Gertrude Stein “If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso”

Breaks down traditional rules of grammar syntax, discursive language to show the polysemy (multiple meanings) inherent in language (language is arbitrary set of rules)—poetry plays upon the magic of language that “breaks the rules”—makes us look at the world in a new fresh way

It’s not supposed to “make sense” in traditional sense—what are the connecting tools in this work: repetition of words, flip syntax, rhymes, Napoleon=Picasso (symbolism?) –innovators, “If I told him”—all conditional? 

“I judge judge.” –I call into question judgment itself  Why are you defensive?  What do you fear?  Insanity, lack of meaning that underlies the supposed organization of our linguistic structure

“Let me recite what history teaches. History teaches.”  History is arbitrary?  Recite it but cannot make it mean (Who came first, Napoleon first—nonsense of history)

Poetry is more than just the “denotation” sense of the words—the sounds themselves have meaning

Breaking away from literal meaning

William Carlos Williams

“The Great Figure”  what’s missing from this poem—exposition, explanation (doesn’t tell us what to mean); gives us a sense of his ongoing impressions of the fire truck, the five, etc., doesn’t try to pretend that there is a single moment/meaning

We must provide some element of “meaning”  Symbol of God (gold, five, sacred no.)

It anticipates film—visual images edited together in a sequence=sum of parts is greater than the whole

Bring your imagination into the work—not just leave it on hold

Take out all the filling, verbosity, extra words and get the essential images (imagism)—exclude editorializing and commentary that gets in the way of the reader’s appreciation of the image/poem

How would Williams or Stein written “Home Burial”

A shovel sits 

Next to the stairs

Through window

A fresh mound

Wife blames husband

“Between Walls”

Images—walls and cinders/green bottle pieces  beauty even in a place of ugliness and destruction

Open-ended—asks you to respond

“Dance Russe”

Russia ballet compared to him dancing naked by himself—liberating experience—being free—able to define himself (happy genius)

Art is about what makes us unique, ourselves, liberation from the ideas of others

“To Elsie”

American Dream gone bust—guys getting women pregnant, no love, no tradition, numb terror, 

Elsie’s purity—beyond the gauds she wears—all we have is Elsie, not the deer—beauty is there if you allow yourself to see it, not control it.