AI: Down to the nine count

You can already tell who's going to be a "star" (that is, a successful music arti$t) post-AI, and it's Adam Lambert, no matter what else happens the rest of the AI "season". Effortlessly brilliant. Paula is right.

The other, and I didn't realize it until last night, is Kris Allen. He's got it too, but still acts a bit "uncertain".

Some of the others are good-karaokes, but not star-to-bes.

The sound, shape, and "sign" of poetry

Is poetry meant to be heard, or seen?

Robert Pinsky's talk from the C-SPAN2 BookTv archive emphasizes The Sounds of Poetry.

That the art of poetry derives — primarily — from sound would indeed make sense when poetry's dissemination was primarily oral. With the printing press, poems began to be more widely read on the page, and today the visual appearance — it's shape, including the arrangement of words (even letters have shape: an 's' looks like a ssssnake, you know!) — of text on a printed (or now, electronic) page is a part of the art of poetry too. This becomes of primary emphasis in pattern (aka concrete) poetry.

So there is both "sound" (audible) and "shape" (visual) aspects of poetry. But just recently, I have been viewing the poetry of "sign".

This is "ASL poetry" (American Sign Language). Though I don't know ASL, one can get a sense of it by knowing the poem^* it's signing. What this proves, I think, is that ASL poetry is an art — a medium for poetry — that can be appreciated by poetry lovers whether they are hearing-impaired or not. It stands on its own.

So here are the sound, shape^** , and sign (language) of poetry. All good. All art. Does this say something, waxing philosophic, about what poetry is, that goes beyond these mediums?


____________________
^* The Road Not Taken Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.


^** For the seeing-impaired, there is poetry in braille. So here, the "shape" is tactile instead of visual.

That which they can do

That which they can do
not themselves,
they teach others to do
for themselves.

They make dough not through
their would-be art,
but instead by selling you
a course in art.

You pay them a nice and hefty fee
with the great hope
that you may be
the next great hope.

But, after that, if you fail,
there is a place you can fall back:
To be a seller with web and email
a course in art to the artlorn hack.



____________
Note: art includes writing of all kinds, of course

American Idol update (C'mon, you know you want to know.)

The two truly "must-see" singers in this season's AI are ...

Allison Iraheta ("Papa Was a Rolling Stone")
[ youtube.com/watch?v=v959pZBSPGc ]
(The sixteen y.o. prodigy, she could channel a "Janis Joplin".)

Adam Lambert ("Tracks Of My Tears")
[ youtube.com/watch?v=iB_fUEe5Eh0 ]
(Always brilliant. What can't he do and make it his own song?
 Also watch:
     "I Make You Crazy" Art 4 Life Benefit 2008
     [ youtube.com/watch?v=EBlmcak7cuA ]
     "Crawl Thru Fire" The Zodiac Show 2009
     [ youtube.com/watch?v=wXvSA6QL7Ac ])

Because of these two, and especially Adam Lambert, it's the best AI in years. Ever, actually.

The first thing we do, let's kill all the poets

“We are, at all events, aware that such poetry mustn't be taken seriously as a serious thing laying hold of truth, but that the man who hears it must be careful, fearing for the regime in himself, and must hold what we have said about poetry.” — Republic, Plato.

from Plato on Rhetoric and Poetry
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy



Buried in the Wall: When Poetry, Philosophy, and Faith Converge
Alan Birkelbach (Texas Poet Laureate 2005)
Dallas Philosophers' Forum, March 24, 2009 (presented @ Two Guys From Italy)

Poetry and Philosophy are viewed as opposites, that is, Poetry is generally considered an emotionally-centered discipline and Philosophy an academic-driven one. And Faith tends to keep feet firmly planted on both sides. But what are the questions that arise when all three converge? Does poetry become a philosophical tool? Can poetry become inseparable from faith? Can poetry become worth dying for? Can fervor and passion co-exist with rational thought? These, and other questions, will be examined in this high-level overview of the issues that arise when the lines between faith, philosophy, and poetry blur.

This was the first time I've attended a talk/reading by a poet laureate. I've seen U.S. poet laureates Robert Pinsky (in an extensive lecture) and Billy Collins, of course, in C-SPAN2 BookTv broadcast and video.

It was a very nice talk (by a poet whose poems I would like to read more of^*) with several examples of poetry (including Chinese and Middle Eastern). I was getting the idea, getting to the subject of the talk, that the thrust of the talk was that poetry, somehow, was some sort of reconciliation of philosophy and faith — a "restoration" of faith in the otherwise faith-barren halls of philosophy. Or something like that.

I have, I think, something of a contrary view. I see philosophy (viewed historically) as a battle between idealism and materialism — between Platonism and anti-Platonism — and poets definitely being in the "anti-Platonism" camp. (Plato hated poets — for good reason! Alan Birkelbach, responding to my question "Which camp are poets in?" at the end of the talk, thought they live in both camps. But I don't know.) This battle between rhetoric (Platonism) and poetry lives on today in philosophy in the "conflict" between "the analytics" and "the postmodernists". I see, even when they are writing about God and that sort of stuff, poets as being the "bad boy" — not to be trusted — closet postmodern materialists, whether in the past or now.

The other thing Alan Birkelbach talked about was the "love" poets have always had for alcoholic indulgence (though his muse thrived on coffee). Ironically, his talk was presented under the restaurant's ceiling adorned with dozens of hanging straw-covered wine bottles.

And I learned this: In Texas, the stipend the legislature pays for the position of Texas Poet Laureate is $0. I suppose they consider that poetic justice.

__________________
^* from Texas Poetry Calendar 2008

"Early in the Morning, on the Road, near Franklin, Texas"
By Alan Birkelbach

Her skirt clings to her the way fog clings to a flower.
Her legs are curled up, her sleeping face soft like a saint.
Driving for hours a man thinks about how things are measured,
about how coffee always tastes better in small towns.

Her legs are curled up, her sleeping face soft like a saint.
St. Augustine said the eye is attracted to beautiful objects.
Coffee always tastes better in small towns;
the treasures of the destination make us take the trip.

St. Augustine said the eye is attracted to beautiful objects.
The full moon makes her skin glow like a statue.
The treasures en route make us take the trip.
I start out thinking in terms of miles and hours

but the full moon makes her skin translucent like a statue.
Her breathing is as fragrant and sure as moonflowers
and I stop thinking in terms of miles and hours.
She’ll wake up in a little while and touch me with her bare toe.

But for now, her breathing is as fragrant as moonflowers.
Driving for hours a man thinks about what makes things holy.
She’ll wake up in a little while and bless me with her bare toe,
her skirt clinging to her the way fog caresses a flower.