Today's Topics:
Blake & Wordsworth
Re: Metaphor...
Re: Despair?
Re: Despair?
Re: Despair?
Re: Metaphor...
Re: Metaphor...
Re: Metaphor
Coffee Bar Poetry...
Re: Metaphor
Re: Metaphor
Re: Metaphor...
Re: Metaphor...
Re: Re Metaphor and Symbol
Re: Despair?
genuflectingly...
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 19:06:57 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Blake & Wordsworth
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Thank you, Jennifer Michael, for the suggestion of the comparison of
Blake's "London" with Wordsworth's "Composed Upon Westminster Bridge,
September 3, 1802". I seem to recall you at one point bringing up the fact
that Wordsworth's poem is one of morning. Something about "Where are all
the people?" Virgin, a new dawn...? Whereas Blake's is very much, to me, a
poem of the Night.
How's that for a start?
Yes, London was pumping in and out a great deal of trade, wasn't it, on the
Thames? Who got the fruits of that trade? Who got to unload and load the
boats for barely nothing?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I personally find Blake's poem more compelling, more gripping. To me, it's
like abstract expressionism versus... a soothing thing. However, it's
interesting, to me that, after John Stuart Mill had a nervous breakdown, it
was Romantic poetry and particularly Wordsworth that he credited for his
recovery. He then went on to be friends with... well... wild women like
George Sand, who could smoke cigars and have a good time with Chopin, among
others.
Interestingly, for those who merely disparage "poor Carlyle" as leading
down the road of fascism, I would note that earlier in his life he was
friends with Mill, Dickens, Emerson, and other progressives. It was only as
he aged that he became a... how shall I say it?... running monologue? I
briefly scanned a biography on him recently, because Peter Ackroyd was
comparing him to Lawrence in a review for the London Times. (If anyone
wants to see that review, please contact me privately. An angel may have
flew it into my computer drive by mistake. Also, I may have what the BBC
has determined to be the "Top 100" of the 20th century, which, as soon as
it was released, caused instant controversy, because only 10 women were on
it, even though 2 of the 4 panelists were women.) Anyway, the Carlyle
biography was called _Moral Desperado, A Life of Thomas Carlyle_ by Simon
Heffer (1995, London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson). And... that's that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Blake, in between flaming up with statements like "Who does he think he is?
Jehovah?" also had to admit that Wordsworth was pretty good, didn't he?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have a comment to add on Blake's "London". It has to do with ending it
with that harlot's curse and wedding hearse... most disturbing, aren't
they! I mean... to curse
It reminds me of some parts of the last page of this beautiful new book I'm
borrowing from a library, _some of the dharma_ by Jack Kerouac (1997,
Viking Penguin). The line breaks are *slightly* mine, because I know that
when this gets turned around, it would mess it up...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"What is a 'dumb blonde'?---Vanity---Concupiscence---Vacuousness---
Lusted-after-ness---
i.e. How would *you* like to be one, like?
"And the final sin, the worst, is R I G H T E O U S N E S S "
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This warning against the self-righteous
is very much up Blake's alley, don't you think?
And I think he had a good historical precedent.
When a Mob was about to...
stone a harlot to death?...
a man who some people thought was...
really something...
said,
"Let you who are without sin cast the first stone", didn't he?
And interestingly, it got the Mob to disperse, as I recall.
But the man was later crucified as a traitor to his race.
And his name has been MIS-used, in my opinion, as I believe Blake also
felt, for oh so many reasons that continue to this day.
-------Randall Albright
http://world.std.com/~albright/
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 1998 16:18:22 -0800
From: Ed Buryn
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Metaphor...
Message-Id: <34D6622C.6BE5@nccn.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
ndeeter wrote:
[snip]
>
> Perhaps I've stood upon my soapbox too long. Perhaps I'm doing nothing
> but spouting doctrine and practicing none of it. But ask yourself this
> question, what role does poetry play in our society? And to whom? I ask
> you to go beyond providing English majors with a profession. I ask you
> to go beyond providing the thinking intelligentsia with a passionate
> hobby. What is the social significance of poetry? The people who put i
> to social practice, what are they getting out of it?
