American Artlessness
- Thread starter sus
- Start date
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
'One comes across passages, even in very fine English poets, which makes one think: "Yes, very effective, but does he believe what he is saying?": in American poetry such passages are extremely rare.'
- W.H. Auden
- W.H. Auden
version
Well-known member
The "self-conscious American voice" that came up when @sus posted a line from Bellow a while back can grate. The lumbering, earnest self-mythologising. I struggled with Algren because of this. Everything was written in what felt like a caricature of an American voice, like one of those Looney Tunes episodes where Daffy Duck's a hardboiled detective.
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
Why I Am Not a Painter
I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,
for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
“Sit down and have a drink” he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. “You have SARDINES in it.”
“Yes, it needed something there.”
“Oh.” I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. “Where’s SARDINES?”
All that’s left is just
letters, “It was too much,” Mike says.
But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven’t mentioned
orange yet. It’s twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike’s painting, called SARDINES.
- Frank O’Hara
I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,
for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
“Sit down and have a drink” he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. “You have SARDINES in it.”
“Yes, it needed something there.”
“Oh.” I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. “Where’s SARDINES?”
All that’s left is just
letters, “It was too much,” Mike says.
But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven’t mentioned
orange yet. It’s twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike’s painting, called SARDINES.
- Frank O’Hara
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
Thats why i said im incoherent in my opinions about american poetry cos i like o hará for some reason but it is totally ridiculous
version
Well-known member
Pynchon's use of 'sez'.
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
I haven't read enough of wcw to have formed an opinion on it, bit i've liked some things i've read. Not the plums and the wheelbarrow though.
Apparently he really hated ts eliot for being a traitor and going off to england and becoming a proper englishman
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
The "gee whizz, oh boy, hyuk hyuk" stuff is definitely the worst aspect of Pynchon.
version
Well-known member
David Foster Wallace inherited some of it from him too. Goofy American informality.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Used by extremely erudite men to ironically point out how much they don't care about their own erudition (before launching into a disquisition on the parallels between Greek tragedy and volume integrals or somesuch).
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
luka
Well-known member
The stars burned with a terrible outlay of energy. Read-outs suggest there is only a 23% probability that it was the original musk you were talking to
But that means
Yes in all likliehood
The quantum field is spongiform in stellar quadrant 6 for the rock-drill to bore through there
It's a hot knife through butter
Precisely
We wont even catch their vapour trail
But that means
Yes in all likliehood
The quantum field is spongiform in stellar quadrant 6 for the rock-drill to bore through there
It's a hot knife through butter
Precisely
We wont even catch their vapour trail