Pages from a Notebook

There will be a time when the above title seems distinctly anachronistic; perhaps such a time has already arrived. However I was browsing the seminal New American Poetry 1945-60 anthology this morning, and came across Robert Duncan's notes on poetics with this title. Two sections I particularly liked:

 

Under the subheading 'On Quality and Poems: A longing grows to return to the open composition in which the accidents and imperfections of speech might awake intimations of human being. He searches for quality like a jeweler - and he is dependent one suspects on whether his emotion (which he polishes) is a diamond or not. That is, he would attempt to cut any stone diamond-wise, to force his emotion to the test. He would discover much if he also would cut paper-crowns or scatter the pebbles and litter of a mind wherever he goes.' Duncan embracing the shifts and flux of human sensation and perception and finding room for them in his poetic jewellery. Still, there is always a place for a diamond...

 

Second, in 'On the Secret Doctrine': Why should one's art then be an achievement? Why not, more, an adventure? On one hand one produces only what one knows. Well, what else can one accomplish. The thrill is just that one did not know one knew it. But now I like to wander about in my work, writing so rapidly that I might overlook manipulations and design; the poetic experience advancing as far as one can (as far as one dares) toward an adventure. All design here is a recovery if it belongs to ones art; a discovery if it belongs to ones adventuring courage.'

 

Pioneering spirit here clearly, and another dig at the tight, sometimes constrictive poetics of the New Critics and other conservative/ formalist schools. But isn't there a wonderful grain of truth in that idea that the thrill of writing with what feels like a sudden electric authenticity is that you are writing 'what one knows' and 'did not know one knew it'. The discovery/ adventure metaphor is very apt here, though other writers (Stephen King) talk about uncovering, recovery, like wonderful excavation of a fossil, something buried deep in the individual or collective psyche. The inward spiral of psychic archaeology superimposed over the more linear trajectory of the journey then.  Gem mining. I get the feeling that Duncan isn't so keen on using the precision instruments though (or at least, not to admit to) but more of the hope that this following a lead will lead to a lucky strike. There are drawbacks to too carefree an approach of course, but such an attitude is liberating in that it gives one permission to make mistakes and take risks as they are all part of the process of finding a voice. The new voice you might already have...