{"id":2294,"date":"2012-11-10T14:43:14","date_gmt":"2012-11-10T21:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/?p=2294"},"modified":"2012-11-10T14:49:03","modified_gmt":"2012-11-10T21:49:03","slug":"2294","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/2012\/11\/2294\/","title":{"rendered":"an art of words and sugar"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>The problem here for Republicans is not policy but delicacy \u00e2\u20ac\u201d speaking about culturally sensitive and philosophically complex issues with reflection and prudence.<br \/>\nCharles Krauthammer, &#8220;The Way Forward,&#8221; Washington Post, November 8, 2012<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I had to copy this here. It seems quite blatantly invalid.  <\/p>\n<p>Language itself is unreliable, a fluffy icing. The problem is always underneath. The problem is more fundamental, the taste and nutritional value of the cake. Call it policy or integrity or intention or belief. <\/p>\n<p>The quote leads me to reflect on poetry, an art of words and sugar.  <\/p>\n<p>Marianne Moore&#8217;s essay, &#8220;A Burning Desire to be Explicit,&#8221; wraps up with a couple of quotes about using language, about writing, even (taking a stretch) about poetry: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In response to being questioned about choosing a career in law: &#8220;I think it was the fascination of using words in a way that would be effective.&#8221; (Lord Birkett, a British judge)<\/li>\n<li>William Faulkner: &#8220;And what should it [writing] do? It should help a man endure by lifting up his heart.&#8221;  <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Neither of those aims sounds much better to me than &#8220;delicacy.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>As a child I was fascinated by the claimed efficacy of litanies, novenas, acts of contrition. <\/p>\n<p>Now I wonder about poetry&#8217;s capability as a corrosive agent, a cleanser of language, a scrubber effective against the sticky cloying plaques. <\/p>\n<p>Even if by doing that it must destroy itself in favor of silence or sensation. Something more true. <\/p>\n<p>*<\/p>\n<p>A poem for poetry: <\/p>\n<p>(from <em>Poems for Last October<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>Misinformed<\/p>\n<p>A poetry of collapsible dangers<\/p>\n<p>marked by kindness<\/p>\n<p>artificial scarcity<br \/>\nreal limits<\/p>\n<p>how to do it<br \/>\nwhat to do<\/p>\n<p>outline the edges<br \/>\nof an object<br \/>\nwith a sentence<\/p>\n<p>block printing falls<br \/>\nin softness like a<br \/>\nline of dominoes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The problem here for Republicans is not policy but delicacy \u00e2\u20ac\u201d speaking about culturally sensitive and philosophically complex issues with reflection and prudence. Charles Krauthammer, &#8220;The Way Forward,&#8221; Washington Post, November 8, 2012 I&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2294"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2300,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2294\/revisions\/2300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}