Ross Brighton
Poem
exit
extant
ecstasy
______(four)__________________(brother my sextant)
transt
static
__________pre____________________lyre mirror_______
ant_______________again it
____________ less fifth
&_________________________O
___________trance of
_____
Ross Brighton is the author of the chapbook A Pelt a Shrub a Soil Sample. His work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Catalyst, Otoliths Side Stream, Brief and Action Yes. He reviews books for various venues including The Press, and blogs on poetics and contemporary art at www.ignoretheventriloquists.blogspot.com.
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
A few thoughts:
ReplyDelete1) This 'poem' clearly isn't supposed to communicate anything in what it says or how it is constructed. If it is supposed to destroy language [i.e. a negative construction] and show us its vacuousness, then that is a tired, ridden old cliche.
2) If it is attempting to communicate something, then it founders miserably. The easiest way to write a poem is to put arbitrary words/found poetry together and pretend earnestly that it says something important.
'Execrable
Extraneous
Effluent.
Apple
Mac (ing)--
Choose an identity -
Name?
URL?
Anonymous.'
It still bewilders me that some readers will object so strongly to any sort of poetry that does not deal directly with a representational perspective of reality and language.
ReplyDeleteI like this poem for all of the reasons that the first reader/responder identifies as faults.
And since you signed your comments anonymously, I’ll reply in kind.
What, then, is the function/utility/achievement of this example of non-representational poetry?
ReplyDeleteBy eschewing realism, leaving the idea of letting readers into the text, what gains does the poem make?
Does the (deliberate) bewilderment of the reader add or subtract?
That seems to be the resolution, for me at least, between anonymous 1 and anonymous 2...