Contrasting understandings of poetic discourse and dialogue between poets

Enactivating Multiversal Community (Part #2)

---

[Parts: First | Prev | Next | Last | All | PDF] [Links: To-K | From-K | From-Kx | Refs ]

---

Extensive use is made of terms such as "poetic discourse", "poetic dialogue", "poetic debate", and the like -- with a degree of reference to "multivocal" and "polyvocal" (cf. David Smalling, The value of poetic discourse, Poetry Soup, 2011). It is therefore important to the development of the possibility of "multivocal community" to distinguish what tends to be currently intended by such phrases from forms of improvisational discourse between several parties using a poetic form.

This was previously addressed with respect to strategic possibilities (Poetic Engagement with Afghanistan, Caucasus and Iran: an unexplored strategic opportunity? 2009) in sections now presented separately as an annex to this document (Multivocal Poetic Discourse Emphasizing Improvisation: clarification of possibilities for the future, 2012). The "multivocal" dimension was explored in the light of their extensive understanding in patterns of song (Enabling a 12-fold Pattern of Systemic Dialogue for Governance, 2011).

The term "poetic discourse" is frequently used to refer to a process in which poets engage in some way. In order to develop the theme of this argument, it is however necessary to extend and emphasize the distinctions stressed in the previous paragraph regarding the contrasting ways of understanding this process.

Poetic writings as discourse: Poetry may be understood as discourse -- even dialogue -- in its own right (cf. Antony Easthope, Poetry as Discourse: new accents, 1983). It is readily inferred that the writing of poetry is a mode of discourse and interaction with others -- notably other poets. This clearly avoids any face-to-face interaction in the moment, as is suggested by the possibility which is the focus here. A valuable summary is offered by Sheung Wai Chan (Some Crucial Issues on the Translation of Poetic Discourse from Chinese to English, GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies, 3, 2003, 2).

It is appropriate to note that the preparation and publication of scientific papers may also be considered as a mode of "discourse", most notably within the scientific community. Scientific "debate" may well be associated with a succession of rounds of mutually critical paper publication -- possibly over years.

Poetic readings as discourse: The reading of pre-written poetry to an audience is a well-recognized pattern, readily to be understood as a form of discourse -- especially if the audience is then invited to comment or to question the author. A number of poets may present their works successively in such a context. It may be inferred that this constitutes a form of "dialogue" between poets and the worldviews they may respectively represent.

This approach figured most prominently as a poetry evening coordinated by Ram Devineni at the United Nations headquarters, and inspired by it in 200 cities elsewhere (Dialogue Among Civilizations Through Poetry, 2002) and was related to a focus of UNESCO (Dialogue Through Poetry and UNESCO's World Poetry Day, 2002). In 2003 readings were again being organized around the world with the theme of "Can poetry create a culture of peace and non-violence in the world?".

A related "Poetry on the Peaks" initiative was also organized (Evelina Rioukhina, International year of mountains, Poetry on the Peaks, 2002):

To increase the awareness, especially during the International Year of Mountains, poets, writers, other organisers, including politicians and other international activists, supported the idea to address humanity with poetic appeal and to transmit an important message to mankind from the Seven Summits of the seven continents and other significant 24 mountaintops. The idea was born within the "Dialogue through poetry" organisation, created during the United Nations Dialogue among Civilisations, and was highly welcomed during the literary conference in United Nations in New York, held last year. Professional mountain climbers working with Alpine Ascents International and International Mountain Guides are preparing the mountain ascent.

The approach is further described by Alia Lahlou (Dialogue Through Poetry, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs 2011) in relation to an event hosted by the Woodrow Wilson Center's Middle East Program.

Again it is appropriate to note that the presentation of scientific progress, most notably in the form of "papers", may take place through "lectures" -- also readily considered as a mode of "discourse", most notably within the scientific community. The audience may be invited to comment or question the author(s) -- or not. When successively presented by a panel of scientists, possibly commenting on points in the presentations of others, this may be particularly recognized as constituting the essence of dialogue or debate.

Conversation through poetry: Emphasis may be placed on a sense of "conversation" between poets and/or their works. A striking example is offered by that between Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser (Braided Creek: a conversation in poetry, 2003). The two friends and fellow poets decided to have a correspondence entirely in short poems of which some 300 were exchanged in a longstanding correspondence.

