The most important concept that I grasped from Johanna Drucker's "Visual and Literary Materiality on Modern Art" was that the poem is autonomous, no longer dependent and representing something but is its own reality, its own thought. She starts out by talking about the importance of Symbolism in the development of art, making it no longer a representation of thought on paper, but a visual experiment that challenges the way it is portrayed. It challenges this by becoming its own thought by the way it uses space on a page. A very important example of this is Mellarme's A Throw of the Dice by challenging the poetic form of the poem, making it Symbolist art.
When we talk about "poetry" we have to gain an understanding of what makes it "real" as well as how it relates to other forms of art. One of my favorite quotes from Johanna Drucker's essay is "Differentiation and negation, a sense that poetry was in part defined by a contrast with what it was not: this harbingers the typically modern definition of artistic practices as self consciously situated within the cultural contexts where they gain their identity through contrast. Such a definition marks out the activity of resistance as a fundamental task for aesthetics (Drucker 51)." In this quote we see the inherent personality of poetry no longer representing but becoming a tangible idea; the idea of resistance.
It was hard to follow Drucker's analyzation of Mellarme's A Throw of the Dice, but I think the main point to be taken out from this was that it was a great example of how the form and visual outlook of the poem plays a large role in its tangibility, and transformation from imitation of thought to thought itself.
Personally, I agree that poems have now taken on a tangible form of no longer being representation. By displaying something that visually enhances the outlook of the poem, this brings it into a new realm of being, by no longer trying to be. By this I mean that it gives less of a representation of thought, and more of the idea that it is actually thought itself. This is very difficult to explain, but in sum, I feel that the way words are experimentally presented change the writing into something real.
I also got the idea that poetry could become thought rather than simply represent it after reading this piece. For me, as well, this was a difficult notion to fully grasp or explain.
ReplyDeleteWhat it did make me wonder, though, was whether you thought other forms of art could also be thought rather than represent it. I assume they can. If so, what other art forms do you see as "thought"? (This article really redifines the way I use the word "thought.")
I think that you explained your ideas about the new age poems well. I have to disagree with you when you say that poems no longer take on a form of representation. There are still a lot of poems that don't do sort of experimentation and still work. These pieces still are a representation even if they aren't in a new form.
ReplyDeleteI think you really shed some light on this article for me. I agree that poems are moving from less representational to more tangible, but I don't think that transition is complete. Do you think Drucker is suggesting that poetry is one of the other? I, personally, struggled with if this article thinks that experimental typography is fun or a science.
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