I live in a small town (area population about 15,000) in the California
foothills and we now have at least three ongoing poetry series here, one
of which I help direct. Our poetry playhouse draws from 25 to 50 people
per performance (10 per season), and we generally have about 20 featured
poets per season, mostly local, some regional. One of the other series
features nationally known poets, while the remaining one is a
coffeehouse series strictly for local poets. In addition to these
regular series, there are many occasional bookstore readings and
coffeehouse readings.
Poetry is enormously popular here, and I believe plays an important part
in the social/intellectual/literary life of our community. What people
are getting out of it is INSPIRATION, and excitement and entertainment.
There is a literary ferment here that has exploded in the last few
years. Two years ago the town started sponsoring an annual literary
celebration including a parade, with two days of public readings and
performances. Our area now has at least eight bookstores, and there is
now talk of declaring it an official "book town" to draw tourists to all
our poetry and literary events. This wasn't always so. Our playhouse,
founded 8 years ago, was instrumental in creating a fan base for poetry
out of which these other activities have grown.
I also want to mention a "poetry jam" I just heard about, which will
take place on The Strip in Vegas in March -- a 4-day celebration of
poetry for which 200 poets have already signed up. There are "poetry
slams" taking place all over the country. Poetry to read. Poetry in
America is not dead, it is not boring, it is not confusing. In academia,
perhaps that may be so. But in the everyday life of most of the people I
know here, poetry is a tremendous life force with everyday significance.
--
Ed Buryn
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 19:03:46 -0800 (PST)
From: Ralph Dumain
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Despair?
Message-Id: <2.2.16.19980202215718.2c0fc5b0@pop.igc.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Albright continues to play with his feces in public. He thinks he inhabits
a completely arbitrary and subjective universe, subject to no objective
constraints. It's amazing such a malformed, crippled mind could even last
as long as it has, but in a wapred society, who's even going to notice?
Software technical development, sure.
At 05:15 PM 2/2/98 -0500, R.H. Albright wrote:
>Whomever cares! Remember that quote I played with last fall from the Four
>Zoas? Do many people "buy" Blake, even for just a song? So what? Let them
>watch Seinfeld. I mean, there's a time and place for the X Files, too...
>
>Try reading "Art" by Ralph Waldo Emerson. I mean, it's all around us. LIFE
>is art, if you make it that way.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 22:47:29 -0600
From: "Larry Magnuson"
To:
Subject: Re: Despair?
Message-Id: <001001bd305e$d6212f40$604c18d0@computer>
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
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"Pity would be no more if we did not make someone poor."
-----Original Message-----
From: Ralph Dumain
To: blake@albion.com
Date: Monday, February 02, 1998 9:25 PM
Subject: Re: Despair?
>Albright continues to play with his feces in public. He thinks he inhabits
>a completely arbitrary and subjective universe, subject to no objective
>constraints. It's amazing such a malformed, crippled mind could even last
>as long as it has, but in a wapred society, who's even going to notice?
>Software technical development, sure.
>
>At 05:15 PM 2/2/98 -0500, R.H. Albright wrote:
>>Whomever cares! Remember that quote I played with last fall from the Four
>>Zoas? Do many people "buy" Blake, even for just a song? So what? Let them
>>watch Seinfeld. I mean, there's a time and place for the X Files, too...
>>
>>Try reading "Art" by Ralph Waldo Emerson. I mean, it's all around us. LIFE
>>is art, if you make it that way.
>
>
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 1998 22:15:04 -0900
From: ndeeter
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Despair?
Message-Id: <34D6C3F8.293A@concentric.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
R.H. Albright wrote:
> >But ask yourself this
> >question, what role does poetry play in our society?
>
> It's been reduced to a very minor one.
And I'm the one despairing and pessimistic? I'm not, I know poetry can
have a grave impact on people and that's why I speak so adamantly about
it--sometimes until I'm blue in the ears--to people who truly believe
this, that poetry plays a minor role and it is dismissed by the larger
population. I am very optimistic about poetry's resilience, I suppose
I'm just righteously indignant about comments and thoughts like this. As
for being replaced by pop music, I think pop music is a natural
outgrowth of poetry, very much a piece of the language tradition, but
also a hybrid of poetry. Though, most of it does certainly sound more
like poop music.
