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Just Words

by Zettel 

Posted: 17 July 2004
Word Count: 524
Summary: Experimental


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This is experimental. I hope it is not, in my children's charming expression - "up itself". Only about 10% of the words are mine (odd that we can 'own' words) - the rest belong to Ludwig Wittgenstein, the most misunderstood of philosophers but the most poetic. My role is more like the editor of a film; selecting and juxtaposing images and ideas to (try to) create a coherent thread. If poetry catches the heart and engages the mind directly through the resonance of its words; W's work seems to create a kind of 'poetry of ideas' where the words themselves seek clarity not resonance, but the ideas they express seem to resonate with one another with a kind of poetic effect.(OK, maybe it is up itself!). I am not sure of much of this or whether this has a poetic validity. To do so it must have a resonance without the need for detailed philosophical knowledge. Not sure if it does.

JUST WORDS

The world is all that is the case
the totality of facts
not things.
The limits of my language
are the limits of
my world.
I know what you are thinking
makes sense
I know what I am thinking
does not.
A cloud of philosophy
condensed
in drop of grammar.
Words acquire their meaning
from a form of life
we share.
My words tell you
what I think
my actions tell you
who I am.
I enter the world through
my words
I affect the world through
my actions.
In the beginning
was the deed
not the word.
Our task is to prevent
the bewitchment
of our intelligence
by language.
What we cannot speak of
we must pass over
in silence.
My attitude to another human being
is an attitude
to a soul.
I am not of the opinion that
you have a soul.
Death is not an event in life
we do not live
to experience
death.
How things are in the world
is not the mystical
but that it exists.
Goodness does not exist
until we act.
Beauty does not exist
until we see.
I do not belong to the world
I am the limit
of my world
as with
my visual field.
Things that cannot be put into words
make themselves manifest
they are what is mystical.
The inexpressible is the background
that gives meaning
to what we can say.
What is ragged
should be left ragged
for that is life.
If our lives are a story
it is one we write
not merely read
but it is a strange story
that has no ending.
The solution to the problem of life
is seen in the vanishing
of the problem.
Is there any problem of life
that would be solved
by living for ever?
If eternity is not
infinite duration
then eternal life belongs
to those who live
in the present.
Don't play
with what is deep
in another person.
The meaning in a poem
should not stand naked
but be clothed
by the heart.
There are remarks that sow
and remarks that reap

And the philosopher said
"One should write philosophy
as one writes a poem".

Zettel








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Comments by other Members



gard at 00:51 on 18 July 2004  Report this post
Hi Zettel

lots of meaningful poetic phrases. My instinct was to baulk at the plagarism, however I see your idea

like

The meaning in a poem
should not stand naked
but be clothed
by the heart.


write on!

G

Nell at 08:02 on 18 July 2004  Report this post
Hi Zettel,

We spent some time in the Poetry Seminar' studying and assembling 'found poetry' - you might want to take a look, as this seems to fit the bill. This is a distillation of ideas - of a life's work perhaps - each seems momentous, as if it needs its own line with lots of space around it. There's so much here - too much to take in all at once, and that makes it overwhelming, for me at least. I found myself pausing after some statements, questioning their validity, and this disrupted the flow. But this is a thought-provoking piece (in more ways than one) that needs to be returned to and read again and again. If there are doubts as to whether the experiment works, the last lines, biblical in tone, answer the question. I'd imagine that you read those and felt compelled to write the poem. How could you not? An epic piece, and not at all 'up itself'.

Nell.

fireweed at 08:49 on 18 July 2004  Report this post
Zettel, I agree with Nell, there is too much here to take in. You have a lifetime's potential poetry in this collection of ideas - each one could become a poem at the right time. Some of the lines meant more to me than others,

( Don't know how to do a box for quotations - can anyone help?)

What we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence.

For me poetry arises out of the silence.

fireweed

Nell at 09:08 on 18 July 2004  Report this post
Fireweed, to do a quotation box, type the word quote enclosed in square brackets, followed by the quotation (the words you want to appear in the yellow box.) Then type /quote enclosed in square brackets. The code acts as a sort of 'quote' 'unquote'. Your quote won't appear in a yellow box until it's submitted. Thus to quote 'What we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence' you would do the following, but use square brackets rather than curved ones:

(quote)What we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence.(/quote)



Zettel at 11:50 on 18 July 2004  Report this post
Thanks people for the positive comments. I'll certainly look up the found poetry stuff.
I agree absolutely it's too long but I knew it was a 'poem' I'd have to come back to again and again to try to chip and chip. In the spirit of the thought it tries to celebrate it must be as spare as coherence will permit.

