Entries tagged with poet/critic

Document 09: A Propos Frame

from Frame

Multicolored piles of gravel on black asphalt
behind rows of aluminum sheds.

We put frames around anything we wish.

In one version, wild dogs go for each other’s
throats (they assume the optimal to exist).

Unoccupied territory between opposing sides.

Matter of interest unfolds as a story.
Conflicts put on the table for debate.

Frame: 1971–1990, 260         

The parergon stands out [se détache] both from the ergon [the work] and from the milieu, it stands out first like a figure on a ground. But it does not stand out in the same way as the work. The latter also stands out against a ground. But the parergonal frame stands out against two grounds [fonds], but with respect to each of those two grounds, it merges [se fond] into the other. With respect to the work which can serve as a ground for it, it merges into the wall [on which the painting is hung], and then, gradually, into the general text. … More

“The Expanded Object of the Poetic Field; or, What Is a Poet/Critic?”

Keynote address, Poetry and Public Language, University of Plymouth, U.K., March 2007; in Poetry and Public Language, ed. Tony Lopez and Anthony Caleshu (Exeter, U.K.: Shearsman Press, 2007). Publicity flyer/ordering information here; the essay can be accessed in pdf here.

In March 2007, Lyn Hejinian and I were invited by U.K. poet Tony Lopez to lecture at a poetics conference at the University of Plymouth (see links above). My talk addressed transformations in the nature of the poem as object, and employed in terms of the relation of poet and critic, using a series of works from my own oeuvre. The claim that one could speak as both poet and critic proved to be controversial in England, where distinct roles must be perserved as, respectively, object-producing and value-conferring. … More