That's a good question.
The idea that the words are merely the necessary conditions of the larger project, and not part of its significance is kind of attractive. However, that's not my intention. I think I would have to make a distinction from the intention of the performance over all and the intention of individual pieces. I don't thinkI could invite other poets to contribute their thoughts on Oakland with the admonishment "your poems, of course, won't mean anything", unless that was the poetics they wanted to explore (is nihilism an appropriate aesthetics for Oakland?). Nor do I think it's necessary for each individual poem to appeal to 'everyone', as it is unlikely that any given poem will be read by more than 10 people (and that's generous). I guess it depends upon your view of probabilistic reasoning whether or not you believe accounting for a random sampling means, de facto, accounting for every possible sample.
Whether or not it's clear in the writing, each poem does try to 'say something' about its subject matter. Whether or not it succeeds is, I think, subject to the same kinds of concerns the interpretation of any poem in any setting or readership is. Jenniefer seemed to indicate earlier that these poems have to take into account a 'non-poetry' readership (though perhaps I misread her)- I couldn't disagree more. We all encounter poetry everyday, in lyrics, in advertising, in speech, or to be more precise: we all employ poetic ways of understanding to navigate the languages we speak all the time, we recognize idioms, we react to prosody and sound, we pick up on irony, we are pointed to features of language as language, etc- thus the continued relevance of poetry. In that sense, I don't think there's any difference at all between the readership one might encounter 'on the street' and the readership one might encounter at a book store poetry reading, except for limited sets of reference to specialized topics which I tend to try to scrub out of my poetry anyways.
Again, the strategy of having multiple poets create the aggregate work is crucial to questions of readership, and I agree whole-heartedly with Jennifer and others that more than just me writing in English or my very poor Spanish would have to construct the work for it to speak in any inclusive way. I thought that from the beginning. It just turns out be very hard to get anyone else on board for such an idea. Maybe if I got a publisher interested, though I have zero interest in a print publication.
Finally, my quick answer to the issue of borders and Oakland. On the analogy to walls- there is very little tradition in the Western U.S. of masonry walls as borders, a feature common to Europe and parts of old, rural East Coast. Fence making in the West post-dates iron manufacture, so iron fencing dominates pasture land. Most of the masonry I've had occassion to construct is things you can walk on, things you can sit on, or things holding back hillsides or things you can swim in. I don't know if that says anything allegorical, just an observation.
On what constitutes the city. I think a city is defined conventionally but not arbitrarilly (sp?) by the extension of where and what one's vote in a reasonably democratic caucus effects, i.e. Oakland is everywhere that the money for a school bond voted for by Oakland residents gets distributed. That this is possibly tautological doesn't trouble me much. That this excludes many who are too disenfranchised to vote does. But for me, voting defines a city in some sense, the notion itself extending from the original Greek polus. Any deeper questions of identity, of a city of a person, of a population, I've given up on completely- the problem being way too difficult for me. Hope that doesn't stir up too much shit.
all right, enough out of me on the blog for a couple years.
Peace 'yal (seriously, peace, like namaste, like lets be friends 'cus this world is a nasty place)
The idea that the words are merely the necessary conditions of the larger project, and not part of its significance is kind of attractive. However, that's not my intention. I think I would have to make a distinction from the intention of the performance over all and the intention of individual pieces. I don't thinkI could invite other poets to contribute their thoughts on Oakland with the admonishment "your poems, of course, won't mean anything", unless that was the poetics they wanted to explore (is nihilism an appropriate aesthetics for Oakland?). Nor do I think it's necessary for each individual poem to appeal to 'everyone', as it is unlikely that any given poem will be read by more than 10 people (and that's generous). I guess it depends upon your view of probabilistic reasoning whether or not you believe accounting for a random sampling means, de facto, accounting for every possible sample.
Whether or not it's clear in the writing, each poem does try to 'say something' about its subject matter. Whether or not it succeeds is, I think, subject to the same kinds of concerns the interpretation of any poem in any setting or readership is. Jenniefer seemed to indicate earlier that these poems have to take into account a 'non-poetry' readership (though perhaps I misread her)- I couldn't disagree more. We all encounter poetry everyday, in lyrics, in advertising, in speech, or to be more precise: we all employ poetic ways of understanding to navigate the languages we speak all the time, we recognize idioms, we react to prosody and sound, we pick up on irony, we are pointed to features of language as language, etc- thus the continued relevance of poetry. In that sense, I don't think there's any difference at all between the readership one might encounter 'on the street' and the readership one might encounter at a book store poetry reading, except for limited sets of reference to specialized topics which I tend to try to scrub out of my poetry anyways.
Again, the strategy of having multiple poets create the aggregate work is crucial to questions of readership, and I agree whole-heartedly with Jennifer and others that more than just me writing in English or my very poor Spanish would have to construct the work for it to speak in any inclusive way. I thought that from the beginning. It just turns out be very hard to get anyone else on board for such an idea. Maybe if I got a publisher interested, though I have zero interest in a print publication.
Finally, my quick answer to the issue of borders and Oakland. On the analogy to walls- there is very little tradition in the Western U.S. of masonry walls as borders, a feature common to Europe and parts of old, rural East Coast. Fence making in the West post-dates iron manufacture, so iron fencing dominates pasture land. Most of the masonry I've had occassion to construct is things you can walk on, things you can sit on, or things holding back hillsides or things you can swim in. I don't know if that says anything allegorical, just an observation.
On what constitutes the city. I think a city is defined conventionally but not arbitrarilly (sp?) by the extension of where and what one's vote in a reasonably democratic caucus effects, i.e. Oakland is everywhere that the money for a school bond voted for by Oakland residents gets distributed. That this is possibly tautological doesn't trouble me much. That this excludes many who are too disenfranchised to vote does. But for me, voting defines a city in some sense, the notion itself extending from the original Greek polus. Any deeper questions of identity, of a city of a person, of a population, I've given up on completely- the problem being way too difficult for me. Hope that doesn't stir up too much shit.
all right, enough out of me on the blog for a couple years.
Peace 'yal (seriously, peace, like namaste, like lets be friends 'cus this world is a nasty place)
<< Home