Have been reading the Ron Padgett book, and was struck by a line:
"I am immured inside the world of whistling"(22) Which brought to mind what Kate Pringle has been researching about sound and sound having mass. There are heavy sounds and light sounds, and the idea of conceptualizing a sound as opaque and solid is very intriguing to me. It demands the break down of how we have heretofore conceived of the world around us, of mass and physics and so on.
For me it seems that poetry always comes down to how it blows the world apart or throws our way of thinking into question.
Another interesting thing about Padgett is his use of myth and fairy tale. In Fixation, he writes of a crucifixion scene, in J & J he retells the story of Jack and Jill, focusing on the trauma of their fall down the hill. In both stories, the trauma is lessened in some way, perhaps because they all live through them.
There is some redemptive quality in the writing--that is, the writing seems to redeem the trauma. Jack and Jill fall safely into a haystack placed there by "the great artist"(10). In "Fixation", it seems that the person being crucified overcomes the pain through noticing the pastoral beauty of the world. In both cases, it seems that the poet redeems the trauma in some way.
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In some ways, I agree with the idea of poetry as redeeming trauma. The playfulness of Padgett's words seem somehow to normalize the trauma or make it an opportunity for people to realize new things about the world.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, though, there seems to be something surreal about Padgett's writing that I found vaguely sinister. I wonder if in "Fixation", for example, there is a minimalization of the pain, a sort of horrible understatement in the line "It's not that hard...".
But I suppose one way to deal with trauma is by making it appear small so that it can actually have larger resonance beyond the confines of the poem.