Difficult Chrestomathies*
Examples of Difficult Poetry
If we're going to communicate on the subject of difficult poetry, my feeling is we need to have some examples -- one person's tough nut to crack is another's dish of flan. Please feel free to rearrange this page as appropriate, and add your selection below with a comment as to why you find this piece is difficult.
At present, I can't think of anything myself, other than long-form works by John Ashbery, such as "Flow Chart." More on this later.
Examples from the Pinsky Essay
James Joyce, ULYSSES
Examples from the Burt Essay
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Rae Armantrout, Veil
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Forrest Gander, Torn Awake
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Thylias Moss, Last Chance for the Tarzan Holler
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Jennifer Moxley, The Sense Record
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Lytle Shaw, The Lobe
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Liz Waldner, Dark Would (the missing person)
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Difficult Poetics in Antiquity
One of the most difficult poets I've ever read is Persius — beautiful, crazy stuff.
No wonder you think
The gods’ faces ought to be gilded; you assume they’d
Be proud of it. You say, “Let’s set at the head of this
Bronze brotherhood the one who sends us the nicest
Dreams, and none of the sticky kind. Let’s give him
A gold beard.” So much for Numa’s earthenware, and
The bronze vessels of Saturn; so much for
Crockery. They’ve all been replaced by gold.
More here. The difficulty I see in Persius is scholastic, just like the work of Eliot and Pond: the text is so peppered with mythic and topical imagery, seemingly with no set program, that you can't figure out what Persius is getting at. If you aren't a scholar, you might want to back away slowly and shut the door before anyone notices you.
Sources
- Robert Pinsky's essay... http://www.slate.com/id/2164823/pagenum/all/#page_start
- Stephen Burt's essay... http://www.believermag.com/issues/200405/?read=article_burt
- Source 3
- Source 4
Source Name |
Page # |
Quote |
Encyclopedia of Stars |
44, 46 |
"The stars are the heavens" |
* Chrestomathy (krstm): A collection of choice passages from an author or authors, esp. one compiled to assist in the acquirement of a language. 1832 Fraser's Mag. V. 171 The chrestomathy and diamond edition of that living polygot book of man. 1847 DORN (title) Chrestomathy of the Pushtu or Afghan Language. 1854 KEIGHTLEY Mythol. Anc. Gr. & Italy (ed. 3) 439 Fragments of the Chrestomathy of Proclus. 1881 Academy No. 452. 14 The texts..have been augmented, and now form a genuine Béarnais chrestomathy. 1883 American VI. 10 Omitting some pieces, adding others, and constructing what we may call a Browning chrestomathy. (OED OnLine: http://dictionary.oed.com/)
Comments (1)
Anonymous said
at 11:29 am on Aug 31, 2007
I'm currently reading Ulysses (started up in June for Bloomsday, but only got to ch. 6 - Hades!) -- will look for examples of the text that are particularly "difficult" and present them here.
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