Charles Bukowski

FinsburyParkCarrots

Having said that, I like poems that subvert form from within and play with time, consciousness and voice to produce stream of consciousness literature. Again, it takes skill to effect this successfully.

EvilToasterElf

FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:

I go along with the Elf on this one. You have to work at writing and to know the material basis of literature as a means of production, if it is ever going to be readable or relevant to any culture or society. People who think writing comes best from some magical flash of inspiration are the ones consumed by self love. They think themselves to be sacred vessels for poetry. Anyone would think that the consciousness of an inspired poet determines our social being, our culture. No, it is the other way around. Our social being dictates our writing, and writing is work. It is a material means of production that reflects and subverts in its formal and thematic contradictions the material, lived ideologies of the people of its time, regardless of whether it is set in the past, present or future.

Even if a writer has no effective control over the many meanings of his or her work, they should know how the sound of a word suggests many nuances, associations and meanings to different readers. A word must be selected for maximum effect, to capture a mindset. If a writer relies too much on the gut, the heart and the mind are ignored where they might help the poetic process.

Never thought much of Buk. Too much polemic disguised as nonchalant reportage.

Class dismissed...

FinsburyParkCarrots

I'd never dismiss a class. I'd invite them all down the pub afterwards, and I'd buy.

Ms. Haiku

FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:

I go along with the Elf on this one. You have to work at writing and to know the material basis of literature as a means of production, if it is ever going to be readable or relevant to any culture or society. People who think writing comes best from some magical flash of inspiration are the ones consumed by self love. They think themselves to be sacred vessels for poetry. Anyone would think that the consciousness of an inspired poet determines our social being, our culture. No, it is the other way around. Our social being dictates our writing, and writing is work. It is a material means of production that reflects and subverts in its formal and thematic contradictions the material, lived ideologies of the people of its time, regardless of whether it is set in the past, present or future.

Even if a writer has no effective control over the many meanings of his or her work, they should know how the sound of a word suggests many nuances, associations and meanings to different readers. A word must be selected for maximum effect, to capture a mindset. If a writer relies too much on the gut, the heart and the mind are ignored where they might help the poetic process.

Never thought much of Buk. Too much polemic disguised as nonchalant reportage.

It took a while to figure this out. Actually, it was something Elf wrote to the effect of - writers waiting for inspiration don't write - and it made sense. For many years I thought I was the vessel for inspiration because sometimes some feeling just flows from my gut to my brain and it's a draft of a poem that will make me proud . . .

now I'm a poet at work

catefrances

material basis of literature as a means of production.

what the hell does that mean?

FinsburyParkCarrots

From http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/glossary/Marxist_criticism.html:

Marxist criticism:

Criticism based on the historical, economic, and sociological theory of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. According to Marxism, the consciousness of a given class at a given historical moment derives from modes of material production. The set of beliefs, values, attitudes, and ideas that constitutes the consciousness of this class forms an ideological superstructure, and this ideological superstructure is shaped and determined by the material infrastructure or economic base. Hence the term "historical materialism." Marxism assumes the ontological priority of matter over mind and sees mind as the product of historical forces. There is thus a dialectical relationship between the literary work and its sociohistorical background. Dialectical criticism focuses on the causal connections between the content or form of a literary work and the economic, class, social, or ideological factors that shape and determine that content or form. Bourgeois writers, for example, inevitably propagate a bourgeois ideology that seeks to universalize the status quo, to see it as natural rather than historical. The notion that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the class consciousness of the writer, the ideology of the work, and the sociohistorical background out of which it emerges is often labeled vulgar Marxism, even by Marxists themselves. Sophisticated Marxism, however, as Fredric Jameson points out, is concerned with "the influence of a given social raw material, not only on the content, but on the very form of the works themselves.... [The dialectical interaction of work and background], this fact of sheer interrelationship, is prior to any of the conceptual categories, such as causality, reflection, or analogy, subsequently evoked to explain it."

See also:

http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit/poetry/critical_define/crit_marx.html

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-35144

http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/ENGLISH/COURSES/60A/marxist.html

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/marxism/marxism04.html

catefrances

fuckin' marx. it always comes down to class doesn't it.
and here's me thinking i just write what i know.

EvilToasterElf

If you try hard enough, it turns out that everything actually comes down to everything...class, sex, gender, location, environment, how much caffiene you've had, history of mental illness, how much sex you've had, what you've read, what you haven't read, fear of clowns, fondness for clowns, if you sit down long enough...it's all there

catefrances

i don't like clowns.

Ms. Haiku

EvilToasterElf wrote:

If you try hard enough, it turns out that everything actually comes down to everything...class, sex, gender, location, environment, how much caffiene you've had, history of mental illness, how much sex you've had, what you've read, what you haven't read, fear of clowns, fondness for clowns, if you sit down long enough...it's all there

However, although poetry should be anchored in the here and now, the best, while grounded in those subjects mentioned in your post, last generations, and can be felt by all as particular to their experiences. That's why a haiku is my favorite poetry. A moment of importance a couple hundred years ago, can become just as important with the AHA! feeling wrapped around the heart and breath.

FinsburyParkCarrots

Ms. Haiku wrote:

However, although poetry should be anchored in the here and now, the best, while grounded in those subjects mentioned in your post, last generations, and can be felt by all as particular to their experiences.

I agree with this: Meaning is far from universal. A word carries innumerable associations for individual readers, and images can have never ending cultural resonances and symbolic nuances. No two readers see or hear a poem the same way.

Haiku is a potent poetic form. It carefully uses images to show rather than tell of a mood, an instant, an experience of change in the natural world that inspires individual or collective epiphany. It is a recording of what an expressionist poet would call a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, but it is very finely considered and constructed for the fullest effect.

However, one problem I have with haiku is that it can be a little too vague at times. That's just my personal taste though.

Ms. Haiku

FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:

I agree with this: Meaning is far from universal. A word carries innumerable associations for individual readers, and images can have never ending cultural resonances and symbolic nuances. No two readers see or hear a poem the same way.

Haiku is a potent poetic form. It carefully uses images to show rather than tell of a mood, an instant, an experience of change in the natural world that inspires individual or collective epiphany. It is a recording of what an expressionist poet would call a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, but it is very finely considered and constructed for the fullest effect.

However, one problem I have with haiku is that it can be a little too vague at times. That's just my personal taste though.

You know what, Fins, I don't think I ever read your views on haiku. Cool, good to know.

FinsburyParkCarrots

Oh, I like haiku. It's just difficult to master. It looks much easier than it is. And in pursuit of that essence of haiku, many western haiku poets produce work that's self consiously mystical and Orientalist. I'll tell you who was brilliant at haiku though: Brendan Behan. I'll tell you who else is good, because she uses the form to describe her everyday world: Ms Haiku.

FinsburyParkCarrots

*edit*

I mistyped the word consciously, er, rather unconsciously.

Ms. Haiku

FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:

Oh, I like haiku. It's just difficult to master. It looks much easier than it is. And in pursuit of that essence of haiku, many western haiku poets produce work that's self consiously mystical and Orientalist. I'll tell you who was brilliant at haiku though: Brendan Behan. I'll tell you who else is good, because she uses the form to describe her everyday world: Ms Haiku.

Thanks, Fins! When are we going to write a song with other posters, again, eh? You start.

Could you post some of Brendan Behan's haiku? I guess it wouldn't belong in a Charles Bukowski thread, though, eh?

likepilateihaveadog

Thanks Buk.