I don't think photos tell the truth. They're art, which is arbitrary from truth. If photography was truth it wouldn't be art. I don't think we can ever know what truth is. It's something outside language and all we have to apprehend a truth is language, which isn't truth.
Having said that, truth in art is its ability to say the unsayable, and ambiguity helps as do that.
How is it horseshit? A photograph is a signifier of a reality. A photograph might signify a dog, but it is not the signified dog. A novel might signify reality but it is not the signified reality itself. And what's that signified anyway but another concept, another construction of reality rather than reality itself.
What's the essence of reality in a photo? Maybe its print-ness and its paper-ness, but not the image it depicts.
Here's something what explains the basics of semiotics, touches on photography and talks about common misinterpretations of signifiers as the thing they signify:
i understand what you mean. i really do.
i think we're just talking 'bout different kinds of truth
yours, the big "T" kind... that the photo of the dog is not the dog
mine, the little "t" truth... the photo of the dog is a photo of the dog
what it "is", rather than what it "isn't"
what i'm thinking in all of this, is... that sometimes I prefer to read poetry about little truths. even if they're fictitious little truths. sometimes, trying to attain a universal truth via ambiguity would be better gotten to albiet circuitously, in specifics, and perhaps even more beautiful in the end.
yes, i think that's what i'm going for. when i listen to the Writer's Almanac, the poems read always seem so much about the mundane. the little truths. and what's striking about those kinds of poetry is how much big truth is available in them. an unintended ambiguity, if you will. but come upon through interpretation. like lyrics. like art.
your poem above is about Blair, but it could be about any self-important politician.... Hussien, Bush.... all of 'em, really. What would've happened if you had made it clear you were talking about Blair? That's what I'm wondering.
oh, and i daresay. i see a progression from those linguistic studies concerning intent v. interpretation to these... those discussions we had last year.
now we see it's both, rather than one or the other... cool
i understand what you mean. i really do.
i think we're just talking 'bout different kinds of truth
yours, the big "T" kind... that the photo of the dog is not the dog
mine, the little "t" truth... the photo of the dog is a photo of the dog
what it "is", rather than what it "isn't"
what i'm thinking in all of this, is... that sometimes I prefer to read poetry about little truths. even if they're fictitious little truths. sometimes, trying to attain a universal truth via ambiguity would be better gotten to albiet circuitously, in specifics, and perhaps even more beautiful in the end.
yes, i think that's what i'm going for. when i listen to the Writer's Almanac, the poems read always seem so much about the mundane. the little truths. and what's striking about those kinds of poetry is how much big truth is available in them. an unintended ambiguity, if you will. but come upon through interpretation. like lyrics. like art.
your poem above is about Blair, but it could be about any self-important politician.... Hussien, Bush.... all of 'em, really. What would've happened if you had made it clear you were talking about Blair? That's what I'm wondering.
I think I might have created less of a poem and more a piece of ephemeral polemic. I believe in TS Eliot's statement "Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood", and while I'm a bad poet I still feel that some of the magical quality of poetry is to produce something bright and diaphanous enough to shine for all readers of places and ages, on a conscious or unconscious level.
There is no such thing as leftover pizza. There is now pizza and later pizza. - anonymous The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
i kinda feel like this is "let him who hath knowledge know the number of the beast is 6 6 6", you know? cryptic and afraid of getting busted.
Well, Stephen Spender wrote a lot of Marxist poetry in the 1930s and he aimed at overt political poetry, but it sometimes reads often like propaganda of the time. WH Auden on the other hand wrote urgent poetry warning Little Britain from its island complacency as European fascism reared its ugly head. But Auden used tropes, metaphors and some quite classical forms or conceits to get his point across in a way that elevates his work above mere historical interest. He's much less dense and convoluted than a symbolist such as Yeats, but there's enough "art" in his work to distance it from simple rhetoric.
Ithink sometimes writers have made greater sacrifices not by defending an overt political stance but by defending their art and artfulness.
is that what you're doing here?
choosing artfulness over heartfeltness?
or is the artfull heartfelt, in and of itself and the reason you wrote to be artful, rather than to convey a given truth?
is that what you're doing here?
choosing artfulness over heartfeltness?
or is the artfull heartfelt, in and of itself and the reason you wrote to be artful, rather than to convey a given truth?
or is it some mixture of the both, as well?