Nathan Deeter
ndeeter@concentric.net
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 1998 22:19:48 -0900
From: ndeeter
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Metaphor...
Message-Id: <34D6C514.6D73@concentric.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Ed Buryn wrote:
>
> ndeeter wrote:
>
> [snip]
> >
> > Perhaps I've stood upon my soapbox too long. Perhaps I'm doing nothing
> > but spouting doctrine and practicing none of it. But ask yourself this
> > question, what role does poetry play in our society? And to whom? I ask
> > you to go beyond providing English majors with a profession. I ask you
> > to go beyond providing the thinking intelligentsia with a passionate
> > hobby. What is the social significance of poetry? The people who put i
> > to social practice, what are they getting out of it?
>
> I live in a small town (area population about 15,000) in the California
> foothills and we now have at least three ongoing poetry series here, one
> of which I help direct. Our poetry playhouse draws from 25 to 50 people
> per performance (10 per season), and we generally have about 20 featured
> poets per season, mostly local, some regional. One of the other series
> features nationally known poets, while the remaining one is a
> coffeehouse series strictly for local poets. In addition to these
> regular series, there are many occasional bookstore readings and
> coffeehouse readings.
>
> Poetry is enormously popular here, and I believe plays an important part
> in the social/intellectual/literary life of our community. What people
> are getting out of it is INSPIRATION, and excitement and entertainment.
> There is a literary ferment here that has exploded in the last few
> years. Two years ago the town started sponsoring an annual literary
> celebration including a parade, with two days of public readings and
> performances. Our area now has at least eight bookstores, and there is
> now talk of declaring it an official "book town" to draw tourists to all
> our poetry and literary events. This wasn't always so. Our playhouse,
> founded 8 years ago, was instrumental in creating a fan base for poetry
> out of which these other activities have grown.
>
> I also want to mention a "poetry jam" I just heard about, which will
> take place on The Strip in Vegas in March -- a 4-day celebration of
> poetry for which 200 poets have already signed up. There are "poetry
> slams" taking place all over the country. Poetry to read. Poetry in
> America is not dead, it is not boring, it is not confusing. In academia,
> perhaps that may be so. But in the everyday life of most of the people I
> know here, poetry is a tremendous life force with everyday significance.
>
> --
> Ed Buryn
Thank you Mr. Buryn for sharing. This is the kind of thing that I like
to hear! How did your community get so involved with it? Was it a
gradual thing? Or did some very talented people spark some infernal
fever that has not stopped? Here in Anchorage, there is a large writer's
community, many of which are poets, but there is very little interaction
between poets and non-poets, not a lot of poetry being practiced as a
social phenomenon. I'd like to see this anti-art community really start
to take some pride in their writers and what they do with language.
Again thank you very much.
Nathan Deeter
ndeeter@concentric.net
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 23:34:09 -0800 (PST)
From: Ralph Dumain
To: ndeeter@concentric.net, blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Metaphor...
Message-Id: <2.2.16.19980203022744.2d0febce@pop.igc.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
KEYS TO THE KINGDOM: SIMPLICITY, DEPTH, CONVICTION
Culture is too important to waste on intellectuals. As this is a Blake
list, we ought not to stray too far, so I will try to tie these pressing
issues of wider social concern to Blake our main man. The sense of urgency
displayed by Nathan reflects something real. Is there some way we can get
beyond the duality of superficial reportage on what's going around and the
highly coded preciosity of literary allusion dedicated to a select
intellectual coterie? Poetry that doesn't speak of concerns to everyone is
utterly useless. But poetry is also appreciated on many levels depending on
the depth of the mind that grasps it. However, something can grab you
before you consciously understand it because it hits you where you live.
Then you take it as far as your ability lets you. "I give you the end of a
golden string ..."
Now, the density of coding has a certain cultural archival value in shoring
up cultural historical information, but that in itself is a triviality until
put to some larger purpose. In poetry, the useless shit that Ezra Pound
wrote is an example. What human being can stomach this shit? Or in film,
how about PULP FICTION? I mean, you can code a piece of work as much as you
want, but if you have nothing to say, please don't try to waste my precious
time. If you are a poet with something to say, you try to supply what's
missing in people's lives. It's hard to get the news from poems, yet men die
miserably every day for lack of what is found there. They know not
wherefore they sicken and die, but if you do, your job is to put your finger
on it and administer the medicine. This is the alpha and omega of the
mission of poetry.
