Monday, May 07, 2012

In The The: How to Watch a Poem

In what I hope will be the first of many contributions to the lovely poetry site The The, my sort-of-essay, How to Watch a Poem.

It begins like this*:

(This post was to begin with a quote that I remember as having been said by the filmmaker, Jean-Luc Godard: “You don’t read a film; you watch it”. While trying to chase down the quote, though, I found it had disappeared so effectively that I began to doubt both the words and the person to whom I was attributing it. Regardless of who said it and whether they said it that way, here it is, the quote as epigraph:)

You don’t read a film; you watch it.

 And goes on from there. You know where to go if you want to read more.

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*Actually, it begins with a photograph of Godard, which is the good and right way to begin.


3 comments:

JP said...

This was so great. Approaching a poem like a matador, but not to gore or be gored (unless of course that's what happens anyway), like a mutual dance of seven veils.

Space Bar said...

JP: I am strangely beguiled by the thought of doing a dance of seven veils with a poem. This thought needs pursuing.

You're doing a lot of good stuff also - congratulations on all the anths and stuff!

JP said...

Thanks! And likewise.