Thinking in Images

"Poetry is a special way of thinking, it is, precisely, a way of thinking in images, a way which permits what is generally called ‘economy of mental effort,’ a way which makes for a ‘sensation of the relative ease of the process.’ Aesthetic feeling is a reaction to this economy."(Shklovsky, Victor, 1917, (translated by Lemon, L.T. & Rees, M.J. "Art as Technique")

Paring down Poetry

Can you pare down poetry too much? George Szirtes taught me that cutting some of the superfluous words from my poems made them stronger and I can see that he was right. After the initial shock in my first year at uni of seeing my poetry with words, lines and even stanzas crossed out I was able to see that my poetry was evolving and growing. It is stronger, clearer, more direct, it speaks in its own voice without getting bogged down in ands and buts and explanatory lines.

Minimalist poetry is the kind of poetry that I prefer to read myself - poets like Lorca and Neruda. Poetry that appears simple yet the beauty of the language can bring tears to your eyes and make your heart sing. What I find myself wondering though is whether poetry can become too refined? Does the constant paring down mean that you might lose some essence of the original poem? Will I keep obsessively paring down my words until each line is but a single word? Will my poem eventually be simply a blank page?

There is without a doubt great beauty in silence, but in the silence of choice not that of procrastination.

Opposition in Art and Poetry

"In dialectical terms we claim that there is a continual state of opposition and interaction between the world of objective fact - the sensational and social world of active and economic existence - and the world of subjective fantasy. This opposition creates a state of disquietetude, a lack of spiritual equilibrium, which it is the business of the artist to resolve. he resolves the contradictions by creating a sythesis, a work of art which combines elements from both these worlds, eliminates others, but which for the moment gives us a qualitatively new experience."
(Read, H. in Germain, E.B. Surrealist Poetry in English, 1978)

Thoughts on visual ideas

I am finding it difficult to know where to go next with my visual project. I am drawn to the idea of fragments and fragmented texts - but I am also interested in the poetical nature of everyday language. Last week I found the page of an old recipe book on the street and was immediately struck by the poetic nature of some of the writing. I like the idea of somehow marrying fragments with the poetic elements of everyday text - for example recipes, news stories etc - but as yet I am unsur how to do this. One idea was to make some kind of collage.

I am also continuing to develop my idea of using dymo to add text to existing things. My favourite is still the one that i put on the graffiti-ed power cupboard. Not only is is the most aesthetically pleasing but I also feel it has more levels of meaning. The dymo letters are placed in response to the graffiti that someone else has placed there (probably in response to the cupboard itself). So the viewer is viewing a response to a response - taking a photograph changes the nature of the work again and makes it into something else.

The Self and its obsessions

"Marcel Duchamp and John Cage use chance operation to get rid of the subjectivity of the artist. For Cornell it's the opposite. To submit to chance is to reveal the self and its obsessions. In that sense Cornell is not a dadaist or a surrealist. He believes in charms and good luck."
(Simic, C. Dime Store Alchemy - The Art of Jospeh Cornell. New York: New York Review Books, 1992, p.61)

More about Reality

Reading back through my previous posts on this blog I realise that I have only recently come to view poems as fiction. It seems that I used to assume that a confessional style poem was a representation of reality - or was it that I viewed it as such whilst I was reading it. Rather like the way I like to get immersed in a good film - while I am watching it I can become totally absorbed, for the time the film is on (especially in the cinema) the film is all that exists - it is my reality. This form of escapism can be equally applied to poems - I know in my logical mind that they are probably at least partially, if not fully fictitious but I believe in them totally while I am reading them.

A Trap for Dreamers

"A toy is a trap for dreamers. The true toy is a poetic object."
(Charles Simic, Dime-Store Alchemy - The Art of Joseph Cornell)