ModPo is a fast-paced introduction to modern and contemporary U.S. poetry, with an emphasis on experimental verse, from Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman to the present. Participants (who need no prior experience with poetry) will learn how to read poems that are supposedly "difficult." We encounter and discuss the poems one at a time. It's much easier than it seems! Join us and try it! Even though we are currently in our offseason ("SloPo"), you are welcome to enroll now. You will have access to the entire ModPo site. Explore; meet some ModPo'ers who are conversing in the site year-round; read poems and watch videos. Then join us again when the intense "symposium mode" starts up again in September. Yes, the next live, interactive 10-week session of ModPo will begin on September 8, 2018, and will conclude on November 19, 2018. Al Filreis will be in touch with you by email before the September 8 start of the course with all the information you'll need to participate. If you have questions, you can email the ModPo team at modpo@writing.upenn.edu. During the 10 weeks of the course, you will be guided through poems, video discussions of each poem, and community discussions of each poem. And (unique among open online courses) we offer weekly, interactive live webcasts. Our famed TAs also offer office hours throughout the week. We help arrange meet-ups and in-site study groups. If you are curious about the ModPo team, type "ModPo YouTube introduction" into Google or your favorite search engine, and watch the 20-minute introductory video. You will get an overview of the course and will meet the brilliant TAs, who will be encountering the poems with you all the way to the end. If you use Facebook, join the always-thriving ModPo group: from inside Facebook, search for "Modern & Contemporary American Poetry" and then request to be added as a member. If you have any questions about ModPo, you can post a question to the FB group and you'll receive an almost instant reply. We tweet all year long at @ModPoPenn and you can also find ModPo colleagues using the hashtag #ModPoLive. ModPo is hosted by—and is housed at—the Kelly Writers House at 3805 Locust Walk on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia USA. All ModPo'ers are welcome to visit the Writers House when they are in our area. Our discussions are filmed there. Our live webcasts take place in the famed "Arts Cafe" of the House. To find out what's going on at the Writers House any time, just dial 215-746-POEM.
watch video on Tristan Tzara's "To Make a Dadaist Poem"
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来自 宾夕法尼亚大学 的课程
Modern & Contemporary American Poetry (“ModPo”)
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从本节课中
chapter 2.4 (week 4 cont.)—the rise of poetic modernism: modernist edges
"The Baroness" (Elsa von Freytag Loringhoven) was way out there. But because she so intensely embodied modernist experimentalism, our effort to learn something about her life and writing is an apt way, in part, to end our brief introduction to poetic modernism from roughly 1912 to 1929. The three instances of modernist extremity we will encounter in chapter 2.4 are very different expressions of “High Modernism.” Well, the Baroness was certainly high on highballs when she wrote the poem we'll read — or rather, her language remarkably simulates a reeling discombobulation, such that its critique of 1920s-style commercialism (not in itself unusual at the time) has a very sharp edge. She was “New York Dada” epitomized, while Tristan Tzara's ideas about cutting up newspapers to form “personal” poems were, among his many other radical notions, crucial to the Dadaist import. And John Peale Bishop, with whom we will end our two weeks of chapter 2? Well, as you'll see, Bishop's is another story altogether; his sonnet sets us up for our approach to doubts about modernist antics as expressed by the poets of chapters 3, 4 and 5.
与讲师见面
Al FilreisKelly Professor, Dir. Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing, Faculty Dir. Kelly Writers House
So now, we're going to spend a few minutes talking about not so much a poem as a set
of instructions For how you make art, by Tristan Tzara, who doesn't really fit in
the course because he's not an American poet.
He's a famous dadaist. He's a Romanian and French poet and
essayist and performance artist. But he has such influence on this movement
that we've been talking about. He's sort of parallel to the Baroness,
although much more thoughtful, can I say, and essayistic about dadaism and I don't
think she was specifically influenced by him.
But we're looking at how make a dadaist poem, and it's an instruction.
>> Its famous done in 1920 I think we should talk a little about it as another
incidence in which modernism can be pushed further maybe even than we will be talk
about. So, somebody want to say what we're
supposed to do with this. Ally, what are we supposed to do exactly
here? >> Well take a Newspaper.
>> Mh-hm >> Cut it up ... >> Cut what?
>> Cut up the words. >> Take one article.
>> Yeah. >> Yeah.
>>, Yeah. So one article, cut up the words in it.
Put it into a hat. >> Put all the words into a hat?
Into a bag. >> Okay.
Into a bag, excuse me. Then kind of blindly or randomly or
accidentally take them out and that would be your poem.
>> So take one word out, copy down the poem.
And then what claim does this make that is audacious?
>> Amaris about what the result will be. >> Says at the end you will be a writer
who is infinitely original which seems ironic since the process is arbitrary and
the source is this information. >> So what possible sense of originality
is this? >> I think it's the originality of
interpretation. So, it's telling us not to be afraid of
the nonsense that will inevitably be the product of this exercise.
