- We might think about the kinds of poetry that are represented in these sections, including persona (Lopes, 4), "personal" narrative (Casado, 23), something that seems like Imagism ("Cardiogram," 22), theory-influenced poetry ("[the panopticon]," 12), allegory ("The Tale of the Hedgehog," 10), complaints about the uselessness of poetry/language (Wolfe, 18), and plenty of poems that seem more linguistically "traditional," in that they are based on language (nouns, esp.) that seems timeless (Branco 3, Mendonca 5, Montero 13, Pino 14, Wolfe 18, Rangel 19), although some have contemporary images too. Many of these poems also seem traditionally lyrical, in the sense that they are the overheard thoughts of an individual "I". Also, they don't seem to be using much of what we in the U.S. associate with the avant-garde: repetition, agrammatical syntax, parataxis, etc (although in some cases it's admittedly hard to tell). Why is that, do we think? What is it about Portuguese and Spanish poetry that calls for a more traditional lyric?
- The lack of typically "avant" aesthetics seems somewhat surprising here. These aesthetics have, we believe, existed on the peninsula before, certainly in Spain, and we wonder how much this "lack" has to do with the editors of our anthology, and how much it has to do with any kind of trend or direction dominating in Spain and Portugal today.
- We'd also be extremely interested to hear what anyone has to say about pp. 6-7 in our anthology. Mendonca's and Cabral's poems seem to distinguish themselves only very subtly from each other, and yet we think this distinction might do well to illustrate a certain dichotomy we sense within the lyric vein they share, namely that between a kind of vitalism (Mendonca) and intellectualism (Cabral).
- If there are any, what are the relationships between geographic and political situations, and poetic language? Does poetry "naturally" change because of the location in which, and circumstances from which, it's written?
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Team Iberia's Discussion Questions and/or Points to Ponder
First off, I'd like to request that if you read, skim, or skead the next two posts, you start with Portugal instead of Spain, so that the "Continued" in Spain's post title makes sense. My apologies to the other members of Team Iberia, -M.
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The lack of avant aesthetics could be due to any of the factors you guys named, I guess. Just reading through the contents of this anthology illuminated my ignorance about the aesthetics of most of these countries, let alone individual writers. I found I had the shallow, ugly American tendency to think of a country in terms of the only poet, or most famous poet I knew of.
ReplyDelete"Does poetry 'naturally' change because of the location in which, and circumstances from which, it's written?" That's a cool question to ask right at the beginning of our reading an entire anthology of EuroPoetry(TM). Over time I guess it must, necessarily, if only because poets of a later generation often will be cognizant of the changes of prior generations. They inherit the categories. A protest poem we might compose is likely to be in some way informed by the protest poetry of the prior generation, maybe? The language might change over time because we inherit, or at least cannot escape, their language?