Was surprised by the overwhelming majority of people who believed in a priori knowledge. Though I bet, with a few questions, the majority could split up (a priori in relation to a posteriori, or a priori as defined, or a priori as general structures of the brain(EDIT:) or a priori as in "what else could math be?"...)

You know what's fine? Torturing human beings.

But what really gets my goat is when people believe ""Killing is wrong" is true" -- unforgivable.

As I see it, philosophy is going to be the new religion, and phenomenology will be its method. — Constance

Hrm, I feel the exact opposite. Phenomenology is a potential route to giving scientific explanations for religious feelings -- if we understand the structures of consciousness, then we'd have theories by which we can understand how people have visions, and such.

To me phenomenology shows how experience is a rich place for exploring the limits of language -- it's able to objectify what isn't, strictly, an object and make us able to communicate about general patterns of experience (at least, insofar that phenomenology isn't just a nonsense, a solipsistic invention for someone by themself -- a possibility, by all means, but it seems too intelligible to me for that)

Yeh, I think you're right.

When I want to make safe meta-ethical claims, error theory is home base.

Just... you can only draw the conclusions @Leftist is drawing if you care about much more than the truth-aptness of statements within the formal category of "moral" :D

Hence my attack on caring -- but, maybe it won't connect. That was the idea, though.

You ever wonder if the bottle is amber? Something like a cave?

If there are no moral truths, every moral claim is false. — Leftist

What if the moral claims are simply not truth-apt? Like the fictional universe of Star Trek, we posit moral worlds (and, actually, Star Trek kind of does fit the notion of a fictional world that is particularly motivated by moral thoughts).

And if you were in the middle of watching Star Trek and told someone watching it "You know this isn't real, right?" -- well, it'd be a queer question. You'd seem to have missed the point of Star Trek.

And so it seems to me that you've missed the point of morality. Who cares that it's not "true"? That doesn't bother me. Nor does breaking the "rule" of non-contradiction, from time to time.

Not the utterances, so much, as the speakers. We can speak for our self, but we cannot speak for another's self.

What is it we are doing when we merely ‘think’ rather than ‘speak’ something? Can we distinguish , for instance , pure thought or meaning from speaking to oneself? — Joshs

No, I don't think so. Though I think we have a phenomenological feeling of sub-lingual meaning, too, which is where this notion comes from. Listening to a song, absorbing a painting, or losing oneself in a play -- often times people think of meaning as being more than language, that language is this fallen state of meaning, and so there's some ineffability that's never reached.

According to traditional understandings of the role of language, the communicative nature of language implies the risk of losing or distorting some aspect of what is to be communicated. Something is lost when we speak what we are thinking , and even more so when we write down what we are speaking. The problem with language is supposedly the risk associated with attaching of a signifier to carry and express the meaning of a signified. — Joshs

Right! At least, this is my basic understanding of Saussure, more or less -- and even of Husserl, by way of the looking glass of Voice and Phenomenon, at least (clearly biased, but it made sense too...)

I suppose I see the communicative role of language -- in the sense of communication between two individuals, at least -- as subordinate to other roles of language. Rather than posit a metaphysical barrier between language and experience, I'd say that the full powers of language are still -- to this day -- unknown. With language we are able to do so much, and we continue to explore what more we can do with language while we have no idea why we're able to use it -- But our activity, I think, is deeply linked with meaning, as others have pointed out here too. But if activity is deeply linked with linguistic meaning, then that poses some problems for claiming activity, or experience (if we include experience as being part of meaning, at least), as ineffable.

But doesn’t this assume there is such a thing as a pure, or purely present to itself signified, an immediately present meaning in thought and then direct experience of doing that only secondarily , through symbolic language, is then expressed and communicated? — Joshs

I think that the classic notion of language assumes that, yeah.

When we know something , doesnt the knowing have to be repeated to itself, to refer back to itself, in or order to continue to be a knowing?

Yup. At least, for the kinds of creatures we are, we require repetition.

What is immediate thought and direct doing are already mediated , already a form of speaking to oneself that is in fact never purely present to itself but already a form of language? — Joshs

I'm interested. I might add, though, that I wonder if this is what's meant by ineffability with respect to language? In some ways language is this enabler for. . . so much. But then, what differentiates a reduction of everything to text from a reduction of everything to everything? (And, wouldn't a reduction of everything to text indicate that nothing is ineffable?)