But the poem will be like us in the way that we choose to read it.
>> Anybody wanna try originality in this sense?
Anna? >> Well, if you're taking something like a
newspaper article and say it's a front page story about like a fire, let's say.
And you take that. >> A local newspaper.
>> Sure. >> Apparently if it's got fire on the
front page. >> All right.
>> [laugh] That's good. >> So you take this front page story
that's supposed to be objective, just giving you the facts.
This is where it was, this is how it started, this is how many people were
injured, this is how much damage was done. >> Just the facts, man.
>> Just the facts. >> And that's, what kind of writing would
you say? >> Objective or ...
>> Pseudo. >> Reporting.
>> Objective reporting. Journalistic.
Full sentences. >> You take all that.
You put it. >> Memorable?
>> Not really. >> In fact not even.
I mean deliberately not memorable. You read an article about a fire on the
front page of newspaper once. >> You say that's sad.
>> And you throw it out. >> Mm, recycle it hopefully.
But [laugh], so. >> Well, he's recycling it.
I'm sure in 1920 you didn't recycle it. >> Probably not.
>> Right. >> But so here you are, you have this you
know, this language as we've just described it.
You put it in a bag, you shake it up and you completely re-purpose it.
What does that create? That creates something original.
>> And does, it doesn't resemble journalistic prose anymore?
>> I would hope not. >> Probably not.
>> But though the words are the same. Kristen, what does it mean to say here you
are a writer? Infinitely original, endowed with a
sensibility that is charming. Though beyond the understanding of the
vulgar. >> Well, I think by understanding of the
vulgar, he means that the newspaper article itself would have been within the
understanding of the vulgar. It would have been something that the
common person reads and digests and gets meaning out of that this completely
un-ordered poem that's arbitrary, not even the content mattered, he says.
Pick a, pick an audible that's the length that you want it to be, not that's about
anything that you want your poem to be is something that the, the common person
would say what is this to. >> What about vulgar?
Anybody want to deal with the world vulgar?
>> It's loaded. >> It's a loaded word, but what does it
mean, typically? >> Tasteless, classless, sort of
connotations. >> Course.
>> Of low, morality. Yeah.
>> Low class. >> [crosstalk].
>> Low morality. >> That journalism always has an angle.
So to me I read that politically, as meaning that, it com, it's information
communicated to the masses. That's what the purpose of a newspaper is.
And he's subwriting all that. >> Isn't he.
>> By cutting. >> Reversing.
>> It all up. >> Vulgar then?
I mean, it would be the urinal upside down that would be called vulgar by its
critics. It would be the nude descending a
staircase that would be called vulgar. Alright.
It would be this nonsense. This data cut off that would be vulgar.
He's turning it around isn't he? >> To the people who don't understand
this, or the ones that are vulgar. >> Well he might be making that judgement,
I hope somewhat ironically or fasciciously but he's certainly saying something about,
the news paper article about the fire. So I think we've served, established that
he's reversing the charge.And that what's vulgar is the language that you write in
plain sentences and throw away. What about the claim just prior to that?
The poem will be like you. Dave?
>> I think he's making a comment on randomness being choice because the,
before that, he makes it clear, take out each step one by one, copy them
conscientiously. That is.
>> I love conscientiously there. >> It's a, people would look at that and
say it's a completely random process, but each time, it's a choice.
>> And I think he's saying something about how random this could be a choice.
And it can be unique. >> It could.
That's a good start. Why, somebody else?
Why? Molly, why would the poem be like you?
It seems like since it's so random it wouldn't be at all a self expression.
>> Right. But you're the one doing the work.
I think in this case it's more about the process of leaving the home.
>> Self expression. Here's how I'm feeling.
The traditional I of post-romantic or romantic and post-romantic expression.
This is how I'm feeling, actually says our, and his colleagues turns out to be
rote, socialized, routinized, and already determined meaning.
Just at the point where you think this is my original feeling.
What's really original is something that doesn't come from that traditional place
of self expression. Does that make sense?
That's probably an, as important lesson as you can possibly learn about these, the
constraint based or form based writing that it takes subjectivity away.
>> But actually, subjectivity is already so encrusted with received meaning about
how the self feels. That to abandon subjectivity ironically or
paradoxically brings you to yourself. Anybody wanna say one more thing about
this? The poem will be like you.
How. >> Well.
>> It's so audacious. >> Just getting back to, randomness.
It just makes me think of you know, ... >> The, the, depending on how long your
poem. Depending on how long your article is, how
long you want your poem to be. There's so, so, so many ways for it to
potentially turn out. And that kind of just goes back to you
know. The origin of every person.
The chance that like they, that you the writer would be you, would be the writer.
>> Interesting. >> I don't know.
>> What about infinitely original? What about the word "infinitely"?
