tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3476608869545069574.post4678143000066976362..comments2024-03-26T17:42:15.553-07:00Comments on Poetry of Gonzalinho da Costa: A Theory of PoetryGonzalinho da Costahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12300912197641837181noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3476608869545069574.post-43929171411392137082020-01-24T18:56:18.950-08:002020-01-24T18:56:18.950-08:00My blog post on Godel's Theorems:
https://odd...My blog post on Godel's Theorems:<br /><br />https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2020/01/why-is-kurt-godel-significant.html<br /><br />GonzalinhoGonzalinho da Costahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12300912197641837181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3476608869545069574.post-10089268375218502822017-02-04T16:46:19.343-08:002017-02-04T16:46:19.343-08:00“Hinges” (2014) by Melissa Stein exemplifies the t...“Hinges” (2014) by Melissa Stein exemplifies the theory of poetry above. The poem is published below, courtesy of the author.<br /><br />HINGES<br /><br />You opened this door. Forced it back<br />on its hinges, drove in the thin wedge, saying<br /><br />“I may need to enter at a moment’s notice.”<br />But don’t you know that metal has memory, alive<br /><br />the way rising dough resists a probing finger,<br />or trodden grass springs up against the foot’s imprint.<br /><br />Even flesh that retains the rare bloom of a bruise<br />soon lets it go. You keep these iron plates apart<br /><br />so long they rust apart, flaking<br />into the slightest breeze, and still,<br /><br />they remember what it means to rest<br />against each other, folded like wings.<br /><br />The poem is about an object, hinges. It is also about more than an everyday object—it is about an object that stands for more than itself and beyond itself. Hinges in the poem stand for resistance against aggression—when the door is closed, so are the hinges, resting, “folded like wings,” and when the door is forced open, so are the hinges, “iron plates apart,” rusting, increasing their capacity for resistance. Skillfully, the author invokes other metaphors—rising dough, trodden grass, a blooming bruise—that, personified, retain the memory of their baseline state before they had been somehow agitated, or possibly, violated. So it is with hinges. Hinges, like human beings, remember their peaceable condition before they had been so forcibly disturbed.<br /><br />In the broadest sense, hinges in the poem stand for resistance against aggression, specifically, the imposition of the will of one party against another’s, and the memory of the undisturbed condition before the assault, besides. Hinges in the poem symbolize a universal aspect of human experience—no one is a stranger to the experience of resistance against aggression.<br /><br />GonzalinhoGonzalinho da Costahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12300912197641837181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3476608869545069574.post-16502118516257446392017-02-04T16:42:06.024-08:002017-02-04T16:42:06.024-08:00“Anecdote of the Jar” illustrates the philosophy o...“Anecdote of the Jar” illustrates the philosophy of poetic composition in “Painting”:<br /><br />ANECDOTE OF THE JAR<br /><br />I placed a jar in Tennessee, <br />And round it was, upon a hill. <br />It made the slovenly wilderness <br />Surround that hill.<br /><br />The wilderness rose up to it,<br />And sprawled around, no longer wild. <br />The jar was round upon the ground <br />And tall and of a port in air.<br /><br />It took dominion everywhere. <br />The jar was gray and bare.<br />It did not give of bird or bush, <br />Like nothing else in Tennessee.<br /><br />Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)<br /><br />Link: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/3778 <br /><br />Plausible interpretations:<br /><br />This poem is about the relationship between man and nature, man being represented by the jar.<br /><br />Link: <br /><br />http://poetry.rapgenius.com/Wallace-stevens-anecdote-of-the-jar-annotated#note-1728752 <br /><br />The poem has its roots in John Keats’s Ode on a Grecian Urn. On one level, Anecdote is a commentary and comparison of Stevens’ own roots, a kind of critique of the poet’s homeland identification versus what one might have found in England, historically speaking. John Keats, as sort of figurehead for quintessential British Romantic poetry, had his London and the high society art-critic world, the sonnet, strict meter, etc. Contrastingly, the American contemporary poet (at the time Stevens wrote the poem) had Tennessee (a slovenly wilderness), a model for a much different art and cultural milieu.<br /><br />...Note how the poem speaks on so many different levels. You can imagine yourself being the jar. You find yourself on a hill surrounded by the great outdoors. Suddenly, the wilderness rises up, transforms. Something opens up for you, this little glass jar of self is now surrounded by an entire dominion. (As an aside, a friend of Stevens has said that the word “dominion” was intended by the poet as a double entendre for the famous “Dominion Wide Mouth Jar.”<br /><br />The indication of the jar being placed in the Tennessee wilderness refers to the complexity of human feeling in the natural world. A wild wilderness rises up. The jar is fixed, gray and bare. And what becomes of it? “It did not give of bird or bush, like nothing else in Tennessee.” The all-important “it” must refer to the jar, and the insinuation is, that even in the throes of compelling and perhaps unavoidable natural events (hurricanes, cancer, even car accidents), still we can find a way to rise above and overcome what appears to be alien and unalterable circumstances. To “not give…” but continue to strive and be “a jar upon the ground.” <br /><br />Link: http://edwardnudelman.blogspot.com/2007/11/jar-in-tennessee.html <br /><br />GonzalinhoGonzalinho da Costahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12300912197641837181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3476608869545069574.post-72717635216168826672014-11-08T00:44:43.833-08:002014-11-08T00:44:43.833-08:00In case you're wondering, the book I'm rea...In case you're wondering, the book I'm reading is Peter Smith, An Introduction to Godel's Theorems (2007).<br /><br />GonzalinhoGonzalinho da Costahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12300912197641837181noreply@blogger.com