Isn’t this necessary repetition a speaking to onself, and in speaking to onself, isnt there a gap from one iteration of the repetition to the next , between what one intends to mean to say to oneself and what one actually says and means? — Joshs

A gap in time, sure. And there's something funny going on with "repetition" too -- what marks the beginning an end of an act such that we can repeat it? What makes it the same act that we are practicing, when there's a gap between performances?

But not a speaking to oneself, exactly. In speaking, at least as I understand these things, we are speaking, not I. I use the collective vocabulary in my own way at times, but there's no self-contained subject which has its own meaning, that I can tell. (though there's something to the notion of a subject... just not a solipsistic one) -- rather, with respect to knowledge, I'd say it's more of a rehearsal, and that knowledge sits within the body. No performance is ever the same, but you can still put on 50 shows of the same script, regardless of that.

Here might be the best, non-jargon category I can think of --

One can never speak for someone else. If God himself spoke for me, he'd just be speaking for himself. Whoever our interlocutor is, just by virtue of being a fellow conversationalist -- well, if we spoke for them, they'd no longer be in the conversation.

I am also thinking of "ineffable" in the former sense. At least, I think that if the ineffable were ever to be eliminated, then it would require some sort of "perfect" language which is capable of communicating every possible nuance of any individual's experience. I don't think that our language is presently of this sort, but I also doubt that it ever will or can be. — Luke

Alrighty, I was wrong then. Just attempting to make sense of things.

If knowledge is something that can be communicated via language, and if there is nothing which is not able to be communicated via language (because nothing is ineffable), then there should be no "gap" between what can be known/taught and what can be said. However, you and Banno say that there is such a gap. You both keep writing this off as a mere gap between knowledge and experience - where all that's missing is having the experience - instead of acknowledging the gap that you have both asserted between knowledge and effability. — Luke

I guess I just don't see the need for this standard. I'd say that knowledge is never communicated by speech alone. Knowledge is an integration of. . . many things. To speak is never to know, though if you know something then you might have something interesting to say.

Let's just grant this "gap", as you call it, between what we can say and what is known. It strikes me as being somewhat prosaic -- we all know that there's more to the world than speech, and there's more to knowledge than speech too. So what does this calling attention to a gap do for us?

Further, having called attention to the gap, now we can talk about it. So we might introduce a distinction between, say, theoretical and practical knowledge. Now here we have two categories, one of which refers to speech, and one of which refers to action. And we can predicate things of action in general. So, we can talk about it. That doesn't convert activity into speech, only goes some way to making the case for effability -- let's call this kind of effabilty the ineffably effable. Some sort of in-between stage, where we do, after having experienced something, communicate our experiences with others who have had that experience too. It's not as easy as "The cat is on the mat", but it's not as hard as "The soul is immortal"

I'd say there are some categories which don't quite count as this in-between, where experience, repetition, and education is enough to give us whatever it is that's missing between speech and knowledge. So I could even grant your ineffability, but then I want to note -- there's more. Such as beliefs in the soul, or that we live in the best of all possible worlds, or that everything has a cause. Those are the sorts of things I have in mind when I think of the ineffable: that which cannot be spoken of, no matter how much experience I acquire, no matter what evidence I bring to bear, no matter how clever I am -- God himself wouldn't be able to speak on these things, because to speak on them would be to destroy them.

If I'm reading you correctly @Luke, I think you and I and @Jamal and @Banno are thinking in terms of two different ways we can talk about "ineffable" -- Ineffable, as in unable to be spoken of in principle, and ineffable, as in different from linguistic competence. I think I'm thinking in the former, and you're thinking in the latter.

To know how a clarinet sounds one has to hear the clarinet. I can tell you that it has a smooth sound, softer than a saxophone, the hum of a seriously cool cat . . . or I can pop "clarinet" into youtube and turn on the first clarinet concerto.

In church the analogy that was frequently used was the taste of salt -- how could you tell someone what salt tasted like if they'd never tasted salt? And by way of analogy, how could you tell someone what God's love is like if they've never felt God's love?

