surprise

Interesting post by Seth Abramson about, essentially 'secondhand' emotional weight v. surprise in the poem. He says, "the capacity of poetry to express emotional weight is often at odds with the capacity of poetry to surprise both reader and author".

By surprise, could that also be lightness, a kind of mobility, shape-changing, dancing, freedom (if that's a word one can ever use, apart from that Kristofferson song), rather than all this gravitas that I know, at times, I heavy myself with?


Comments

Indran Amirthanayagam said…
I like this meditation on lightness and weight. It reminds me of Kundera's novel on the ubearable lightness of being. I think of Nicanor Parra's antipoesia, his thumbing frank, direct and witty speech at decades of rhetorical flourish. Yes, the emotional weight must sometimes be tucked away out of sight so that the light fandango can traipse its way about the stage.
02/01/2008, 02:38
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