tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424698162327097126.post6249115576191424417..comments2024-01-02T10:16:13.926+00:00Comments on The Thoughtful Dresser: Liars and poetsLinda Granthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09126115924247248057noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424698162327097126.post-22536795763308888502008-11-17T18:26:00.000+00:002008-11-17T18:26:00.000+00:00It will be available in p/b on November 25 in the ...It will be available in p/b on November 25 in the US<BR/>http://www.amazon.com/Clothes-Their-Backs-Novel/dp/143914236X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225809371&sr=1-1Linda Granthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09126115924247248057noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424698162327097126.post-70957115380358260502008-11-17T17:50:00.000+00:002008-11-17T17:50:00.000+00:00I've met the most interesting folks on this blog. ...I've met the most interesting folks on this blog. Thanks, Linda. I hope your book is available in paper book inthe U.S. soon.VeeKayehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15783237062131248057noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424698162327097126.post-12761374267708244482008-11-16T22:25:00.000+00:002008-11-16T22:25:00.000+00:00Of course the voice in poetry is not to be identif...Of course the voice in poetry is not to be identified with the person of the poet. That is elementary, I think. Rule number one, in fact. Voice yes, but character as "in a novel", very rarely. <BR/><BR/>Can you have a character as "in a novel" without a novel? I doubt it. In poetry it is less character than voice, and voice has masks - <I>needs</I> masks to speak. Those masks are not of novelistic characters "as in novels". As I said: there isn't a novel there for them to be characters in. All we know of them is voice.<BR/><BR/>The concerns of the poem are, as I understand it, to explore a specific state of affairs, not to develop a set of actions or relationships between developing 'characters' in the furtherance of a plot. That can be the business of poetic drama, which is more drama than poetry. Passages of Shakespeare's plays read like poetry, but they are not poems. <BR/><BR/>The eclogues of the Greeks or of Virgil, or indeed of MacNeice, are not dialogues about plot or 'character' development as in a novel: they are voices hanging in space. Beckett is closer to pure poetry in that respect. That is why many poets love Beckett.George Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08889600788146987089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424698162327097126.post-44609681326936249212008-11-16T18:04:00.000+00:002008-11-16T18:04:00.000+00:00Hmmm . . . there's always the matter of the poem's...Hmmm . . . there's always the matter of the poem's speaker to consider, isn't there? Readers often assume that the speaker *is* the poet, but the speaker is often as crafted as a character in a novel. That assumed *truth* (speaker = poet)then becomes a *lie* . . .Miss Cavendishhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17461488799928956875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424698162327097126.post-78631540941704984032008-11-16T12:20:00.000+00:002008-11-16T12:20:00.000+00:00Well, I think I must first think of regulating the...Well, I think I must first think of regulating the movements of my feet so they don't end up in my mouth quite as often as they do.<BR/><BR/>I want to explore this at my place because it is somewhat off-normal topic here. <BR/><BR/>What I meant (he says, carefully watching movements of feet hovering dangerously near mouth) is that, in my experience, most poets don't invent events or even - with a few exceptions - character. What they invent are mostly metaphors (at various levels)and a kind of rhythmic equivalence to what seem to them to be the state of things. Novelists however - and this is the essence of stories, isn't it? - are interested in consequences. What happens next? What doesn't happen next? What should or should not happen next? It's a moral art full of moral dilemmas.<BR/><BR/>To put it crudely, poets are interest in what is, novelists in what will be and ought to be.<BR/><BR/>To poets, novelists seem to feel comfortable speculating about behaviour and inventing people who can then go about behaving.<BR/><BR/>As for the solipsistic part you'll have to come over <A HREF="http://georgeszirtes.blogspot.com/2008/11/those-lying-novelists-and-those.html" REL="nofollow">chez moi</A>.<BR/><BR/>Only to add that the rather flattering photo of my good self you have used was taken some eight or nine years ago and is therefore a 'lie' not only as to my present condition but as to the frequency with which I adopt romantic positions in perfect light.<BR/><BR/>Enough to have done so once or twice perhaps.George Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08889600788146987089noreply@blogger.com