There's an element to knowledge that includes experience. I'm just not sure I'd say that makes it ineffable in the former sense, though I'd agree with you that Mary learns something and we learn something by experiencing that isn't the same as words, nor could it be conveyed by words alone. They'd also have to experience the sound of a clarinet, the taste of salt, the love of God, or the color red to say they had experienced these things, and no amount of textual familiarity would give them the experience, and they even learn something from experiencing.

But in the former sense, after learning something, we do talk about it after the fact. Like @Banno's coffee example -- while we learn from experience, that doesn't mean we are unable to speak about experience. In fact, it seems to me, by experiencing -- and the more we experience, the more we differentiate, the more we proliferate/share our categories and so on -- we make what was ineffable, effable. It's just a matter of time and experimentation. At least in the case of experience.

It is "something to be done" because it cannot be said. That's what makes it ineffable. Otherwise, we should be able to say it. — Luke

When I read this it feels like it'd go the same with objects... we cannot say objects, and so they are ineffable. But the reason we can't say objects is that they aren't words, not because we can't talk about them.

Now, that's just how I'm reading this. It seems like you'd agree that we cannot say objects since objects are not words, but we can talk about objects (and hence objects are not ineffable). So what is it about activity that makes it different from objects? Why can't we just note that activity, experience, and words aren't the same, but we can talk about them?

However, when I see "white" light, I may in fact have the private subjective experience of the colour red, and you may have the private subjective experience of the colour green. We will never know, as it is impossible for me to put my private subjective experience into words, as it is impossible for anyone to put their private subjective experience into words. — RussellA

In the most literal sense I think your final statement is true -- experience is not the same as words. And words are not cabinets into which experience gets placed and launched over to a conversation partner or reader (nor, for that matter, would I put concepts or thoughts into words, since words aren't cabinets at all -- "semantic content" rides along the vehicle metaphor, but it is a metaphoric understanding of language, I believe)

Also, I think that this notion relies upon visual metaphors about experience -- sometimes, we do know the private, subjective experience of others, and sometimes we are able to express our "insides" perfectly well to someone. After all, I followed along with what you were saying pretty well. And while it's possible for our spectrums to be inverted, we're also able to distinguish between color-blinded persons and non-color-blinded persons, in spite of (in my case at least) not being color blind. So there are cases where the private/public distinction just doesn't hold up so cleanly.

This by way of complicating the notion of "experience" as counting as ineffable.

Attempting to compete with the thread on truth, eh? :) -- I'll admit this has been a thought in the back of my mind...

The ineffable can't be said, by definition -- but we reach all the same. I guess in reaching, the question is -- do we grasp what was there, or do we not? And as odd as it sounds I think that both answers are right?

Another is to treat "ineffable" as a second-order predicate, somewhat like existence, such that ascribing ineffability is not ascribing a property but saying something (what, exactly?) about those properties. — Banno

I think the "what, exactly?" would be explicable, but only within a tradition. Mostly, though, I'd say the ineffable is either moral or aesthetic, so a judgment on statements about good/bad. But I'd quickly add that this is merely a best guess, that it is wrong -- because here we are articulating it.

(Tempted to go into a Levinas diatribe here ;) )

How long is a thread about what cannot be said? — Banno

Infinite. Isn't the ineffable, in its own way, the inspiration for these questions?

I feel that we are in a nihilistic position where we can't can justify any of our actions by reference to rules, objectivity or teleology. — Andrew4Handel

The topic would better be called 'Deciding what to be'. What to do follows from what one is. — unenlightened

More than the best you can do?

You're not happy with what you are doing. So do something different.

Me, I'm going out to trim one of the shrubs in the back yard, and work out where to plant the second lot of corn.

It really is that simple. And that hard. — Banno

I think my main question was supposed to be how is it possible to do the act of choosing? — Andrew4Handel

Me, I'm catching up on some of my self-assigned homework on a lazy lab day while looking forward to some time off.

I'd reiterate -- it really is that simple, and that hard.

I empathize with your line of questioning so, so much. There's a reason I like all those existential authors ;) -- but I think these are the answers I agree with the most. You really do just pick something and see what happens.

I registered and starting poking through today. I'm liking the sections on Descartes a lot, whom I've tackled and all but their presentation of him is so much clearer than I could put it.