I think people write in experimental forms often to challenge given truths, and to interrogate received ways of seeing. I think there's plenty of heart in that breaking down of realist discourse and in the use of poetic effects that, in their rhythm, cadence, assonance and use of non-realist ambiguity breakdown the strictures of perception and run dream visions into political observation. In fact I'd say there was more heart involved in abstracting discourse.
Now I'll get on with my work too. And I don't want to see this thread on the first page of this forum when I return. I want to see lots of poetry from everyone else.
Comments
Having said that, truth in art is its ability to say the unsayable, and ambiguity helps as do that.
no offense intended, i promise
silverbells & cockleshells
Rachel
and yes ambiguity is sometimes good
today, it's unnerving
cya
What's the essence of reality in a photo? Maybe its print-ness and its paper-ness, but not the image it depicts.
http://www.criticism.com/md/the_sign.html
i think we're just talking 'bout different kinds of truth
yours, the big "T" kind... that the photo of the dog is not the dog
mine, the little "t" truth... the photo of the dog is a photo of the dog
what it "is", rather than what it "isn't"
what i'm thinking in all of this, is... that sometimes I prefer to read poetry about little truths. even if they're fictitious little truths. sometimes, trying to attain a universal truth via ambiguity would be better gotten to albiet circuitously, in specifics, and perhaps even more beautiful in the end.
yes, i think that's what i'm going for. when i listen to the Writer's Almanac, the poems read always seem so much about the mundane. the little truths. and what's striking about those kinds of poetry is how much big truth is available in them. an unintended ambiguity, if you will. but come upon through interpretation. like lyrics. like art.
your poem above is about Blair, but it could be about any self-important politician.... Hussien, Bush.... all of 'em, really. What would've happened if you had made it clear you were talking about Blair? That's what I'm wondering.
now we see it's both, rather than one or the other... cool
I think I might have created less of a poem and more a piece of ephemeral polemic. I believe in TS Eliot's statement "Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood", and while I'm a bad poet I still feel that some of the magical quality of poetry is to produce something bright and diaphanous enough to shine for all readers of places and ages, on a conscious or unconscious level.
avoiding poelmics while being "clear" (not diaphanously clear, mind you, just "plain")?
opaque v. transparent?
like poems about love and sex and kids in the sprinklers, and all things "good"?
is there any way to get to this subject this way?
i kinda feel like this is "let him who hath knowledge know the number of the beast is 6 6 6", you know? cryptic and afraid of getting busted.
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
don't think that
you write well, fins
Well, Stephen Spender wrote a lot of Marxist poetry in the 1930s and he aimed at overt political poetry, but it sometimes reads often like propaganda of the time. WH Auden on the other hand wrote urgent poetry warning Little Britain from its island complacency as European fascism reared its ugly head. But Auden used tropes, metaphors and some quite classical forms or conceits to get his point across in a way that elevates his work above mere historical interest. He's much less dense and convoluted than a symbolist such as Yeats, but there's enough "art" in his work to distance it from simple rhetoric.
Ithink sometimes writers have made greater sacrifices not by defending an overt political stance but by defending their art and artfulness.
Fore example, click here.
choosing artfulness over heartfeltness?
or is the artfull heartfelt, in and of itself and the reason you wrote to be artful, rather than to convey a given truth?
or is it some mixture of the both, as well?
watch that grammar duck out the backdoor of pasta's head, too
ain't it grand?
nice thought fodder, here
but now, i gots to get to werk
Rachel
I think people write in experimental forms often to challenge given truths, and to interrogate received ways of seeing. I think there's plenty of heart in that breaking down of realist discourse and in the use of poetic effects that, in their rhythm, cadence, assonance and use of non-realist ambiguity breakdown the strictures of perception and run dream visions into political observation. In fact I'd say there was more heart involved in abstracting discourse.
(and yes, sometimes there is more heart in the abstract. sometimes not.)
you be the linguist
i'll be linguini
ciao