Comments on: Payday Poetry: The plan and LDS poets in the New Era http://www.motleyvision.org/2009/payday-poetry-the-plan/ Mormon Arts and Culture Thu, 09 Feb 2012 05:30:14 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Tyler Chadwick http://www.motleyvision.org/2009/payday-poetry-the-plan/comment-page-1/#comment-37996 Tyler Chadwick Fri, 25 Sep 2009 22:53:49 +0000 http://www.motleyvision.org/?p=2877#comment-37996 Though I find Clinton Larson's poetry largely inaccessible (and that's kept me from going back for more, though I should probably try a bit harder), the first thing that strikes me here is his answer to the question, "What are you trying to achieve with your poetry?": "I am trying to achieve valid and beautiful excursions into experience. A poet not only has the obligation to express himself, but to think and feel himself into another person’s position. A poet should never stop making excursions into experience." A few words/ideas stick out to me: 1) <i>Valid</i> because it points to poetry (as compressed language) being grounded in and justified by the varieties of human experience. 2) <i>Beautiful</i> because to be enjoyed literary excursions into experience should be beautiful and affective. This is especially true, I think, of poetry. 3) <i>A poet has the obligation to think and feel him/herself into another person's position.</i> Sounds very Keatsian, very <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_capability" rel="nofollow">negative capability-ish</a> in that Larson suggests that the poet should be open-minded about the varieties of life and experience, that they shouldn't be averse to delving into the multiplicity of other people's perceptions. This negative capability further suggests that the poet shouldn't try to resolve the "uncertainties, mysteries, and doubts" arising from such engagement with the Other but that, instead, they should expand the ability to hold within their minds, language, and experience the ambiguities inherent in human reality to the end of developing into a deeper understanding of existence. At least that's how I read it right now. Though I find Clinton Larson’s poetry largely inaccessible (and that’s kept me from going back for more, though I should probably try a bit harder), the first thing that strikes me here is his answer to the question, “What are you trying to achieve with your poetry?”: “I am trying to achieve valid and beautiful excursions into experience. A poet not only has the obligation to express himself, but to think and feel himself into another person’s position. A poet should never stop making excursions into experience.”

A few words/ideas stick out to me:

1) Valid because it points to poetry (as compressed language) being grounded in and justified by the varieties of human experience.

2) Beautiful because to be enjoyed literary excursions into experience should be beautiful and affective. This is especially true, I think, of poetry.

3) A poet has the obligation to think and feel him/herself into another person’s position. Sounds very Keatsian, very negative capability-ish in that Larson suggests that the poet should be open-minded about the varieties of life and experience, that they shouldn’t be averse to delving into the multiplicity of other people’s perceptions. This negative capability further suggests that the poet shouldn’t try to resolve the “uncertainties, mysteries, and doubts” arising from such engagement with the Other but that, instead, they should expand the ability to hold within their minds, language, and experience the ambiguities inherent in human reality to the end of developing into a deeper understanding of existence.

At least that’s how I read it right now.

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