Why did you do it? Where did you go? — hypericin

Far too many reasons to make sense of :D -- for me, looking back now, I'd say I probably didn't have much of a choice. I certainly wasn't happy with my life situation and job and such, though. But me-then wouldn't have put it in those terms, either.

Where I went -- all over. Also too long to list. Probably wouldn't help you make a decision either, to be honest.

I have no regrets.

But let's just say I know what I'm saying when I say 5 to 10 years down the line ;) That's the consequence you'd be looking at, more than likely, so it's one you should consider

Yes. Reason doesn't ever motivate. Rather, we perform motivated, driven reason. Our drives are animal, dressed up with reason after the fact. Reason is a tool to fulfill our drives.

But... if only it were so simple. We are blessed and cursed with the feedback loop that makes thought possible. Thoughts are cyclical.. we think them, then we react to them, by feeling, and by thinking. And then these feelings and thoughts are reacted to, and so on. These feedback loops can drive an anxious mind to distraction. — hypericin

I'm glad we can agree that reason doesn't motivate.

So I'm willing to grant we have knowledge of the future that's good. Else, I wouldn't be tempted to use words like "the collapse" -- I see that as a very real possibility. One which all societies, regardless of their political structure (from, at this point, monarchies, anarchies, theocracies, liberalisms, capitalisms, and socialisms) will have to deal with.

However, I'm going to highlight something I've said before in responding to this:

Both quite doubtful imo. — hypericin

Of course your opinion would say these are doubtful, else your words wouldn't make sense.

But are you willing to bank that doubt to a point where, 5 or 10 years down the line, you're broke and need to remember/relearn everything again to start an entry level position?

Because if I'm right, at least, that's your outcome.

Again, not from a place of judgment. Heh. That's basically what I did. Buuuut.... just noting, while I made that decision, it's still a big one to make. If you're already decided, really, then nothing I say will sway you, just as it didn't sway me.

Note that I have anxiety disorder, and have since early childhood. So, this looming doom affects me more than others. I wish it didn't, and I'm sure I'm not alone. — hypericin

I've tried to be open about my depression on TPF -- because I don't want others who I know feel alone to have confirmation of their loneliness. So -- you are not alone. Mental disability is a struggle.

While you are right that it'd be better to spend what you have if the future is bleak, I myself have to remind myself that the future is bleak -- to me. The future, however, is open. We have no knowledge of the future, really. We have good predictions, but it's happened so many times now that basically anything we believe could turn up to be wrong.

That's just a fact, in the sense of a true statement.

But true statements do not motivate us, as human creatures.

What motivates us are... something else that doesn't need to be defined, because defining it will already put it under the rubric of reason, and I'd generalize to say that reason is not our human-creature motivation.

***

In practical and blunt terms, I'd say that your years, no matter how young you are, will not lead to the catastrophe you fear -- unless you happen to choose to cut yourself off from the one source of material income you have. It'd be fun for awhile, and I cannot say I've made good decisions in these matters so this comes from a place of no judgment. But you'd have to ask yourself if you *really* need that "fun for awhile", and are willing to work your way back up after a break, because the collapse is still preventable and probably won't effect people who have decent work right now.

Ah, you're right. There wasn't a citation, even. Alas, reading is theory-laden, even on a forum post.

Is that what Kant is doing? Am I on the wrong track? — Srap Tasmaner

I'm also curious about the context now. Do you have a citation @KantDane21 ?



Eh, I think that Kant's use of "cognition" isn't that loose. A cognition is not merely to think of something, but rather to think of something within our faculties -- so we have concepts and intuitions(intuitions, itself, is a very specialized term within Kant's philosophy too), and noumena fall outside of both of those -- we can put a sentence together that looks truth-apt, but because of our faculties being what they are we are unable to judge that sentence. Hence, we cannot cognize the noumena "The soul is immortal", though we can posit it and desire to know its truth value.

Take for example Roman Jakobson's Functions of Language. — Dawnstorm

This was an excellent resource for me, so thank you. Just the sort of terms I'm looking for to think through my thoughts.

