Comments on: Week Three: Paterson as a Three-Dimensional Poem http://www.hyperrhiz.net/symposium/2007/07/29/week-three-paterson-as-a-three-dimensional-poem/ Electronic Literature Symposium 2007 Fri, 14 Dec 2007 20:26:41 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Joe Milutis http://www.hyperrhiz.net/symposium/2007/07/29/week-three-paterson-as-a-three-dimensional-poem/comment-page-1/#comment-37 Joe Milutis Sat, 04 Aug 2007 01:24:18 +0000 http://www.hyperrhiz.net/symposium/2007/07/29/week-three-paterson-as-a-three-dimensional-poem/#comment-37 Seems like you'd have a better argument for 4d, given Williams' seeming obsession over a certain irretrievability of time through the agency of the falls, even as he traces time's snail tracks through the archive. 3d implies a kind of sculptural, fine-artsy control that I don't think really does it for me. I've tried to encounter the poem using the blog format at _New Jersey as an Impossible Object_ (impossibleobject.blogspot.com) as a way to somehow interface the flow of Paterson, while letting it get away with itself. Also, you mentioned in an earlier comment how the Penn Sound recordings do not sound like Williams is really doing his line the way it is written. I think this is important to think about and it's why I don't buy completely the notion that his spatial innovations constitute a score for its "reading." The contribution of Williams’ variable foot to a kind of musical (or anti-musical) text seems to me have been overplayed in general, although you are right to point out the utter importance of "measure" to the poem. No matter how much I’m interested in appreciating the sound that resonates the pure textual materiality of Paterson, I can’t hear any relation between the way he reads in these recordings and the way the words are arrayed on the page. Where this might intersect with epoetry can be in the notion of how a text is destined or where it ends up. Its 4d drama, if you will. Williams is one of those poets would point to as someone for whom the notion that a poetic text is destined to be spoken or even sung is bunk. Did Williams think it was bunk too and were his performances ironic genuflections to the aura of artist? Not sure. But I think many new epoets are interesting precisely because they choose to embody what could be a nihilistic or logorrheic floating scrawl into a live embodiment (and you mention aya, whose doll piece does this very well). Seems like you’d have a better argument for 4d, given Williams’ seeming obsession over a certain irretrievability of time through the agency of the falls, even as he traces time’s snail tracks through the archive. 3d implies a kind of sculptural, fine-artsy control that I don’t think really does it for me. I’ve tried to encounter the poem using the blog format at _New Jersey as an Impossible Object_ (impossibleobject.blogspot.com) as a way to somehow interface the flow of Paterson, while letting it get away with itself.
Also, you mentioned in an earlier comment how the Penn Sound recordings do not sound like Williams is really doing his line the way it is written. I think this is important to think about and it’s why I don’t buy completely the notion that his spatial innovations constitute a score for its “reading.” The contribution of Williams’ variable foot to a kind of musical (or anti-musical) text seems to me have been overplayed in general, although you are right to point out the utter importance of “measure” to the poem. No matter how much I’m interested in appreciating the sound that resonates the pure textual materiality of Paterson, I can’t hear any relation between the way he reads in these recordings and the way the words are arrayed on the page.
Where this might intersect with epoetry can be in the notion of how a text is destined or where it ends up. Its 4d drama, if you will. Williams is one of those poets would point to as someone for whom the notion that a poetic text is destined to be spoken or even sung is bunk. Did Williams think it was bunk too and were his performances ironic genuflections to the aura of artist? Not sure. But I think many new epoets are interesting precisely because they choose to embody what could be a nihilistic or logorrheic floating scrawl into a live embodiment (and you mention aya, whose doll piece does this very well).

]]> By: davin http://www.hyperrhiz.net/symposium/2007/07/29/week-three-paterson-as-a-three-dimensional-poem/comment-page-1/#comment-34 davin Mon, 30 Jul 2007 13:50:38 +0000 http://www.hyperrhiz.net/symposium/2007/07/29/week-three-paterson-as-a-three-dimensional-poem/#comment-34 I was wondering if you had any examples of electronic pieces that might explore this idea of 3-Dimensional poetry. I've seen 3-Dimensionality explored quite literally in terms of interface... But I was wondering if you might have a small set of examples that you could offer up. This research/writing on Williams is really cool, by the way. When we are all done, you should edit it and find a place for it. I was wondering if you had any examples of electronic pieces that might explore this idea of 3-Dimensional poetry. I’ve seen 3-Dimensionality explored quite literally in terms of interface… But I was wondering if you might have a small set of examples that you could offer up.

This research/writing on Williams is really cool, by the way. When we are all done, you should edit it and find a place for it.

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