On Monday, September 7, 2015, Dan Glover <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi Arlo, > > I find this fascinating as well. I tend to read lots of poetry in > hopes some of it might in some small way rub off on my own writings. > Lately I've fallen in love with Nikki Giovanni. Reading through the > questions below I think her poetry is representational of art as a way > of life as well as relevant to the social/economic/environmental > justice movement. Check this out: > > When I die I hope no one who ever hurt me cries > > and if they cry I hope their eyes fall out > > and a million maggots that had made up their brains > > crawl from the empty holes and devour the flesh > > that covered the evil that passed itself off as a person > > that I probably tried > > to love. > > Nikki Giovanni > > One can almost imagine her standing in front of a group of people > reciting this poem... the way she might more fully enunciate certain > words to accentuate the (perhaps hidden) meaning they hold. She seems > to write both from her own heart as well as speaking to anyone who has > ever been hurt by someone they loved. > > Avant-garde? Eh. Probably not. Nikki is an old black woman who speaks > of her life in the world in simple and yet profound ways that me as a > white man finds difficult to imagine. She's not putting on airs for > anyone. She simply speaks a sort of spiritual and aesthetic truth. > > I am no expert on poetry. Far from it. But I seem to know enough to > tell good poetry from bad. Or is it that a piece of writing like the > poem above just grabs me a certain way? I'm not sure. Honestly, I > don't even recall how or where I heard of Nikki Giovanni. She's not > exactly a household name. But I like her work. > > Anyway... > > Dan > > On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 7:40 AM, ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR <[email protected] > <javascript:;>> wrote: > > Hi All, > > > > A call for abstracts under the category "Poetry as Practice, Practice as > Poetry" came through the Foucault mailing list for the American Comparative > Literature Association's Annual Meeting, 17-20 March, 2016, Harvard > University. I did find the premise of this endeavor very interesting, and > am forwarding on the general description and reasoning behind this. > > > > Arlo > > > > ----- Forwarded Message ----- > > From: "ROBERT.FARRELL" <[email protected] <javascript:;>> > > To: [email protected] <javascript:;> > > Sent: Wednesday, September 2, 2015 9:17:38 AM > > Subject: [Foucault-L] CFP: ACLA 2016: "Poetry as Practice, > Practice as Poetry" > > > > > > "Poetry as Practice, Practice as Poetry" > > > > The philosopher Pierre Hadot worked throughout his career to locate > poetry, particularly Goethe’s, within forms of “spiritual exercise” > grounded in western philosophical and religious traditions. For Hadot, > spiritual exercises (or practices) are forms of thinking, meditation, or > dialogue that “have as their goal the transformation of our vision of the > world and the metamorphosis of our being.” While Hadot’s thought on > spiritual practice found its widest audience through Foucault’s work on > “care of the self,” it has recently resurfaced in Gabriel Trop’s Poetry as > a Way of Life (2015), whose title echoes that of the 1995 English > translation of Hadot’s Philosophy as a Way of Life (quoted above). Drawing > on Hadot and Foucault, Trop argues that the reading and writing of poetry > can be understood as “aesthetic exercise,” a form of practice involving > "sensually oriented activity in the world attempts to form, influence, > perturb or otherwise generate patterns of thought, perception, or action.” > Though Trop is careful to distinguish his ideas from Hadot and Foucault, we > might argue that poetry allows the aesthetic or spiritual practitioner to > “struggl[e] against the ‘government of individualization’” (Foucault, 1982) > and to enact “a way of being, a way of coping within, reacting to, and > acting upon the world” (Trop, 2015). > > > > Our seminar takes as its starting point a broad conception of > “practice,” both spiritual and aesthetic. We seek proposals that consider > poetries and ways of reading as forms of practice or that challenge the > premise altogether. Some questions that might be considered: > > > > • Trop suggests that religious poetries (e.g., Greek tragedy, the Divina > Commedia) are conducive to “aesthetic exercise.” In what ways do poets and > readers within religious/meditative traditions enact disciplines/practices > of the self? > > • Poets associated with avant-garde movements often make strong claims > about the urgency of their poetics. In what ways can “poetry as practice” > help us understand their reading and writing practices? Can non- or even > anti-avant-garde poetries be understood in similar terms? > > • How might the notion of poetry as a “way of life” help us understand > contemporary lyric poetry? > > • Trop argues that late 18th century German poets, including Novalis and > Holderlin, used their poetic practice to constitute themselves as > non-normative subjects. What other times/places/poets might we see as > concerned with poetry as a form of self-constitution? > > • George Oppen suggests that “part of the function of poetry is to serve > as a test of truth.” In what ways can Oppen’s poetics, or those of > similarly engaged poets, be understood as enabling spiritual or aesthetic > exercise? > > • How might the concept of spiritual/aesthetic practice contribute to > current debates about the relevance of poetry to the > social/economic/environmental justice movements? > > > > Moq_Discuss mailing list > > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > > Archives: > > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > > http://moq.org/md/archives.html > > The salient difference between poetry and other 'art forms', vis a vis > Quality Metaphyics, is that poetry arises from society/intellect, whereas > other forms precede it. ( Didn't read all the preceedings yet, but noted > reference to some German poets. See 'Paul Celan' for re-creation / > revolution of Mankind through language ). > A cat can react sensibly to visual, auditory or tactile phonomona, produced by 'material' arts, but must fail with poetry. . R.W. > -- > http://www.danglover.com > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html > -- * Montana Free ® . * Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