Now there's an awful lot of questions I don't have answers for, but this is
not one. A lifetime of experience has taught me well. And the irony of it
is, I can explain these basic principles to the most uneducated, virtually
illiterate and inarticulate people, which is basically what I'm surrounded
with. They understand it best because the difficulty of their lives keeps
them focused, whatever else they are unsophisticated about. Of course the
culture they consume is crap, but they know what is missing in their lives
when push comes to shove: it is substance and inspiration, and they know it.
Only intellectuals don't understand. They are more annoying, because they
are highly analytical and articulate about the trivia that fills up their
brains. (People who have been processed through literature departments are
just about the worst of any group.) But it doesn't make trivia any less
trivial. When I go to New York and escape the brain-dead illiteracy that
surrounds me here, I get around intellectuals, and all they can do with
those highly educated brains is to subject James Bond movies to endless
stylistic analysis. I find this unendurable. Unendurable! I know people
who are barely literate who know better.
I say, spend a lot of time listening and observing people with intelligence.
Pinpoint that which is hovering invisibly in the air but which does not yet
exist, has not been articulated, that gaping absence which needs to be
named. It's about more than showing off at poetry slams, it's about
reminding people that they are not just machines, they are conscious beings.
Precisely because they have to be reminded of this at all times, under the
conditions in which we live today, there's the social significance right
there. What you get out of it is knowing that this is what you have to do.
Somebody's got to face it, and if you are lucky enough not to have been
ground down too much, and you can face it, that's enough to make you feel as
if you've been blessed, even if you are frustrated and pissed off all the
time. because I'm happy just to be, to be, to be, to be here and be a
witness and just to be. Joy can be excruciating in its own way. It reminds
you of its own absence even in its own presence, by how much you yearn for.
I don't want to be boring little turd Samuel Beckett contemplating the void.
No, when I climb out of the shower and hear John Coltrane playing, I'm known
to be screaming over and over and over and over: "CAN'T STAND THE BEAUTY!
CAN'T STAND THE BEAUTY! CAN'T STAND THE BEAUTY! CAN'T STAND THE BEAUTY!"
"Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps!"
At 09:40 AM 2/2/98 -0900, ndeeter wrote:
> But ask yourself this
>question, what role does poetry play in our society? And to whom? I ask
>you to go beyond providing English majors with a profession. I ask you
>to go beyond providing the thinking intelligentsia with a passionate
>hobby. What is the social significance of poetry? The people who put it
>to social practice, what are they getting out of it?
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 10:47:31
From: Izak Bouwer
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Metaphor
Message-Id: <3.0.1.16.19980203104731.304f8c20@igs.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
I saw the movie "Il Postino" recently for the first time,
after this discussion on the list had already started. What
a surprise and a delight - a movie about metaphor! How one
man's discovery of the existence of metaphor and the power
of it eventually transfigures and galvanizes a whole village.
For me the most exhilirating moment was when the knowledge
of and the glory of metaphor reaches the girl: one can see
how she exults in the fact that everything physical, also
her beauty, can become transfigured in metaphor. Eventually
even the domineering aunt has to cope with the power of
metaphor.
Maybe this is what metaphor is all about - a search for
the power which transfixes, gives energy. Maybe we are not
supposed to see individual metaphors cast in stone - that
would be urizenic. Maybe the energy is the message.
Gloudina Bouwer
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 11:43:43 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Coffee Bar Poetry...
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Ed Buryn:
Thanks for your info on what's happening in real life in your town. I can
also add that coffee bars in mine often have poetry readings by locals,
reading their own stuff, as well as reading "classics", and that is popular
among some, too.
---Randall Albright
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 10:42:16 -0800
From: Chris Hahn
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Metaphor
Message-Id: <34D76508.608@aonix.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Izak Bouwer wrote:
> Maybe this is what metaphor is all about - a search for
> the power which transfixes, gives energy. Maybe we are not
> supposed to see individual metaphors cast in stone - that
> would be urizenic. Maybe the energy is the message.
