[lit-ideas] Re: useless poetry
- From: Torgeir Fjeld <torgeir_fjeld@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2011 19:06:31 +0100 (BST)
Thanks, David. As we engage socially the pain recedes- perhaps -- I believe in
Ulven's poem the writing subject identifies with the coat and hat who/that
"wants to rest on a hanger", as it is the poetic "i" that expresses those
emotions. That is to say, it is not someone else/Other who are but empty coats,
but the writer. Finally, though, the poem argues against such a resolution:
keep
your head on, it says.
What Ulven does is to play with the word use -- life/thinking is useless /and/
being hat and no head (having no life or thought) is useless. Must our
experiences be useful to be worthwile? Art is , to many , essentially useless
--- it is of no use. That's why the poem is a metapoem: it revolves around the
relative autonomy of culture and poetry's ability to make its own measures.
*
Here's a poem by swedish Hjalmar Söderberg:
To be loved,
if not, admired,
if not, feared,
if not, despised and detested.
To imprint on people some kind of emotion:
souls shake before the void
and want to be heard at any price.
Best regards,
Tor
torgeir_fjeld@xxxxxxxx // Ph: (+47) 47851394
http://facebook.com/phatic
-- Fred, frihet og gode offentlige tjenester --
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