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Sunday, June 26, 2011

The Whole Poem Experiance or the Poetics of Location

Some recent chatter about the "multi delivery system" of poetry has me thinking not only about the topic but broadening the spectrum even more. I mean I guess I never thought a lot about the idea of the poetic experience very much until the conversation.  I mean even before the advent of a multi delivery approach to poetry there were varying delivery systems.


Of course newer on the scene is the e-reader but we sometimes read individual poems in a journal and later find them in a published manuscript by the author. Or we may find them published in an anthology. How do I feel about the impact on the source of the poem I'm reading? 


Another question that could be asked is how much credibility, artistry, etc. can be transferred to a poem by where it is found. What can such transfer if any add or detract from the overall experience of the poem. 


Examples could be  Filter Literary Journal - see here and here.  Such craftsmanship and individual artistry are something a traditional publisher doesn't match.  Then of course there is the difference between a very well established Journal like Paris Review, Missouri Review, Rattle as opposed to say a new Journal or one one to three years old.  Who else in in that same Journal, can that make a difference? Reading a poem in Norton's Anthology surely must seem antiseptic compared a Journal or The New Yorker. Then there is a well strung together manuscript or one of those same poems in a book of the author's collected works 1972-1998 surely this experiance is different.


I'm guessing that in reading a poem as well as my observation of many thhings, I am enfluenced by the sideshows more then I think. With this in mind, the whole discussion that Nic Sebastian has sparked is not a new issue, just a different version of the one above. One that I've never really explored till now.

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