I stumbled into a poem that struck me as one I should send out to all of you on this list. Below is an example of Huck Gutmans remarks on poetry that he sent to his email subscribers. The stanza ends with yet another enjambment. Thats something: Im glad I read that.. Ive always thought that a truth about our everyday language worth knowing.). In that sense, it may be regarded as an apotheosis an elevation into the divine of an essay on poetry. Or could the them be the everyday, the ordinary, which we mistake because we consume it without looking at it no, no, it is just the sun. Id hazard that the ambiguity is resolved in the next line, since the mistakenness is valuable indicates that there is much to be seen and felt by seeing the sun as a host of angels, or even a disk of fire. and enjambing his verse.Alkmans poem breaks off midway through an iambic metronwith no explanationof where spring came fromor why numbers dont help uscontrol reality better. . Now strange words simply puzzle us; ordinary words convey only what we know already; it is from metaphor that we can best get hold of something fresh. Does the plain declarative style of Carson's verse give the same impression? Dr. Benjamin Solomon Carson Sr. is a world renowned neurosurgeon. Anne Carson's works re-think genre in some of the most unusual and nuanced ways that few writers ever attempt, from her lyric essays, enigmatic poems, and novels in verse to further forays into video and comics and collaborative performance. 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