Nell you are right about motivation. It's something I've been nagging over and wanting to do for a long time. It's not done but at least I finally made a start.

Fireweed: your last sentence which I very much agree with, is also very Wittgensteinian in tone.
Regards
'Zettel' Def: a box of slips (containing scraps of ideas).

Ticonderoga at 12:13 on 18 July 2004  Report this post
HUGE POEM!! Too huge, as the others have said; a very honourable experiment, but, it only goes to show why someone like W had to treat these matters at great length and over several volumes. I like the Burroughsian cut-up approach to this, but it does need to be fragmented much further - it might even be rendered into a lengthy series of philosophical haiku, which could form a very interesting volume! Every 6 - 10 lines or so, as the emphasis shifts, the reader needs a break to absorb; these to me would be the natural points at which to decide that one poem ends and the next begins. A very bold effort though, and one which should be taken further (and smaller!).

Best,

Mike



Zettel at 12:46 on 18 July 2004  Report this post
Mike thanks. I agree with everyone its too long and must be distilled (poetically) and brought into some more manageable form. It is in a sense a possible poem looking for a form. Haiku is tempting but the connectedness of these ideas would offend what I understood to be the essential poetic simplicity of that particular form. Thanks for the comments, I have some more thinking to do. That's I guess why one posts something experimental.
Regards
Z

engldolph at 19:18 on 18 July 2004  Report this post
Hi Z

Long, dense, but full of some fascinating lines and ideas -- do not know W in detail, so don't know what is your rearrangement/transformation, and what is W.
But is does have a result of making you want to find out more.

Makes and interesting connection between poetry and philosophy; and the fine line that separates.

Agree it might be more effective if broken into shorter stanzas.

Some of my favorite lines:



I know what you are thinking
makes sense
I know what I am thinking
does not.

A cloud of philosophy
condensed
in drop of grammar.

In the beginning
was the deed
not the word.


My attitude to another human being
is an attitude
to a soul.
I am not of the opinion that
you have a soul.

Goodness does not exist
until we act.
Beauty does not exist
until we see.

What is ragged
should be left ragged
for that is life.

Don't play
with what is deep
in another person.

The meaning in a poem
should not stand naked
but be clothed
by the heart.

Regards,
Mike



Zettel at 17:24 on 19 July 2004  Report this post
Thanks Mike

The most encouraging thing is that my feeling that there is poetry in these ideas seems to have been shared by several of you. So that judgement is at least re-inforced. However as everyone, rightly, says it is not in the right form.....yet.
Thanks again for the comments

Z

peterxbrown at 00:13 on 20 July 2004  Report this post
I love it! A very accomplished and brilliant poem but maybe a tad too long?
peter b

Zettel at 15:53 on 21 July 2004  Report this post
Thanks Peter
Glad you liked it.
All agree, including me, needs to be shorter and in a better form.
Regards
Z

James Graham at 20:36 on 31 July 2004  Report this post
I don't know Wittgenstein at all - but that was the partly the point of your poem. I find it hard to see a thread running all the way from line 1 to the end, but I think I can see threads in certain passages. For example, from 'A cloud of philosophy...' to '...pass over/in silence' is very directly about language and awareness of its limitations. All the lines from 'Things that cannot be put into words' to the end seem especially to form a coherent poem - it's hard to paraphrase or summarise the connecting thread, but it's there.

As I think others have already said, there's perhaps too much presented here in one continuous stretch of verse, but even if there were divisions at certain points it might make this very dense compendium of thought easier for the reader to take on board.

Many individual statements in the poem have potential to stimulate a lot of further poetic thought. To take one example, 'Is there any problem of life/that would be solved/by living for ever?' - these lines couls stand as an epigraph, or long title, to an original poem. This might be almost any poem dealing with the kind of problem in life that we take very seriously (relationship problems, consequences of a wrong decision, disappointment, failure etc) and the words of Wittgenstein would add a wise gloss to it, broadening our perspective on something very immediate, letting us 'see the wood for the trees'.

Another statement that grabs me in this way is 'Beauty does not exist/until we see'. Many poems describing places or people the world doesn't regard as beautiful could begin or end with these words.

James.


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