Subj: Poetry & Rumors Of Death
Date: 7/16/2002 6:21:33 AM Central Daylight Time
From: <A HREF="mailto:cosmoetica@att.net">cosmoetica@att.net</A>
Sent from the Internet (Details)
<A HREF="http://www.cosmoetica.com/D27-GWP1.htm">http://www.cosmoetica.co=
m/D27-GWP1.htm</A>
D27-GWP1
Dr. Salemi’s Obituary and the Consumption of Poetry
Copyright © by Gilbert Wesley Purdy, <A HREF="mailto:gwpurdy@yahoo.c=
om">gwpurdy@yahoo.com</A> , 7/16/02
An essay by Dr. Jospeh S. Salemi - a widely published poet and a =
member of
the Humanities Department at New York University – appears in a recent
number of the electronic journal <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">
Expansive Poetry and Music Online. Its title - “Why Poetry=
is Dying” -
identifies it as the latest in a tradition of such pronouncements. That
poetry is dying has been a well known fact for some hundred years. The
death, it seems, is a lingering one, and certainly it has been painful for =
us
all.
Poetry, it seems, is dying of consumption. We suspect this is so becaus=
e
it revives and counterfeits a complete recovery from time to time. This is=
an illusion common among consumptives. Also common, just before the end, =
in
that disease, we may expect the patient to experience a fury of energy and=
feeling of exceptional health just before the inevitable end. A high color=
will return to its cheeks - higher than it ever had in a normal sta=
te of
health. Its eyes will be fiercely bright. It will be as if the body is
being consumed from out of its own heat.
Not that this is what Dr. Salemi informs us. His essay is a paper
presented before the Soldiers’, Sailors’, Marines’ =
and Airmens’ Club of
Manhattan. Tuberculosis metaphors are unlikely in a public address. The=
paper is much more practical than that. It is chock full of common sense=
observations. …
– Dan Schneider, <A HREF="mailto:cosmoetica@att.net">cosmoetica@att.net<=
/A><A HREF="http://www.cosmoetica.com/">www.Cosmoetica.com</A> : The Best=
inPoetica
seeks great poems & essays!
i am nearly in accord with this article. i am equally irritated
by "working poets" and "working-as-poets." irritation is no object.
regarding the web, most important is the autonomy of various nodes.
the York University site which i linked, is linked in places appropriate
to its specialty, and not subsumed by the Online Books Page et al.
the noble rules suggest the western music, where concern with
`historicism' effectively neutered modern or otherwise new musics.
fortunately little depends on these rules, which are self-evident.
the need for a popular criticism, is the need to know how bad poems,
and bad or arbitrary writing can possess insight or mere relevance.
and then to revalue based on understanding, not on the original specialty.
also we drop the deceptions. go into timelessness, where poems cannot
hint, say, or promise anything, even themselves. the rest may be worth
it, obviously i dont know what im writing.
At 11:48 on Jul 16, Nmherman reasoned:
> Subj: Poetry & Rumors Of Death
>
> <A HREF="http://www.cosmoetica.com/D27-GWP1.htm">http://www.cosmoetica.com/D27-GWP1.htm</A>
>