I've already assigned myself other homework, but in the spirit of continuing bad habits I'll assign myself more. ;)

But I have the desire to take some of the theories from that website and make it mesh with the question from earlier about counting phrases, but after I have your terms here down better:

Basically morphemes make words make phrases make clauses, and after that you get into text analysis and leave the realm of syntax. A phrase can be composes of words and other phrases and even clauses. For example, one way to count phrases, could be the follwoing: "the red apple":

1. Determiner Phrase: "the red apple"
2. Noun phrase: "red apple"
3. a) adjective phrase: "red"
3. b) noun phrase: "apple". — Dawnstorm

Then, apply it to one of the shorter poems we have here.

(in addition I'm still working through The Wasteland in order to provide an interpretation, but I don't have enough to share as of yet -- it's all impressionistic)

For me I thought of the "in which case" clauses as having the P xor ~P "distributed over" them, emphasizing the "Either" at the beginning, and these were functioning like a definition of terms.

So if P then Q, xor if ~P then R
Q = "in which case there can be no cognition of noumena"
R = "in which case cognition is not essentially cognition of appearance"


But it's confusing to me because of the words "there can be" and "not essentially", and then they both read like restatements of the original position -- if all cognition is of appearances, in that very case there can be no cognition of noumena (since noumena aren't appearances), whereas if cognition is not only applicable to the appearances, then in that very case cognition applies to more than the appearances (i.e., it is not "essential" to it).

At least, that's what I was thinking in reducing it to a simple P or not P. Maybe it's too simple, though. (I agree with your rendition, too, just felt the need to explain my thought process)

My worldview has grown steadily more eschatological. The future, in my mind, is now measured in mere years. Due to climate change, exponentially worse and more destructive weather events, and ecological collapse, a devastating Malthusian crisis seems imminent. The future is dark and full of dread. I will not have children, I would never impose the burden of beginning a life at this late, late year. I will quit my job soon... why work for a future that has been stolen?... and spend away my savings travelling, extracting what joy and fulfillment in life remains. Alternately, I can devote myself to activism, for whatever good that would do. These are the available paths to me. My status quo is no longer tenable.

Is this irrational of me? Or is this a rational confrontation of what is? Is the collective turning our heads away the true irrationality, the enabler of this crisis?

Psychologically, how can we confront this terminal historical moment we have all been thrust into? — hypericin

I think eschatological thinking tends to be irrational. It's not just one's own death, but the death of everything, the death of being -- the fear of death turned into a myth of the future, then believed inevitable. This sort of fear, as I interpret him, is what Epicurus addresses: Death is nothing to us. We never experience our own death. We fear this death character like it can hurt us, yet we never meet death. So what is this fear really based on? Imagination -- rather than a particular fear of something, it is a general fear that applies everywhere. And given that the future is open, and we know that death is inevitable, it's easy to put our fears of death into the future. And if the world itself is uneasy, or there are forces that would like us to feel like the world is uneasy (because fearful and anxious people are easier to control), then our minds can very easily build up fears of things we'll never meet, fears of things that never are, fears of things which only have control over us because. . . we fear them.

That isn't to say the status quo is acceptable. It's not.

But if we're to do anything about it, I'd say that escapism into small pleasures is a good place to start -- since we have control over such things -- but the future isn't inevitable either. It's just not something we can do all unto ourselves. It's not a moral project which deals with our character or right or wrong, it's a political project which requires enough of humanity to work together towards preventing the worst possible future.

My logic is very rusty, I have given it a shot below, but not sure if it is correct. feedback appreciated!

"Either all cognition is cognition of appearance, in which case there can be no cognition of noumena, or there can be cognition of the noumenon, in which case cognition is not essentially cognition of appearance" — KantDane21

Honestly I'd render this as "P or not P" where..
P = There cannot be cognition of noumena
or
P = All cognition is of appearance

If cognition applies to appearances only, then cognition does not apply to the noumena.
If cognition applies to the noumena, then cognition does not apply to the appearances only

Maybe in the wider context it's different, but I wouldn't call this sentence an argument as much as a clarification or a definition of two mutually exclusive beliefs (at least according to Kant)

heh, fair enough. It may just be the wrong question, really. It's not that things cannot be poems, but rather, if it isn't one it's a sort of challenge for the poet to turn it into one. So there's no point in delimiting the category, given it's a creative category and will expand as poets continue.