I mean, following from Ally's comment about being there certainly in a article
about fire you know 200 word article, you've got a lot of possible combinations
and permutations each one of them will be distinct you can do a whole lot more.
Then you fought with these kinds of sentences.
Any thoughts about this? Infinitely original?
>> Well I think the infinite speaks to a sort of immortality as well.
Because the newspapers only that you discard every day and he's seems to be
highlighting the necessity of destruction before newness of creation.
>> Mm. >> And here he's cutting it down to every
word but I think as we move more towards contemporary poetry that'll be cut down
even further to the level of syllable. Even the letter and so in that way you can
infinitely cut down and infinitely recreate.
>> This seems to be. I don't want to use the word, extreme,
lightly. But an, an extremity of the claim of, make
it new. For instance, William Carlos Williams in
Spring and All, and the prose of Spring and All, said that what we wanted to do
was the poetic equivalent of, of destroying the Carpathian Mountains and
taking a natural rise and completely flattening it, starting over.
Those are, that's revolutionary talk, violent talk.
And as much as we admire Williams, he didn't actually destroy in that kind of
way. Nobody actually destroyed.
Although there is some destruction here, literally a newspaper's being destroyed.
One Last consideration on this. He's having us deconstruct, a newspaper.
And though, you, your example of the fire is fairly neutral.
What if it's, an article about the Armistice?
Or what if it's an article about Prohibition?
Or what if it's an article about the suppression of left wing parties in
central Europe right after World War I? Is this, even though it doesn't seem to be
political, in what way is this a political intervention?
I think data was pretty inherently political, because a lot of the data has
felt that it's really difficult like, this, if data really rises like during and
after World War I, and a lot of them felt like you can't really have art that is
aesthetic in a world that has been so torn apart by all the destruction they saw in
World War I. >> How could we write whole after all this
fragmentation But let's start with this piece itself and anybody say how this
instruction could be political. >> Well, the nonsense that would emerge
would not be held down by an ideological position the way that a newspaper is.
We can often label newspapers as conservative or liberal.
>> It's freed of ideology. >> Right.
>> Mm. >> That's what I want to say.
>> Mm, well. >> Political intervention.
>> The words in it. I, even though.
>> No, I, I, I think you're right. >> [crosstalk] example of.
>> No, no, no, no. I, I agree with, like, what.
I definitely think that's a possibility. But at the same time, there's also the
possibility that depending on the placement of the words and just chants in
general. >> I meant [crosstalk] sense, that's what
I meant. >> Yeah, but I also think it's interesting
that like, you know, depending on chants in general, something completely contrary
to what the original author intended might result which is also kind of, that's
political and. >> Could need also be just questioning the
way we get our news? >> Of course.
He's, he's destroying the medium, he's questioning the medium.
We're about to move to chapter three where we'll meet very briefly two communist
poets of the depression in the United States, two political poets.
And you will find them reverting to narrative and descriptive language.
In a way, Zara and others are saying, "You know, there is a lot of ways to be
political." And the most fundamental way to be political they would say.
This is a claim that we can accept or reject.
The most fundamental way is to say to those who are making sense.
Particularly after World War I which is not a war that made a ton of sense.
The language you speak, this coherent language you speak makes no sense to me.
I do not understand. What you've done is nonsense.
And I am going to respond by speaking nonsense.
I'm going to respond by speaking in a way that makes no sense to you.
I'm not willing to say, to mean on the same level that you mean.
Instead of responding with a position against the position, the idea is to take
no position at all and to recycle the words that were used as a way of feeding
back what nonsense it was in the first place.
That's a, that's a kind of formerly radically way of being political.
And this man, Zara, eventually in the '30s became an anti-fascist, got involved in
the Spanish civil war, against Franco, and in, in a way, you could see some of these
moves with political writing, such as journalistic writing, toward his
anti-fascist positions, by being so anti-authoritarian in the way he makes
meaning. Final word on this, is this, who's ever
done anything like this? You have.
What's fun about doing this? >> Just, I think it's really fun to not
know what's going to happen. And then to just kind of.
There is something very liberating about not having.
It's funny that he says copy conscientiously because it's, what's
liberating for me is not having conscious, really like, will of you know, not, not
having choice as to how it turns out. >> And I believe that the person who
taught you to do this is in chapter nine of our course.
Is that Charles Bernstein? >> Yes, that's Charles.
>> And it turns out that William Burroughs, on the most avant-garde side of
the beat movement, picked this up again, and did Cutups in 1959 and 1960.
And then this becomes a mode that, in part, get adopted by Jackson McCloe, and
John Cage, and then the language poets such as Charles Bernstein.
So this actually becomes, although it's an extreme end of modernism as we've studied
so far, it's going to come back again and again as an important way to suppress the
tendency to be subjective, traditionally subjective.
To suppress the creative ego and release the infinitely original.