Another example is provided in a compilation by Kurt Brown and Harold Schechter (Conversation Pieces: Poems that talk to other poems -- Conversations through poetry, 2007) described as follows

To write a poem is to become part of a great conversation with one's literary predecessors, but the poems in this anthology are a special breed, their authors deliberately addressing a particular poem or poet of the past or present. They may be replies, reproofs, updatings, acts of sabotage or adulation; they may argue with, elaborate upon, poke fun at, or pay tribute to their originals. From Raleigh's famous answer to Marlowe's Passionate Shepherd, to Anthony Hecht's The Dover Bitch, from Ogden Nash sending up Byron to Mona Van Duyn giving us Leda's perspective on the swan or Annie Finch's Coy Mistress arguing her case with Marvell, these remarkable poems are not only engaging in themselves, but also capable of casting surprising new light on the poems which inspired them. This conversation of the greats includes Philip Larkin replying to Sir Philip Sidney, Ezra Pound to Edmund Waller, Randell Jarrell to W.H. Auden, Denise Levertov to Wordsworth, Galway Kinnell to Rilke, David Lehmann to Pound, C.K. Williams to Coleridge - and many more.

Poetic gatherings and communities as discourse: The dialogues between poets that ensues at the best poetry festivals around the world are rare occasions treasured by them -- offering a sense of their "community of discourse". As described in Poetry Communities and Movements:

For many centuries, poetry movements and communities have served as the most provocative, creative, vital, engaging, and oft-underground elements of regional and national literary trends. The simple joy of gathering for a single or group reading, listening to verse, hearing background stories, and discussing poesy has joined and empowered poets from ancient Athens to the streets of San Francisco. The assemblies launched social and political discourse while feeding creative explosions that, in nearly all cases, involved the arts and music as well.

The pattern is of course reflected in many conferences worldwide, of every kind of interest group, in which "networking" is highly valued as vital to the process of integrative discourse within that community. The sense of "community" is taken further when institutionalized, either in the form of a university or "think tank", or specially created environments ("incubators") enabling interaction between research, technology and business. Similarly a number of examples exist of the creation of intentional artistic communities to facilitate analogous cross-fertilization and mutual stimulus.

In the light of the classic study by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (Metaphors We Live By, 1980), common use of "think tank" invites reflection on the institutional metaphors which such communities "live by" (see discussion: Meta-challenges of the Future: for Networking through Think-tanks, 2005; Tank-thoughts from Think-tanks: constraining metaphors on developing global governance, 2003). This is especially relevant in the sense in which "they are their own metaphor", as remarked by Gregory Bateson (cited by Mary Catherine Bateson, Our Own Metaphor, 1972), thereby calling for a degree of self-reflexive discourse (Consciously Self-reflexive Global Initiatives: Renaissance zones, complex adaptive systems, and third order organizations, 2007).

In the case of "university", this is further suggested by fruitful implications in the contrast between "universe" and "multiverse" with respect to the nature and shape of the "conversation" thereby rendered possible (Transforming the Art of Conversation: conversing as the transformative science of development, 2012).

The contrasting "voices" gathered in such environments emphasize the challenge of the potentially "multivocal" organization of such discourse -- potentially transcending the perspective of Paul Feyerabend (Against Method: outline of an anarchistic theory of knowledge, 1975). It offers the further sense in which the "disciplines" -- whether of the sciences or the arts -- can themselves be considered as "voices", each effectively voicing a mode of knowing (cf. Reflections on Organization of Transdisciplinary Conferences: challenges for the future, 1994). As argued by Walter Pater:

For as art addresses not pure sense, still less the pure intellect, but the "imaginative reason" through the senses, there are differences of kind in aesthetic beauty, corresponding to the differences in kind of the gifts of sense themselves. Each art, therefore, having its own peculiar and untranslateable sensuous charm, has its own special mode of reaching the imagination, its own special responsibilities to its material. (The School of Giorgione, In: The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry, 1873).

---

[Parts: First | Prev | Next | Last | All | PDF] [Links: To-K | From-K | From-Kx | Refs ]