tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post6017288215841809980..comments2024-03-29T07:33:59.039+13:00Comments on The Imaginary Museum: Frost / Nixon or Ross / White?Dr Jack Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01805945600952222957noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-78133135602377583592008-12-11T23:24:00.000+13:002008-12-11T23:24:00.000+13:00Gabriel - thanks for your thanks! Yes it took some...Gabriel - thanks for your thanks! Yes it took some time I got iTunes which worked well for the interview.<BR/><BR/>I actually wished the interviews were much longer. Both of you interacted so well and Jack and yourself speak so well.<BR/><BR/>I've seen some of your witty videos - they were interesting! Certainly an interesting "take" on things! <BR/><BR/>Is there a comic element in Jack's works also? !!Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10272507198753290435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-53215393446877620702008-12-11T23:17:00.000+13:002008-12-11T23:17:00.000+13:00"There's a certain literalism about it which isn't..."There's a certain literalism about it which isn't quite my angle (though I am interested in the way the voices get more and more resistant to being packaged up so conveniently in Merrill's epic poem)."<BR/><BR/>These voices - the polyvocality? they rebel? The poet as (as near to madness as Hamlet, or Lear at least, not as Ophelia drowned, or as blind as Oedipus.) They resist as the author cannot control them? He is "a another" if not dead? The voices "turning and turning"... The android - Frankenstein. Christabel. Like the puppet taking over! Like in a fairy story! In the 2001 Nights! The move from modernism to postmodernism? Magical strange and dark? (It's often hard to see the dividing point... <BR/><BR/>Yeats is another great poet...Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10272507198753290435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-18999743260202852092008-12-11T23:04:00.000+13:002008-12-11T23:04:00.000+13:00I was a bit baffled by Merrill's great work (unfo...I was a bit baffled by Merrill's great work (unfortunately I have never owned copy - must acquire one - I have some of his poems) but I was interested in the idea - and I realise that Merrill seems to actually believes he is talking to Auden etc - the literalism you refer to. (Or he makes it seem as such.) <BR/><BR/>I am not saying your method in the REM books is parallel,but I connected to your interest in "the occult" (for want of a better term) but it's strange but perhaps trivial how I "got to" Apuleus via a writer writing about Merrill etc!) <BR/><BR/>An acquaintance - John Herbert - mentioned Merrill and Lowell and one other as amongst the greatest US poets of the Ashbery /O'Hara generation.Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10272507198753290435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-89296826632314278792008-12-11T07:44:00.000+13:002008-12-11T07:44:00.000+13:00Richard - well, yes, I have a copy of The Changing...Richard - well, yes, I have a copy of <EM>The Changing Light at Sandover</EM> and have read the whole thing with considerable enjoyment. It's a very different approach from mine -- more like Yeats's <EM>A Vision</EM>, I'd say. Merrill really does consult a series of visionary voices and gets advice from them. There's a certain literalism about it which isn't quite my angle (though I am interested in the way the voices get more and more resistant to being packaged up so conveniently in Merrill's epic poem).Dr Jack Rosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01805945600952222957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-17308721350125096352008-12-10T21:48:00.000+13:002008-12-10T21:48:00.000+13:00Thanks Richard. Yeah I'm thinking of creating a re...Thanks Richard. Yeah I'm thinking of creating a real player version of my website. I suspect that a lot of people don't get to watch the vids due to lack of quicktime. I for one can't be bothered downloading the right software for sites that my computer can't play. Thanks for making the effort.The Whiteboardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09715495357806106609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-28005111592694670462008-12-10T01:48:00.000+13:002008-12-10T01:48:00.000+13:00I had to download a programme to watch but so far ...I had to download a programme to watch but so far it is fascinating. GW interviews with great discernment...<BR/>Apuleius - I got to The Golden Ass via a book that included a study of James Merrill who bases one of his (typically complex almost impossibly arcane and sybilline) poems on the Cupid and Psyche section in that book* ...<BR/>but I found it very easy to get copies of Graves translation BTW.<BR/><BR/>I'm still interested in digging into your books and attempting something - some scrawlings and ramblings on paper about your books... (I love chess but while my brother was great on maths and puzzles etc - I am not so good - so not too much deciphering of the Lullian codes for me! - they seem to have become a trilogy and they form one in my mind - a thematic trilogy...)))<BR/><BR/>I like the idea of you basing in the "occult" or the arcane (the power of the Church for centuries surely lay in its mystery (and thus it's poetry) not it's "truth" - hence also the use of Latin.<BR/><BR/>Trouble in mind - yes that multifacet title and that "line" has been haunting me... when I have time will watch other videos/interviews and want to see one on EMO. [There I feel translation (in its widest sense) and of course stories inside stories as in the Arabian Nights... is a big question or issue.) <BR/><BR/>You certainly make or have trouble [..in..mind...] for those readers you don't want Jack!<BR/><BR/>Re Merrill - is Changing Light at Sandhover one of your arcane or "occult" references or "inspirations"? ...I know you have the book!<BR/><BR/>I think they - the interviews - are great so far. <BR/><BR/>Festina lente...<BR/><BR/>Richard<BR/><BR/><BR/>*Re-Making It New: Contemporary American Poetry and the Modernist Tradition <BR/>by Lynn Keller, Albert Gelpi, PH.D. (Editor), Ross Posnock (Editor) <BR/><BR/>"Re-making It New" explores how modernist poetry of the first half of this century functions as a tradition for contemporary American poets. Keller examines the careers of four representative poets--John Ashbery, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Creeley, and James Merrill--to show how they extend and modify modernist techniques and attitudesRichardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10272507198753290435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-49947792146145466692008-12-09T16:23:00.000+13:002008-12-09T16:23:00.000+13:00'Nuff said- Ed.'Nuff said<BR/>- Ed.Dr Jack Rosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01805945600952222957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-12253670524459954262008-12-09T16:16:00.000+13:002008-12-09T16:16:00.000+13:00- So er... did ya see that Tons-o-Fanta fing den?-...- So er... did ya see that Tons-o-Fanta fing den?<BR/>- Tons-o-Fanta? Watsat?<BR/>- Coupla blokes sittin aroun drinkin bottles o fanta or somming.<BR/>- Nevererd ovit...The Whiteboardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09715495357806106609noreply@blogger.com