"Poems begin for me somewhere in the middle of the middle (the poet is perpetually assigned the 'it' role in a kind of aesthetic monkey-in-the-middle game, trying to catch things from competing and irreconcilable interests and desires)."
- Charles Bernstein, from '12 of 20 questions' on Rob McLennan's blog.
Below: a still from Neil Plenge's video The Answer (2003), featuring Charles Bernstein.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
the 'it' role
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Sorry stu, but I do not get it, specially this part, which is almost half
ReplyDelete" (the poet is perpetually assigned the 'it' role in a kind of aesthetic monkey-in-the-middle game,"
a clue?
Who's "it" in this monkey-in-the-middle game? Here's a clue from James Tate.
ReplyDeleteTeaching the Ape to Write Poems
They didn't have much trouble
teaching the ape to write poems:
first they strapped him into the chair,
then tied the pencil around his hand
(the paper had already been nailed down).
Then Dr. Bluespire leaned over his shoulder
and whispered into his ear:
"You look like a god sitting there.
Why don't you try writing something?"
And here's a quote I almost remember: "It used to be said that millions of monkeys typing gibberish would eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the internet, we know this isn't true."
Mariana: 'Monkey in the middle' is the American version of 'Piggy in the middle', which Wiktionary defines as "a children's game in which two players keep an object away from a third player (who is in between them) by throwing it past that player."
ReplyDeleteThe 'it' role is the role of the 'monkey' or 'pig' in this game. Are you familiar with this sort of game?
David: That's such a great quote, isn't it?