>
> Gloudina Bouwer
Hello,
I am wondering what does "urizenic" mean? What is its origin?
Thanx!
Christopher
--
Christopher Hahn -- Software Engineer
AONIX -- San Diego Ca.
chahn@aonix.com -- http://www.aonix.com
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 14:06:34 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Metaphor
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Gloudina Bouwer:
I too saw and loved "Il Postino".The sensuality, the feeling of both
exhilaration at times and deep pain or loss, at other times.
I don't understand how people have difficulty making "contact"...
One time, for example, I was searching Alta Vista for people that had
something to say about Walt Whitman. A very creative person, Levi Asher,
had put together a Web page about "The Walt Whitman Mall" in New Jersey. It
turned out to be one of many things he's done on the Web (I link to him
through my Frank O'Hara page.)
I wrote to Levi-- this was two years ago now. And he's still one of my best
e-mail friends. I've met some wonderful people through this group, some of
whom are no longer here, but live in my mind, others who still return my
personal e-mails...
Levi has since actually gotten a book published, called _Coffeehouse:
Writings From the Web_ (Manning, 1997). It's carried by my local Borders,
but not my local Waterstone's. And... www.amazon.com is helpful for obscure
titles like this. It's full of interesting conversations he's had with
people, stories they make up... and... I've met other friends of his... met
other people through my own Web pages... other discussion groups. Some are
teachers. Some are... pizza delivery people. I'm just interested in... a
good talk!
I think the ability to make "contact" is all around me.
The Internet is one amazing medium. But there are certainly others.
It's nice, for example, to be able to share my love of Blake with people
like you here through the kind auspices of Seth at Albion Corporation,
because in real life, most people I know are into other things.
---Randall Albright
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 11:31:20 -0800 (PST)
From: Linda Crespi
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Metaphor...
Message-Id: <19980203193120.3658.rocketmail@send1a.yahoomail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
---Ralph Dumain wrote:
> Poetry that doesn't speak of concerns to everyone is
> utterly useless.
And in Blake's lifetime many laughed at his work and said, "That
doesn't speak to me." Only after his death did the people of England
LEARN how to let his poems speak to them.
And maybe only after time had proved his prophecies did anyone realise
that they spoke of "concerns to everyone".
And who said that poetry had to be useful? Can't it just be true? Or
delightful? Or awe-inspiring?
Linda Crespi
____
SNAKESKIN poetry webzine is at
http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~simmers
_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 13:21:10 -0800
From: Ed Buryn
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Metaphor...
Message-Id: <34D78A44.6A61@nccn.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
ndeeter wrote:
[snip]
> How did your community get so involved with it? Was it a
> gradual thing? Or did some very talented people spark some infernal
> fever that has not stopped?
It was a gradual process, but one which I think revealed that our town,
like almost every community, comprises talented and responsive
individuals who yearn at some level to be inspired by visions of life
that are imaginative (divine) and not strictly materialistic. At our
poets playhouse we kick off each season with a group reading of a well
known poet: everyone gets to read and we go around the room sharing our
favorite passages. Three years ago we did Blake, along with a display of
books and art from my library! (We've also done Allen Ginsberg, DH
Lawrence, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickenson, and Rumi; next season we're
reading from our neighbor Gary Snyder.) Anyway, these group readings
alway start our season on a big energy rush because the poetry is all
great, and everyone gets to actively participate in its expression.
> Here in Anchorage, there is a large writer's
> community, many of which are poets, but there is very little interaction
> between poets and non-poets, not a lot of poetry being practiced as a
> social phenomenon. I'd like to see this anti-art community really start
> to take some pride in their writers and what they do with language.
Yes this is where the work of bridging consciousness has to be done.
Communication (interaction) is probably the key. Poets need to go more
public, reading in the streets and on the radio/tv, writing in the
newspaper, publicizing their events, promulgating their expression
outside their dens.
