me...

The Spanish verb hacer means both 'to do' and 'to make'. What an egregious gap in English! Who can deny having felt the Urge Hacer? Not to mention the astounding philosophic suggestion that to do is to make, to act is to create!

Many writers would have us believe that language is sacred. My thoughts refer immediately to Ursula K Le Guin, since she is the only one of these writers for whom i have respect. However, language is much too arbitrary for me to agree with her. Conventions such as languages are developed in the interest of communication. To then exalt language above communication is to design a living room so beautifully that there is no room for living.

This has a lot to do with my frustrations in poetry. Contemporary poems drift single-file, in white hooded robes, to be baptized by the Holy Order of Language. Everyone wants poetry to flow quietly, heads bowed in abject reverence to words and their sounds. i want poetry to drip from stalactites into claustrophobic crevices, and even as the air and water ripple outward, so too are they rebuffed by walls of rock, in haunting echoes and introspective interference. i want Rachmaninoff, not Vivaldi! i want impassioned ideas, not languages! Throw down false prophets like Ashbery! Do not worship the medium, but the message! The message is Life!

posted by Arthur @ 5/21/2002 09:40:00 PM

Tuesday, May 21, 2002