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Post by nacrevoit on Dec 11, 2008 21:23:14 GMT -5
So I just read Anne Carson's book Glass, Irony, and God. My first impression is that "The Glass Essay" was the best thing in the book. The poems about "God" mystified and, I have to admit, disturbed me. I don't know if any of you have read it, but if you have, any ideas on what Carson is doing with the name of "God" in her poems and if it's legitimate ( I don't see any way to call it Christian, but she's not claiming to be a Christian poet anyway)? I'm half-afraid that her "God" poems may not be worthy of discussion at all, but here is a secular poet who finds herself in need, for whatever reason, of religious tropes (though I can't help being deeply suspicious of the way she's using them).
I was, I suppose, disappointed in these poems, on the whole. Men in the Off Hours looks more promising, but we shall see.
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Post by nacrevoit on Dec 12, 2008 13:44:29 GMT -5
A few more thoughts. I'm working with a premise that assumes "all's fair in art" (as in love and war). But while everything may be permitted, not everything is beneficial (in love and war as in art). I'm not trying to judge Carson morally or spiritually by her poetry. I am trying to judge her poetry. Do her God poems succeed as art? If not, why?
I don't think they generally succeed, although I could make an argument for some of the specific poems. I think she is evoking the power and aura of the word "God" without signifying what is generally signified by "God." But in that case, the word loses its power.
Perhaps robbing the word of power is part of the point. But if you have to change the meaning of the word to rob it of power, what have you accomplished? In your poem, it has lost the meaning it has outside your poem. But outside your poem, it hasn't been affected.
Her intentions are very obscure. And not knowing her project, it's hard to say whether she succeeds or fails in it. I will hazard to say though that the God poems, as a group, fail as poetry. Because they are using a word without respect for its full meaning. It seems that poetic speaking must take into account the full meaning and being of a word rather than limit its meaning artifically.
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Post by nacrevoit on Dec 12, 2008 14:09:01 GMT -5
Here is one of the God poems, one that I like.
God's Bouquet of Undying Love
April snow. God is waiting in the garden. Slow as a blush,
snow shifts and settles on God. On God's bouquet. The trees are white nerve nets.
What I love especially is the metaphor comparing the shift of snow to a blush, a movement as soft, fluid, and quiet, but also as stirring. The implied contrast of white and red.
What is it saying about God/the idea of God though? Maybe these poems are more about the idea of God than about God. Sometimes they seem to be the opposite of a theocidy. Sometimes they seem to be a theocidy or a take (possibly ironic) on theocidy ("God's Justice" on the facing page from this poem). Sometimes they seem to be a sharp challenge. A challenge to God or to religion? To God or to the idea of God in human minds?
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Post by bedefan on Dec 26, 2008 15:14:32 GMT -5
Hm, can't say I've read the God poems. I'll have to check them out. But Anne Carson's one of my favorite poets. What did you think of the Lazarus poems in Men in the Off Hours? Have you got to them yet? Or about her use of the quotations from Augustine (where is it, in her "translations" of Catullus?)? It's been a year since I've read the book, but it's probably one of my ten favorite books in contemporary poetry.
I think one way (please don't think I mean the only or best way) Carson's writing and its frequent return to God can be understood is in terms of recent trends in postmodern literary theory, especially in the later work of Jacques Derrida. Despite Derrida's famous(ly ironic) skepticism about reality itself, he took questions of faith very, very seriously. In many ways Derrida's theory of signification (in a nutshell: that every reference only refers to another reference, i.e. that there is no way satisfactorily to signify an ideal referent from which any or all reference directly flows) is similar to negative theology. Both share a profound sense that "God" does not quite name God.
So while I haven't read the Carson poems you're talking about in particular, I suspect some of her playfulness about inserting the word "God" into atypical verbal situations comes from, or maybe is oriented toward, ideas about signification/language and its relationship (or lack of one) to some perceivable reality. God being ultimate reality, perfect being. Putting a word as impossible to grasp as "God" in a very concrete metaphor (snow falling on his bouquet--but what is his bouquet?) causes the usual signification of the word "God" to slip. In the space opened by the slip (the slip is the nonsense of saying God has a bouquet that snow falls on) the possibility of knowledge is undercut and instead there is a possibility of belief. That'd be a very postmodern/Derridian way to read the poem. But it leaves aside the question, is Anne Carson trying to open a path to belief? Hm, maybe not, though I wouldn't be surprised if she were, in the limited postmodern sorta way.
I'd be very interested to hear more impressions of Carson. Would give me an excuse to look at her poetry again.
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