tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11122973.post114532652823846566..comments2024-02-08T05:04:18.484-08:00Comments on J'S THEATER: Who Reads Poetry? + The Sinking of KiribatiJohn Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08073378940347627766noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11122973.post-1145375430331581592006-04-18T08:50:00.000-07:002006-04-18T08:50:00.000-07:00Keguro, I would agree with Kai, and add that while...Keguro, I would agree with Kai, and add that while both this report and the NEA report make assertions with a Schillerian thrust, I think it stands to reason that people who are intellectually engaged, no matter what their class level, might be active in other aspects of their lives. Not all, but many. That's the correlation I see, but I don't thing there's any sort of direct causal link or correlation. Also, if I recall correctly, O'Hara's comments, like his poetry, are often ironic, and what makes me think in particular of another way of reading his "improvement" comment is a passage in John Ashbery's "Writers and Issues: Frank O'Hara's Question." It's included in the recently published collection of his essays (Michigan, 2006), which I recommend. Here is one of its most famous quotes, which itself is quite ironic:<BR/><BR/>"Frank O'Hara's poetry has no program and therefore cannot be joined. It does not advocate sex and dope as a panacea for the ills of modern society; it does not speak out against the war in Vietnam or in favor of civil rights; it does not paint gothic vignettes of the post-Atomic age: in a word, it does not attack the establishment. It merely ignores its right to exist, and is thus a source of annoyance for partisans of every stripe."<BR/><BR/>(Of course despite his personal limitations and background, O'Hara was against the war, was socially progressive, in terms of his relationships with Black people, women and other gays, and also actively participated in the various forms of liberatory activity that existed during his adult life--all of this is <I>in</I> his poetry as well.) He continues: "...Unlike the 'message' of committed poetry it incites one to all the programs of commitment a well as to every other form of self-realization--interpersonal, Dionysian, occult, or abstract." Ashbery's channeling Pater (and Nietzsche and Heidegger, etc.) here, but I think he has a point: O'Hara's poetry, which is often about action in relation to thought, does provide one model for literary or linguistically mediated disidentification, to use José Muñoz's theoretic concept, and I for one am grateful to him for the examples he provides.John Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08073378940347627766noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11122973.post-1145367935460721402006-04-18T06:45:00.000-07:002006-04-18T06:45:00.000-07:00Keguro, you're familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of...Keguro, you're familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs? It's basically a psychological model (empirically based) which says that, until basic (in sucessive steps) physical, emotional, and intellectual needs are met, one does not partake of more rarefied pleasures/entertainment/endeavors.<BR/><BR/> In other words, starving people do not "work out"; the uneducated do not avidly follow esoteric philosphical debates (because there is not the underlying educational development that would support such an interest). But the principle of Maslow's needs can show up in strange, seemingly unrelated correlations, as in the poetry=physical fitness connection. The sort of person whose basic needs have been sufficently met that poetry can be of interest and relevant tends to correlate with those who can (yes, "can" not "do") care about health/physical fitness.<BR/><BR/>We had an skirmish a couple months ago about the (very real)improvements of poetry ... but today I'll forebear ...<BR/><BR/>Kai in NYCAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com