In this session we will be considering the kinds of noticing that poets and artists do and by implication what kind of noticing spectators, readers, audiences and the public do in everyday life.
Oil-tempera, 29 inches x 44 inches. Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels.
Write for 10 minutes about what you notice in the painting above…
(for example you might notice colours, shapes, ideas, events, narrative, light, weather….)
Discuss your noticings in small groups.
What categories do your ‘noticings’ fall into? Are there hierarchies of noticing?
Discuss how the construction of the painting confounds and redirects our expectations as to what we should be noticing?
What should poems be noticing?
How should they be doing it?
Consider the poems by Auden and Williams below (and on your handout — check for lineation) which are both in relation to the painting above.
How do they make noticing both a central theme in each of their writings but also integrate the possibilities of noticing into the form of the poems themselves?
Reconsider your own piece of writing in the light of our discussions of form and noticing
Musee des Beaux Arts
W.H. Auden
About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
‘Landscape with Fall of Icarus’ by William Carlos Williams
According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring
a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry
of the year was
awake tingling
with itself
sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings’ wax
unsignificantly
off the coast
there was
a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning
We are now going to look at two contemporary writers and a visual artist who make noticing and attention central to their work.
Ventriloquy
is the mother tongue.
Can you colonize rejection
by phrasing your request,
“Me want?”
Song: “I’m not a baby.
Wa, Wa, Wa.
I’m not a baby.
Wa, Wa, Wa.
I’m crazy
like you.”
The “you”
in the heart of
molecule and ridicule.
Marks resembling
the holes
in dead leaves
define the thing (moth wing).
That flutter
of indifference,
feigned?
But if lapses
are the dens
strategy aims
to conceal,
then you don’t know
what you’re asking.
I saw your picture
in the 79th street
station. You said
you’d be interested
in any comments I
might have on the
condition of the
station Mr. Fanelli,
there is a lot of
debris in the 79th street
station that makes it
unpleasant to wait in
for more than a few
minutes. The station
could use a paint
job and maybe
new speakers so you
could understand
the delay announcements
that are always being
broadcast. Mr.
Fanelli—there are
a lot of people sleeping
in the 79th street station
& it makes me sad
to think they have no
home to go to. Mr.
Fanelli, do you think
you could find a more
comfortable place for them
to rest? It’s pretty noisy
in the subway, especially
all those express trains
hurtling through every
few minutes, anyway when the
trains are in service.
I have to admit, Mr. Fanelli, I
think the 79th street station’s
in pretty bad shape
& sometimes at night
as I toss in my bed
I think the world’s
not doing too good
either, & I
wonder what’s going
to happen, where we’re
headed, if we’re
headed anywhere, if
we even have heads. Mr.
Fanelli, do you think if
we could just start
with the 79th street
station & do what
we could with that
then maybe we could,
you know, I guess, move
on from there? Mr.
Fanelli, when I saw your
picture & the sign
asking for suggestions
I thought, if
you really wanted to
get to the bottom
of what’s wrong then
maybe it was my job
to write to you: Maybe
you’ve never been inside
the 79th street station
because you’re so busy
managing the 72nd street
& 66th street stations,
maybe you don’t know
the problems we have
at 79th—I mean the
dirt & frequent
delays & the feeling of
total misery that
pervades the place. Mr.
Fanelli, are you reading
this far in the letter
or do you get so
many letters every day
that you don’t have
time to give each
one the close attention
it desires? Or am I
the only person who’s
taken up your invitation
to get in touch &
you just don’t have enough
experience to know how to
respond? I’m sorry
I can’t get your attention
Mr. Fanelli because I really
believe if you ask
for comments then you
ought to be willing
to act on them—even
if ought is too
big a word to throw
around at this point.
Mr. Fanelli
I hope you won’t
think I’m rude
if I ask you a
personal question. Do
you get out of the
office much?
Do you go to the movies
or do you prefer
sports—or maybe
quiet evenings at a
local restaurant? Do
you read much, Mr. Fanelli?
I don’t mean just
Gibbons and like
that, but philosophy—
have you read much
Hanna Arendt or
do you prefer
a more ideological
perspective?
I think if I understood
where you are coming from,
Mr. Fanelli, I could
write to you more cogently,
more persuasively. Mr.
Fanelli, do you get out
of the city at all—I
mean like up to Bear
Mountain or out to
Montauk? I mean do you
notice how unpleasant
the air is in the 79th
street station—that we
could use some cooling
or air-filtering system
down there? Mr.
Fanelli, do you think
it’s possible we
could get together
and talk about
these things in
person? There are
a few other points
I’d like to go over
with you if I could
get the chance. Things
I’d like to talk to
you about but that
I’d be reluctant to
put down on paper.
Mr. Fanelli, I haven’t
been feeling very good
lately and I thought
meeting with you face
to face might change
my mood, might put
me into a new frame
of mind. Maybe we
could have lunch?
Or maybe after work?
Think about it, Mr.
Fanelli.
Charles Bernstein, “Dear Mr. Fanelli” from My Way: Speeches and Poems (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999).
Source: My Way: Speeches and Poems (The University of Chicago Press, 1999)
In each of these works ‘noticing’ and the direction of attention are highly important. How do each of the works manifest this in differing ways?
What are the politics of noticing and attention?
How does a poet go about noticing in productive ways while acknowledging the ‘inadequate descriptive system’ at their disposal?
What implications does this have for your own writing practice?
See Also:
Elaine Segal