Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Response to Darin's Junyard Quotes 3 - Week 4
I think Darin has a good point. Specificity does, in fact, aid humor and the examples he uses to demonstrate that concept work very well. However, it is possible to be too specific, too exact. Just as we have to be careful to not be too general in our poetry, we should also take heed in being so specific that confusion becomes the only reader response. It seems to be a delicate balance that we must strive to master. The Trisket example works because, although it is focused, it is not out of the realm of general uderstanding. Nearly everyone watching that scene will have a mental image they can use to understand the reference; however, no one will have exactly the same image of what exactly a Trisket is. The many interpretations are what help ground the dialogue while making it uniquely funny. The same appears to be true in poetry.
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True enough: you can overspecify. It's rare, however, in the poetry world, but you do find it. I don't think that Dickinson's "I heard a fly buzz when I died" would benefit from naming the actual genus of fly.
ReplyDeleteWhat are, I wonder, the poetics of nonspecificity. We are told--and I am telling you--to be specific, always. When, though, do we break with that? Keep your eyes open for poems in your anthologies that don't just deploy nonspecificity but deploy it really well. Perhaps this binary, this balancing act could become part of your critical preface at the end of the semester?