the place of poetry among discourses

[jdeirmend]

One of the marks of a truly good poem for me is if i can appreciate it or not. i don't have to like it, i'm not keen on bmw's but there's no doubt they're well made. same with art. i don't always like what i appreciate. many people think, i hate it, it's shite...and that's often a truism but there's another truism and it's this. we don't all have good taste. whistlers mother god bless her, classed as one of the best paintings whistler ever did, i hate to see his other works and then you have Picasso. i seriously dislike most of his works but see him as a painting genius.

Billy, that's fine and well, but why do you appreciate a given poem? That's kind of the point of this thread, however useless and long-winded my inquiry might seem to you. Saying "whether or not you appreciate it" is pretty vacuous at the end of the day.

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Nobody has it completely right, but I find this to be headed in the right direction. And yes, challenge everything. If your ideas about poetry don't change constantly, you're probably not doing it right.

Well at least someone is trying to be encouraging. Between Milo sneering at me and Billy telling me I'm long winded and a nancy, I am seriously wondering what the fuck I'm doing trying to engage you guys in a discussion on this topic.

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Oh yes, there was something about where it belongs in discourse -- I tuned out of that part because frankly, I don't separate discourse into different text types and genres but view it as a constant multimodal interplay punctuated by the occasional limerick or one of billy's jokes (sometimes combined). Everything we communicate just pours into that ocean, and to separate it back out into he said/she said morphemes and monosyllables is both tedious and irrelevant. Does that mean we shouldn't take care to write, edit and analyse thoroughly if it's all going to the same place anyway? No, it doesn't. I don't want my ocean to be full of sewage.

I really don't get it. I try to take a stab at what distinguishes poetry from other ways in which language is used, and I get told that what I'm doing is tedious and irrelevant, only to be given some completely sentimental judgment about "not wanting oceans being full of sewage."

How do you tune out something someone writes anyways? So you admit you didn't really read what I had to write carefully. Great.

If you think I'm taking things too seriously, I already know I am. That's the entire point of this exercise.

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I have read and discussed Cassirer ad nauseum, I think the mistaken assumption you have here is that I was referring strictly to the text you cited. I was enlightening the text through a knowledge of Cassirer and his hatred for poets and poesy in general that tends to upset his delicate Kantian sensibilities.

This specific citation has his usual thin veneer of "poetry is great, I am fine with it, really" that is belied by a more thorough reading of his positions.

I ended up deleting the post when I remembered that I already had this discussion several times and was bored then.

Cassirer is a dilletante - everyone laughs about his naive proclamations of what poetry is and isn't.

I don't doubt that you're more familiar with Cassirer than myself. Language and myth is the only book of his I've read. If what I'm on about bores or bothers you, though, you don't need to participate.

Look closely at the insulting connotation in the last sentence you've written. "Everyone laughs about his naive proclamations of what poetry is and isn't." You've basically taken a giant shit on my efforts at a discussion, and you've excluded me from the category of "everyone," by virtue of my appreciation of Cassirer (sorry I'm not sophisticated enough for you, Milo). Besides that, dismissing a thinker with a million times more clout than yourself with a simple ad hominem (i.e. calling Cassirer a dilettante) reflects very poorly on you.

Let me make it plain to you: I already know I'm a nobody. I don't need you to remind me of it. If you'd like to spell out why you disapprove, in depth and detail, you are welcome to. Otherwise, I'll call it like I see it, namely that you've just taken this opportunity to proclaim, once again, that you're perspectives are so vastly superior to mine. I could give two shits.

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All,

Can we have a discussion without people being insulting, or plainly disclosing their disapproval, inattentiveness, etc., without any hint of appreciation?

If you feel like you're wasting your time responding to the thread and the initial post, which I've already admitted is just motivated by a weird itch I need to scratch, you don't need to participate.

Otherwise, I think it may be time for me to just get away from this "place" for good.

Thanks,
James