Oof. That's a sad one to read, but good. I connected to the last stanzas the most --

I was walking more slowly now
in the presence of the compassion
the dead were extending to a comrade,

plus I was in no hurry to return
to the kitchen, where I would have to tell you
all about Terry and the bananas and the bread. — mcdoodle

I can feel myself slowing down before going home as I read it, from everything before.

(I've heard of a teacher providing a shopping list as an example of a poem, encouraging analysis. It's not something I've come up with. I wish I still had the reference, but it's just something I heard in a course a long time ago.) — Dawnstorm

Well, today I need to do a bit of shopping.

Bagels
Cream Cheese
cleaning rags


I may add more later. But what makes this not a poem, may be an interesting question too?

The curiosity being if we treated it like a poem then it'd be hard to really mark a distinction between it and poetry. They certainly look similar, even though we think of them as not.

I think there may be a fear here in that we don't want to limit poetry, too. I believe it likely that people have already published shopping lists on more than one occasion to claim it as poetry. So it may be of no interest to delimit poetry, on that basis. Just worth noting that it didn't occur to me as a reader, or to note that I'm not sure what I'm getting out of treating a shopping list like a poem or why I'd want to other than the play with the notion of poem -- which just seems a bit unsatisfying to my mind.

Heh. I'm having a ball. So you're welcome, and I'm having a good time too. I wasn't even sure if this would generate any conversation, it seeming such a queer line of thinking. So I'm glad that there's been a sounding board for my ideas and being able to comb through other thoughts rather than just thinking on my own.


***

Something I am wondering about, from your article and others across the interwebs, is the moral dimension of poetry being emphasized. I think I can get along with a spiritual dimension to poetry -- the experience itself seems ethereal, given to sensitivities and feelings that are often hard to describe. That's an understandable word to me, at least.

But I wonder about poetry's supposed moral educational propensities. It seems to beg the question, on its face -- those with a poetic feeling will say there's a moral to be learned from poetry, and those without it will say there's nothing there but sweet sounding words that need to be relegated to the topics of proper morals so as not to mislead people, and neither poets nor Socrates will see one another's viewpoint.

And I would say -- if poetry could teach morals, then people would be a lot better than they are, given how long it's been about. So while I understand that the feelings evoked by poetry are semi-mystical... I can't say that I'd equate it with moral.

That was a pleasure to listen to -- there are parts of the poem that I couldn't quite sound out right, and Alec Guinness is great, of course :)

His choices throughout really add a depth I didn't get through a first read. I think I was mostly drifting along the level of images and the emotions which various sounds would invoke.

In particular I loved his rendition of the bar room conversation -- I could read the words and knew what it was, but Alec breathed the life into it that I was having a hard time doing. His reading really did sound like a bar room conversation!

Previously, I posted poetry about current Ukranian war by female poets. Who read or responded?
I was trying to move beyond English male-dominated, traditional poems. — Amity

Sorry, while this pursuit is noble, I found them really hard to read is all. The Ukrainian war being so... now. And USians cheering on the whole affair like it's a football match... it's just hard for me to comment on stuff like that. (there's a reason I avoid the Ukraine thread)

Combing through posts to respond in kind --

This Be The Verse

By Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself. — Tom Storm

I am unfortunately in the mood for gallous humor more often than not, so I laughed -- but it's kind of a mirthless laugh (that's still funny for all that, but dark)

While I'm no anti-natalist, I'd be surprised if there weren't people these days that haven't had these thoughts. And sometimes it's better to belt them out than ignore them, even if I know, deep down, I'd not follow through.

So I basically can't even trust my initial take anymore. — Dawnstorm

:D -- I feel this sentence. But I think that's OK, too. It's not so bad to be wrong, as long as we understand ourselves fallible, and are willing to change -- then it's actually not bad at all. It's just a part of being human.

(Trust me, I even looked about to figure out why I thought the 10-line form was a sonnet, and according to the internet it was an invention of my own mind ;) )

I haven't read The Wasteland, have to admit I'd never even heard of it.
I'm interested in 'the sound of the poem', so I searched Librivox:

There are quite a few readings but this one sounds good to my ears. It is last in a selection of 60.
(I was delighted to find 'The Owl and the Pussycat', a childhood favourite, easy to remember and recite.)

https://librivox.org/poetic-duets-by-various/ — Amity

I was planning on listening to this this morning (Monday's at work tend to be slow) -- but it was blocked. I"ll have to settle for listening at home. (Maybe when I mark out time to type out that essay to share...)

