Fear and Art

[Ierrellus]

In a small hospital diner,
Seeking therapy in a poem,
I remove my glasses and see
Otherwise unique faces
Made general by haze.

Honest artists admit
They draw from hint and shadow
Approximate images--
For lust for exact meaning
Creates and destroys their art.

Again I surround my sight
With its protective lens
Because the presence of fear,
Found in uncertainty,
Craves distinctions of sight.

[Amorphos]

That’s interesting, ~ like an image based language, and that stops the inquiry from focussing to deeply on the specifics. Perhaps that the language gains depth as it is learned, such that the collection [similar to an individual being is a collection] compares to all humanity in perhaps mostly emotional terms?
What one is made of, all are made of.

Why does exact meaning destroy art; i can see how it destroys the above process - if you will, but in some ways perfection has also been a main drive throughout the history of art. Which is fine, art is much and varied of course. I am just thinking philosophically as to the functionality of creating and destroying ~ or is that what is meant anyhow?

_

[Ierrellus]

That’s interesting, ~ like an image based language, and that stops the inquiry from focussing to deeply on the specifics. Perhaps that the language gains depth as it is learned, such that the collection [similar to an individual being is a collection] compares to all humanity in perhaps mostly emotional terms?
What one is made of, all are made of.

Why does exact meaning destroy art; i can see how it destroys the above process - if you will, but in some ways perfection has also been a main drive throughout the history of art. Which is fine, art is much and varied of course. I am just thinking philosophically as to the functionality of creating and destroying ~ or is that what is meant anyhow?

_

Thanks, Amorphos. In my mind we can never achieve perfection. One can revise a poem, for example, until it loses all meaning. Erase a line enough and you get a hole in the paper, hence the destructive power of perfectionism--it leaves no room for improvement. In the hospital setting, improvement is much to be desired as is our ability to see it.

[Orbie]

Revision is a two sided phi gore, much as in the Rosarch test, of the vase, or the face. Interpretation of what a representation consists of, cannot become either simpler, more objective or its opposite, because it depends upon the intent of the artist in revising it.

You often hear conflicting reports by artist, as to the reason for a revision. One, is, that they are not satisfied by the finished works, because it's too literal, to photographic. There is no basis for interpretation. The other is, that it is too vague a representation, hence too modern, too diffuse, like in Your example, air.

Henry Miller dabbled in art, as a way to pass time, in retirement. He worked over and over until it was a smudged mess.

[Amorphos]

In my mind we can never achieve perfection. One can revise a poem, for example, until it loses all meaning. Erase a line enough and you get a hole in the paper, hence the destructive power of perfectionism--it leaves no room for improvement.

I’d say that means the revisions or some of them were in error, but also that pruning is part of the process also. Examples of perfection would be any symmetrically balanced female human of 25 yrs [genetic maturity/the rose in bloom]. Can we not also say that ‘the uncarved block’ [Taoism] is a kind of perfection. I equally understand that what you are saying is true also.

Does life not require something to reach for? I think the future will bring us to the answer to that question.

Coming back to an ethic in the poem; can there be a kind of living equivalent in some sense to the art ethic? So instead of reaching goals and getting good doggy pats on the head, humans can live without purpose in those terms? ...bit like Taoism but where the way is in the hues and shades of reality rather than the objects [of all kinds].

_

[Ierrellus]

It is what it is is cold comfort to anyone in a hospital waiting room. Our lives are inextricably intertwined.
Poems are never finished--Valery. Lives can be finished but still remain part of the living.

[Ierrellus]

Revision is a two sided phi gore, much as in the Rosarch test, of the vase, or the face. Interpretation of what a representation consists of, cannot become either simpler, more objective or its opposite, because it depends upon the intent of the artist in revising it.

You often hear conflicting reports by artist, as to the reason for a revision. One, is, that they are not satisfied by the finished works, because it's too literal, to photographic. There is no basis for interpretation. The other is, that it is too vague a representation, hence too modern, too diffuse, like in Your example, air.

Henry Miller dabbled in art, as a way to pass time, in retirement. He worked over and over until it was a smudged mess.

The horror of poets is to consider their work contrived. Putting words in a box is always hazardous.

[Lev Muishkin]

[Ierrellus]

Horror of self discovery? Fingers eager to touch hide a fearful face? I like the image, even though I probably misinterpret it.

[Orbie]

To get down to brass tacks, it's in the relationships, the poet and the audience, he association and the dis association, the fear is always in loosing the momentum, of having to face the impending poverty

of becoming more and more literate as opposed to figurative, because the former means impoverished, eccentric, archaic, reductive. True poetry in motion

really tanks out at the bottom, in bizarre tactics to literally get to the bottom of things, to de-code the mystery. Take Hart Crane, for instance. He jumped

in betwixt the tropical breezes and the city neon, because there was no compromise as far as


fear was concerned, between the rhyme and reason of such vapid aura, as ditch exist in the soul, the greyness of the wanton sky be blue another day far,
too far,

And the blu Brooklyn harbor of waterfront dives.

There could not be constructed simply, a line so as to
belie, such uncertainty, and lack of resolve,
irrespective those well in- formed,
At at time when,part hidden darkly,
And pitifully , Brooklyn ,,,,,

- of the forties.

(Hart talked of the Brooklyn Bridge, of poesy)of mist coming over the harbor, but how many poor Italian immigrants building it for petty wages, fell into the dark Hudson below, as did he one day coming over, back , to the city).

[Ierrellus]

I suppose I could be accused of flaming with so many poems presented here; but I simply wonder why a forum open to creativity gets so few participants while those open to critical analysis gets so many. Does this apply to fear and art? Do many fear that presenting their brain children here will be met with the same criticism they get from posting a philosophical thesis?
In the hospital, waiting for an outcome, my poet persona craves solid distinctions, the simple yes and no of life beyond hopes and dreams, beyond attempts to put on a blank page those chosen images of self-appraisal. The audience for the poem is first of all the self. Then, it is words for whoever is in tune with the expressed images. Of course the sky is blue and birds sing while one waits for the outcome of a personal connection.

[Ierrellus]

duplicate

[Orbie]

duplicate

I concur, except that prose differs in as much as it disdaines flames, where as poetry covets it. No need for art to make excuses for it's own sake. If it were to, it would defeat it's purpose of exacting meaning.

[Ierrellus]

The last thing the poet needs to hear while waiting in a hospital for the outcome of someone loved is that the bird are singing somewhere and things are as they should be. Grief and sorrow are human. These beg explicit meanings. And lust for meaning creates our personal heavens and hells. The universal does not often appease the personal. It is only from the personal that we relate to each other.

[Orbie]

Yes but the personal may drift down from the universal, where the bird sings. How else can the personal be acquired?

[Ierrellus]

Grief longs for the particular, not the universal.

[Orbie]

But it's escape from grief consists of universalization.
Unless You would have the particular stand, in It's self, as a constant reminder of it's uniqueness. Or, dispose of universalization for reasons of sustaining self hurt, for some kind of non-absolved guilt.

[Ierrellus]

We put meanings in personal boxes called words or feelings. The universal means nothing to me unless I have experienced some part of it.