tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3714709754261276888.post6860660025621101998..comments2024-03-28T20:53:06.885-04:00Comments on Joan Soble: So Already . . . : Stretching Back and ForwardJoan Soblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01428565769358582476noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3714709754261276888.post-40015710382339587592016-03-29T21:38:43.325-04:002016-03-29T21:38:43.325-04:00I've been enjoying reading the Kurt Wolff stuf...I've been enjoying reading the Kurt Wolff stuff I downloaded, Charley--very interesting and applicable. Thanks again for letting me know it was out there and connected.Joan Soblehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01428565769358582476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3714709754261276888.post-23276813398380086852016-03-22T09:37:24.973-04:002016-03-22T09:37:24.973-04:00Thanks, Memory. I think retirement has been a huge...Thanks, Memory. I think retirement has been a huge experience of developing a "new relationship to yourself," and I think I've wondered a lot about how much writing (poetry or anything) could help uncover (not sure if I should say "forge" or "uncover") that new relationship, or how much writing was itself hostage to the vagueness (not sure if I should say "vagueness," "fragility," or "uncertainty" of that relationship. Thanks so much for your phrase "the writer's anxiety and enchantment"--you nail it!Joan Soblehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01428565769358582476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3714709754261276888.post-44645291829907985842016-03-21T21:05:42.240-04:002016-03-21T21:05:42.240-04:00-- Dear Joan Soble, Thank you for this inspiring p...-- Dear Joan Soble, Thank you for this inspiring poem. I love the Dan Chaisson's statement that "a poem is a place where conscious and unconscious thought, reality and dream, fact and symbol all jostle for attention on the same busy stage. A poet goes where the language leads: this kind of vulnerability is both exhilarating and scary." I can tell from this lyrical and insightful poem that "language" took the lead.<br />I love the way your poem leaves the reader wondering and explores the writer's anxiety and enchantment as the words flow from within. I have so many favorite verses, I do not know which one to choose. I will end by sharing my admiration for the following lines:<br />What will become of it,<br />What it will become: unknown.<br />But you’ll exhale, relieved<br />By the flash of fire<br />And what followed it,<br />Evidence that something in you<br />Stirs and yearns.<br />Post-exhilaration, you’ll keep writing,<br />In new relationship to yourself,<br />Your work, your world.<br />Thank you so much for sharing. Wow! A "new relationship to yourself." I hope this poem lead you to this "new relationship.""Memory of the Heart"https://www.blogger.com/profile/09352599201221511568noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3714709754261276888.post-71033347599375746102016-03-21T15:30:07.223-04:002016-03-21T15:30:07.223-04:00Hi, Charley--
Thanks so much for introducing me t...Hi, Charley--<br /><br />Thanks so much for introducing me to Kurt Wolff and his ideas--I just downloaded a pdf of an article by him.<br /><br />Meanwhile, your own comment to me--you've also written a poem--reorganizes, then combines pieces of my poem with Wolff's ideas in such a way that my thinking is already engaged and expanding.<br /><br />Now I'm completely glad I published this poem because it prompted you to write back something so worth my consideration--and I suspect to others'consideration, too.<br /><br />Thanks so much, Charley.Joan Soblehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01428565769358582476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3714709754261276888.post-62181176291216714102016-03-21T14:53:44.132-04:002016-03-21T14:53:44.132-04:00Joan, your words remind me of Kurt Wolff's que...<br /><br />Joan, your words remind me of Kurt Wolff's questioning of our mundane subject-object understanding [Surrender and Catch, Experience and Inquiry Today]:<br /><br />My whispering muscles set and reset.<br />...................................<br />My muscles spread and lengthen,<br /><br />For Wolff ones "individuality, including motives and attitudes --is irrelevant for our understanding" because "the only thing that counts is the pursuit, with its results and questions." Continuing, Wolff claims that we effect<br />movement from naive realistic or mundane subject-object understanding when we have /Reconciled feuding bone and tissue./ And no longer must we wait<br /><br />As your mind looks on,<br />Apart, amazed.<br /><br />because <br /><br />What started as cure<br />Begins to feel like a way<br />To live in my own body.<br /><br />because the "I" /...in that knotted crouch/ is "replaced by the subject which is exhaustively defined by its concern" or writing which allows:<br /><br />My muscles spread and lengthen,<br />Sometimes relax into a deep place<br /><br />Because, maybe, one day,<br />Pen and page will merge, expand,<br />................................<br />As your mind looks on,<br />Apart, amazed.<br /><br />Charley Settleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09885645349643920985noreply@blogger.com