Well, I'm not sure that you can make a general claim about 'modern poets' from a single, stand out example of 'Modernism':
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waste_Land

But I don't really understand what point you are trying to make.
Meaning is there, no matter the form. — Amity

I may be making a point to no one at all, at least in this discussion. And, definitely -- I'm over-generalizing. All the bad habits of someone trying to figure something out. I think I'd get along well enough with "Meaning is there, no matter the form" though. In fact I think that's what I'm getting at. The form isn't a necessity for meaning. (though I'd say it's a part, or something. Form seems to be a place where meaning can get generated)

But yes, one couldn't make a general claim from a single example. I agree with that. I'm just trying to start from somewhere.... (I'll try and type out the essay from my book to share... it's probably a lot of where this is coming from)

Your post seems more like an explanation of how the poet has used language to help us share that experience. — T Clark

Heh, it's hard for me to separate the two -- I read poems like that, but sloppier than @Dawnstorm -- the figure is as important as the content.

However, this here -- this is what interests me. When I read @Dawnstorm's interpretation of the poem, I found myself able to re-read the poem and feel that interpretation there. In a sense, because of the interpretation, I was able to share in the meaning created.

So I think I'd like to say that the experience of the person reading or listening to a poem is where meaning starts, but there might be more to it than that. There's this element of meaning that can be shared, and is not related to sharing the world, but rather sharing the meaning of the poem together.

Keeping with rule 1, I'll have a go at adding an interpretation rather than just wacky ideas --

***
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

***

First time I came across this poem was at a poetry reading we used to do back in college for fun -- gather round a circle at someone's home with some poetry books and go round-robin sharing poems. It was also my introduction to Williams Carlos Williams.

It was so short, in relation to all the poems we were reading, it immediately made me laugh. Ever since I've returned to read it I don't even know how many times now, and it still makes me smile.

For me the breaks serve as one beat pauses, and the breaks between stanzas serve as two beat pauses -- though reading it again I think I actually give a three beat pause for the second break. When I read it like this, it's like the way the speaker would have said it, had they been there -- sheepish, slow, guilty -- but not so guilty, because the prize really was just that nice. The first two stanzas read like that slow admission of guilt, but then right after asking forgiveness, by way of explaining himself, the speaker relishes in the memory of the stolen plums, and finishes with that memory.

It makes me think of a close relationship you have with someone, and you know them so well that you know their favorite things -- and somehow along the way they kind of became your favorite things, too. So it sort of serves as a poem of familiarity and friendship, even though it's highlighting that part of familiarity where people are maybe too familiar.

Pretty much guaranteed to make me smile every time.

Always a pleasure to read someone's thoughts with substantive background. This was beautiful to read. Exactly what I'm after.

Also, a beautiful poem. I'm clearly colored by your reading ;), but nothing wrong with that -- I can feel that tension between how the poem reads, slower and contemplative, savoring the ideas, and then a conclusion drawn in the same way that stands in stark contrast to the way the poem reads. Very cool affect on me.

Is that still a poem? If not, what made Williams' version one? The pauses at the end of each line? The way it flowed differently? The way it looks? What about the stanzas? Were the breaks between them just for visual purposes. — T Clark

Music to my ears. The exact sort of thing I'm asking after.

:) Thank goodness. I didn't want any bad blood after so much good interaction. And I appreciate being corrected. It's always better to change beliefs to what's true than hold onto what we think is false.

Love him.

I went to look at his page on Poetry Foundation and didn't like any of the poems they had on offer as much as This is Just To Say:

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

One of my favorite gems.

Heh, yes, feel free to skip over the wacky thoughts. :D I appreciate everything you've contributed, and definitely do not want to lose that feeling of poetry, or the interpretation of poetry, in the wacky thoughts.

Sorry. I don't mean to be dismissive. You're right that it's important to get the facts correct, and I made a mistake. I was hoping the mistake wasn't critical, though, to the point -- but apparently I was wrong there too.