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Your post seemed like typical ideological communication - mis-quoting or mis-reading things said - picking up on words out of context, because the argument jars with your own ideas and you can't deal with it honestly. But maybe I'm mis-reading you - perhaps you could give me an example of a modern socially significant poem that had an impact on you.
I notice this is something you do: someone disagrees with you, you start accusing them of "point-scoring mentality" and "ideological misquoting." Stop doing that please. Maybe I didn't get exactly what you were trying to say, but I'm NOT trying to defend any dogma. I just reacted to what I thought was a reductionist and grandstanding argument about poetry "being dead" or some rubbish like that; it has nothing to do with me trying to defend certain preconceived ideas.
OK - fair enough - maybe I wasn't being clear. But in my experience people often misquote or mis-read or deliberately want to misinterpret, or leap onto something which is utterly minor because of some ideological fixedness in their heads (and practical attitude). I once said to a friend that Stalinism didn't only rule by terror. He ranted on and on at me literally for 5 minutes without letting me correct him, drowning out my "but..buts" because he'd somehow not heard the 'only" bit. Anyway, as i said - maybe I wasn't being clear.
For the moment, can't comment on the rap group you mentioned, because I don't know them. I'll try to check them out.
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He was specifically criticising Rimbaud's poetry, like poetry as an institution, as a social relationship inimical to "the effective realisation of the imagination in the world." - that is, Rimbaud "inevitably" failed in his genuine search for the magical through poems. It's not such a big deal. You can be moved by his poems or not - that's not the point.
Why is that not the point? I think that is the only point. It doesn't matter to me what Rimbaud failed at, what his personal vision and artistic ambitions were; the only thing I and anyone else have access to is what he left behind; this is what we should judge him by, not his failure to reinstill the magic element in poetry (as if that was a realistic project to begin with).
What I was trying to say was that your personal taste is not the point when discussing poetry as a social relation, as related to the aims and historical time and place of the poems, for the writer as well as the reader. I like some of Salvador Dali's paintings but this is essentially separate from considering what a scumbag in almost every way he was. And his social influence was, for the most part, just as unbearable. Leni Riefenstahl's movie of the 1936 Olympic games (Triumph of the Will, iirc) was interesting and aesthetically quite pleasing - but its ideological function was horrific. etc....
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which is still far better than loads of Leninist garbage that permeates the libcom site here and there. Sheer poetry.any examples of what constitutes such Leninist garbage?
The ICC (or " the icy sea" - because that's what they try to push people into); some of the people who take the ICC seriously; posi and The Commune; irrationallyangry and the SP; people who think that they're a vanguard by virtue of their 'consciousness'....But this thread is not the place for a debate on "Leninist garbage".
I thought you were saying that poetry can't be socially significant, even the stuff that is not "hackish didacticism"; I guess I missed your point. Sorry.
I notice this is something you do: someone disagrees with you, you start accusing them of "point-scoring mentality" and "ideological misquoting." Stop doing that please. Maybe I didn't get exactly what you were trying to say, but I'm NOT trying to defend any dogma. I just reacted to what I thought was a reductionist and grandstanding argument about poetry "being dead" or some rubbish like that; it has nothing to do with me trying to defend certain preconceived ideas.
Ok then; thanks for setting me straight.
Of course poetry is limited, but if you enjoy it (and I personally enjoy it the same way I enjoy music rather than the way I enjoy reading prose, so I don't think there's any contest between prose and poetry, which is what I thought you were saying above), then there is something to it. IMO what Knabb was saying failed to make the distinction between poetry as formalism (a notion that does deserve to be criticized) and poetry as human activity, something that goes far beyond the "high" poetry of canonical writers; this is why I mentioned a rap group in the same sentence as Rimbaud. I don't think they should be viewed as intrinsically different; only by putting Rimabud "on a pedestal," as you say, does poetry appear to be a useless echo of the past.
Why is that not the point? I think that is the only point. It doesn't matter to me what Rimbaud failed at, what his personal vision and artistic ambitions were; the only thing I and anyone else have access to is what he left behind; this is what we should judge him by, not his failure to reinstill the magic element in poetry (as if that was a realistic project to begin with).
I agree with this, but again there must be a distinction between 'poetry' as a body of formal appearances and actual poetry, as something that is constantly evolving.
any examples of what constitutes such Leninist garbage?