Ed Buryn
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 15:15:17 -0600
From: jmichael@sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Re Metaphor and Symbol
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Nathan Deeter wrote,
>Blake wrote in metaphor. For Blake, like you said, the Sick Rose, the
>Sunflower, the Lilly are all metaphors. But for us they are symbols. For
>me, the Rose may be the symbol for a lover; the Sunflower, for someone
>who's dying; the Lilly, for a corpse. For you, they're symbols, they're
>archetypes for something similar, but altogether distinct. The effect of
>the metaphor, therefore, is indistinct, inaccurate, and vague. And the
>one thing I can't stand is vague poetry; it shows the poet hasn't done
>the work he promises us to do. His promise is to articulate human
>experience in such a way that that human experience means something.
>Vagueness means nothing.
Well, I have a problem with people refusing to use terms precisely and
saying "metaphor, symbol, image, it's all the same." It is difficult to
make the distinction--in fact, I'm facing that challenge with my freshman
class right now--but it must be made. Not because I'm a pedant, but
because if we can't use terms with precision, we can't discuss the poems in
a meaningful way. And if we don't bother to be precise in our language, we
can't blame poets for being "vague."
Blake often does write in metaphor and simile, e.g. the children in "Holy
Thursday" described as "flowers of London town." But the Sick Rose and the
other flowers you mention are not metaphors, but symbols. If they were
metaphors, they would be explicit comparisons or identifications, "A is B"
or "A is like B," and they're not. That's why symbols are harder to read
and understand than metaphors. Metaphors work because the things being
compared are alike in some way, but they're never the same thing. The
children mentioned above are not really flowers. A symbol, on the other
hand, partakes of the reality to which it points. The Tyger to me
symbolizes energy and on some level *is* that energy, but it never stops
being a tiger. So the tenor and vehicle are not distinct, as they are in
metaphor.
Brooks and Warren in _Understanding Poetry_ do a pretty good job of
explaining the difference. An excellent book on metaphor, though it gets a
little theoretical, is _More than Cool Reason_ by George Lakoff and Mark
Turner.
Jennifer Michael
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 18:46:42 -0500
From: Bill & Ingrid Wagner
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Despair?
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>Albright continues to play with his feces in public. He thinks he inhabits
>a completely arbitrary and subjective universe, subject to no objective
>constraints. It's amazing such a malformed, crippled mind could even last
>as long as it has, but in a wapred society, who's even going to notice?
>Software technical development, sure.
>
>At 05:15 PM 2/2/98 -0500, R.H. Albright wrote:
>>Whomever cares! Remember that quote I played with last fall from the Four
>>Zoas? Do many people "buy" Blake, even for just a song? So what? Let them
>>watch Seinfeld. I mean, there's a time and place for the X Files, too...
>>
>>Try reading "Art" by Ralph Waldo Emerson. I mean, it's all around us. LIFE
>>is art, if you make it that way.
>
>
Subjective and Objective Unified field or isolated parts
Just a couple of words.. Yin Yang Self Other
Dispair can be opportunity. Difficult to see if emershed in it.
Consider Dance, yes movement. If I live in my head the body can rebel.
Where to begin? If this is a subjective place anywhere will do. If it is
objective for you continue to try to understand. Be careful as words can
harden the heart. One of may faveroite billy blake quotes can shine here.
"I must create my own belief system or be inslaved by anothers."
Why not create another?
Bill who feared not the consequences but wrote.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 16:06:27 -0900
From: ndeeter
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: genuflectingly...
Message-Id: <34D7BF13.5BF8@concentric.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
I apologize to the group for leading the discussion away from Blake. I
did not mean to waste anyone's time or energy on too general a topic.
Mr. Dumain, as always you are perceptive and compassionate and your call
for a return to all things Blakean is due. So to the tombs with metaphor
and may no grave robber disturb that pile of rags and bones!
I do have a question related to Blake. My copy of Blake's Poems and
Prophecys (The Everyman's Library Edition, Knopf) has in it "Never Seek
To Tell Thy Love", however, it has left out the all important first
stanza:
Never seek to tell thy love
Love that's never told can be:
For the gentle wind does move
Silently, invisibly.
Does anyone know why an edition would have this poem without this
stanza? Did Blake add it on near the end of his days or is it just that
it's a minor poem?
Thanks.
Nathan Deeter
ndeeter@concentric.net
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End of blake-d Digest V1998 Issue #6
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