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Agenbite of Inwit, whole no. 4, Spring 1944
Page 9
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***************************************************************** Agenbite of Inwit -- Spring 1944 -- Page Nine ***************************************************************** En Garde Those personality charts remind me that Citizen Speer ascribed to me, in a back issue of Sus-Pro opinions which not only do I not hold, but which I have never set forth as my own opinions. I refer to the chart he drew, inscribing it as "Doc's". That chart should be inscribed with the name of the character in Anatole France's "Romance of the Queen Padaque" who spoke the paragraph I reproduced in my quotation page in Vagabondia. My own personal opinions are based upon Berran Wolf's volume "How to be Happy Though Human", and that book contains a number of charges which Fapa mems would find quite interesting. ... Any resemblance between "Seven Year WIllie", and what you might think it refers to, is probably just as it should be. Toward Yesterday To arms, the Philistines are coming! Here again is that asinine exposition, that definition of poetry is "beautiful thought, beautifully expressed." Tis true than many poems fall into such a category, but they form only a part of the vast literature of poetry. In actuality, potry is by no means, necessarily, "beautiful thoughts" -- the subject matter of most of the poetry of Baudelaire, Villon, Catullus, and, in our own time, Robinson, Jeffers -- to name a few -- is hardly beautiful. Nor, again, is poetry necessarily beautifully expressed. Look at the offtimes clumsy and slipshod verbiage of Walt Whitman -- yet, "Leaves of Grass" is as truly poetry as anything else which has so been labelled. I do not pretend to be able to pull and exact definition of poetry out of my hat; seriously, I doubt if an exact definition can be found, because poetry is the apotheosis of exactitude. Yet, I can and do state some of the elements, without which no lines can qualify as poetry. The fundamental element is transcendency. Be the subject matter ordinary, dull, earthy, disgusting, whatnot, a poem contains within itself a short exaltation which sweeps beyond the physical and semantic limitations of expression and communication; it is an attempt to describe the indescribable, to express the inexpressible, to sweep beyond the barriers of speech and written word, and convey some measure of feeling and impression from one human being to another which, even though this attempt be limited by the boundaries of even poetic verbiage, cannot be expressed in the exact measures of expositionary prose. In it, are some of the elements of music, for poetry is meant to be spoken. There are sweeps of sonorities -- sometimes by way of thyme, sometimes by the mere flow of words (as in Whiteman: with him, it is the sweep and grandeur of his lines which make "Leaves of Grass" poetry) -- there are conjured up emotions and impressions which statement alone could not achieve. People Stories Congrats on the cover, and thanx for the article on the BBC. The Peace Witness Whatever worthy personal motives lie behind the efforts of the sincere pacifist, peace propaganda in these times, under present conditions, can serve but one purpose -- to give aid and comfort to the enemy. As we write this, an expose of the "Peace Now" movement has just broken, showing the irrefutable tie-up between this movement and the Nazi-loving, anti-democratic elements behind "America First", and other fascist organizations. My personal opinion is that the inclusion of such material in our mailings is unwise, to say the least. The only effective way to fight for lasting and genuine peace is
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***************************************************************** Agenbite of Inwit -- Spring 1944 -- Page Nine ***************************************************************** En Garde Those personality charts remind me that Citizen Speer ascribed to me, in a back issue of Sus-Pro opinions which not only do I not hold, but which I have never set forth as my own opinions. I refer to the chart he drew, inscribing it as "Doc's". That chart should be inscribed with the name of the character in Anatole France's "Romance of the Queen Padaque" who spoke the paragraph I reproduced in my quotation page in Vagabondia. My own personal opinions are based upon Berran Wolf's volume "How to be Happy Though Human", and that book contains a number of charges which Fapa mems would find quite interesting. ... Any resemblance between "Seven Year WIllie", and what you might think it refers to, is probably just as it should be. Toward Yesterday To arms, the Philistines are coming! Here again is that asinine exposition, that definition of poetry is "beautiful thought, beautifully expressed." Tis true than many poems fall into such a category, but they form only a part of the vast literature of poetry. In actuality, potry is by no means, necessarily, "beautiful thoughts" -- the subject matter of most of the poetry of Baudelaire, Villon, Catullus, and, in our own time, Robinson, Jeffers -- to name a few -- is hardly beautiful. Nor, again, is poetry necessarily beautifully expressed. Look at the offtimes clumsy and slipshod verbiage of Walt Whitman -- yet, "Leaves of Grass" is as truly poetry as anything else which has so been labelled. I do not pretend to be able to pull and exact definition of poetry out of my hat; seriously, I doubt if an exact definition can be found, because poetry is the apotheosis of exactitude. Yet, I can and do state some of the elements, without which no lines can qualify as poetry. The fundamental element is transcendency. Be the subject matter ordinary, dull, earthy, disgusting, whatnot, a poem contains within itself a short exaltation which sweeps beyond the physical and semantic limitations of expression and communication; it is an attempt to describe the indescribable, to express the inexpressible, to sweep beyond the barriers of speech and written word, and convey some measure of feeling and impression from one human being to another which, even though this attempt be limited by the boundaries of even poetic verbiage, cannot be expressed in the exact measures of expositionary prose. In it, are some of the elements of music, for poetry is meant to be spoken. There are sweeps of sonorities -- sometimes by way of thyme, sometimes by the mere flow of words (as in Whiteman: with him, it is the sweep and grandeur of his lines which make "Leaves of Grass" poetry) -- there are conjured up emotions and impressions which statement alone could not achieve. People Stories Congrats on the cover, and thanx for the article on the BBC. The Peace Witness Whatever worthy personal motives lie behind the efforts of the sincere pacifist, peace propaganda in these times, under present conditions, can serve but one purpose -- to give aid and comfort to the enemy. As we write this, an expose of the "Peace Now" movement has just broken, showing the irrefutable tie-up between this movement and the Nazi-loving, anti-democratic elements behind "America First", and other fascist organizations. My personal opinion is that the inclusion of such material in our mailings is unwise, to say the least. The only effective way to fight for lasting and genuine peace is
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