I attended a lecture by McReynolds on Dante tonight. I forgot how amazing he is. I was convicted by William's comment that the way of the poet and the artist is always the way of affrimation, never the way of negation, the way of word and image, not the way of black and blankness. I have tried the way of negation in poetry and have found it unsatisfactory. I just published a poem in the Symposium which I got some negative reviews on, and I think the main reason was that I was intentionally following a way of negation. I am convicted by Dante to follow the more traditional way.
But what to affirm? What not to affirm? That is the question.
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My roomate and a few others were a bit surprised at my seeming over-negativity about the american ideal of freedom. Maybe they were right.
I actually havent read FOB. I really really want to, but havent put it at the top of my list. kathy said it's amazing.
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