Auden is convincing, if not demonstrably right about poetry's power to make anything happen, and yet I feel that he, too, carried on as if it could, despite everything, have a good effect on the world.
I agree and think evidenced by Auden's hortatory (if also somber) third section of the poem, and its frantic, runaway meter. Also that he says "makes nothing happen" rather than something like "is not important" seems very considered. But, yes can think of revolutionary poets who were at least a part of making things happen, like Petõfi for one and I'm sure I'm missing more obvious examples.
What enabled Guston to "address the world beyond the haven of one’s sensibility" so, so well is that he had a fully developed and even sublime sensibility. Few artists preoccupied with meaning do, and their "statements" often fall flat. What Guston communicated could not be written in an op-ed.
Thank you for this. The ending paragraph is sticking to me 💭
This is the heart of the whole “thing”. ❤️
Thank you, Michelle!
This is a really important line of inquiry Carter, thank you for pursuing it. It's also a beautifully designed essay I happen to "like."
Thank you, Linda, for your comment on form as well as content.
Yes what is so important about liking art “
Excellent understanding of the very complexity of early abstract expressionists.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and insight.
Thank you, Nola
The answer is Yes! yes yes yes.
Indeed, yes . . .
"....Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth"
Auden is convincing, if not demonstrably right about poetry's power to make anything happen, and yet I feel that he, too, carried on as if it could, despite everything, have a good effect on the world.
I agree and think evidenced by Auden's hortatory (if also somber) third section of the poem, and its frantic, runaway meter. Also that he says "makes nothing happen" rather than something like "is not important" seems very considered. But, yes can think of revolutionary poets who were at least a part of making things happen, like Petõfi for one and I'm sure I'm missing more obvious examples.
What enabled Guston to "address the world beyond the haven of one’s sensibility" so, so well is that he had a fully developed and even sublime sensibility. Few artists preoccupied with meaning do, and their "statements" often fall flat. What Guston communicated could not be written in an op-ed.
Thanks for writing this.
Yes, Guston was not making statements but, from the depths of his often tormented sensibility, conveying important meanings.