from Julia, who was denied access
What’s at stake?
Everything’s at stake!! well, okay, not everything… here are some thoughts on poetry being “at stake” and Dictee:
I wouldn’t call Dictee poetry although there are some instances of poetry and poetic prose within the book. But as a whole it’s not just poetry; there are various kinds of writing: quoted historical ‘facts’ without sources, dialogue from nameless characters, scribbles taken from journals(?) or drafts(?), letters, etc. If one defines Dictee as poetry, it’s almost like taking the boundaries away from the definition, allowing anything to be poetry and if anything and everything can be poetry, then poetry doesn’t exist. And that, my friends, is just too utterly chaotic an idea for me to accept; it goes against how I see poetry, and that is as a kind of art. Other forms of writing can be ‘artistic’ as well, and I think Cha absolutely proves that point in Dictee. I also believe that Cha’s work is extremely valuable to us as it allows us to see beyond just poetry, that language and literature can be artistic without being strictly prose or poetry and personally, I see Cha’s work as a wonderful example of an artist re defining history.
As I read through the book, I’m reminded of several writers: Wang Ping (I think this is because I was reading _Of Flesh and Spirit_ between the Muses in Dictee, and they’re both Asian writers and both writing about their lives/history) Jean Genet (only because Cha seems to have her thought/writing process in plain view for her readers to see what she’s doing, just as how Genet was writing in _Our Lady of the Flowers_), Deborah Meadows (… there are just some parts in Cha’s work that is super abstract..like most of the Elitere section where it just seemed like Cha was doing word association), and finally, I’m reminded of that Beckett play where there’s just a talking mouth…I can’t remember the title, but if anyone wanted to make some parts of Dictee into a performance piece, they’d have to borrow from Beckett’s idea about just having the mouth visible, especially for those parts where Cha’s summoning the Diseuse and where she’s re working language and writing about silence, voice, the veil, etc.
It’s also been suggested that I take a look at Derrida’s Postcard… I’m wondering if any of you are familiar with the book and if so, is it in any way similar to what Cha is doing in Dictee? (I couldn’t get a hold of the book because it’s been checked out of Hamilton and I’m too nice to recall it…)
Everything’s at stake!! well, okay, not everything… here are some thoughts on poetry being “at stake” and Dictee:
I wouldn’t call Dictee poetry although there are some instances of poetry and poetic prose within the book. But as a whole it’s not just poetry; there are various kinds of writing: quoted historical ‘facts’ without sources, dialogue from nameless characters, scribbles taken from journals(?) or drafts(?), letters, etc. If one defines Dictee as poetry, it’s almost like taking the boundaries away from the definition, allowing anything to be poetry and if anything and everything can be poetry, then poetry doesn’t exist. And that, my friends, is just too utterly chaotic an idea for me to accept; it goes against how I see poetry, and that is as a kind of art. Other forms of writing can be ‘artistic’ as well, and I think Cha absolutely proves that point in Dictee. I also believe that Cha’s work is extremely valuable to us as it allows us to see beyond just poetry, that language and literature can be artistic without being strictly prose or poetry and personally, I see Cha’s work as a wonderful example of an artist re defining history.
As I read through the book, I’m reminded of several writers: Wang Ping (I think this is because I was reading _Of Flesh and Spirit_ between the Muses in Dictee, and they’re both Asian writers and both writing about their lives/history) Jean Genet (only because Cha seems to have her thought/writing process in plain view for her readers to see what she’s doing, just as how Genet was writing in _Our Lady of the Flowers_), Deborah Meadows (… there are just some parts in Cha’s work that is super abstract..like most of the Elitere section where it just seemed like Cha was doing word association), and finally, I’m reminded of that Beckett play where there’s just a talking mouth…I can’t remember the title, but if anyone wanted to make some parts of Dictee into a performance piece, they’d have to borrow from Beckett’s idea about just having the mouth visible, especially for those parts where Cha’s summoning the Diseuse and where she’s re working language and writing about silence, voice, the veil, etc.
It’s also been suggested that I take a look at Derrida’s Postcard… I’m wondering if any of you are familiar with the book and if so, is it in any way similar to what Cha is doing in Dictee? (I couldn’t get a hold of the book because it’s been checked out of Hamilton and I’m too nice to recall it…)
posted by susan at 12:41 PM
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