Confessional Poetry is obviously different from the idea of the confessional (as in kneeling to a priest or talking to a psychoanalyst or therapist or whatnot), but it functions in a similar way. Poetry reveals a larger-sense "Truth," so not every detail of the poem has to or necessarily comes from the poet's life. What matters is this truth either serves to assimilate this detail; to make the person/identity it is associated with it normal(ized), or to destroy the notion of a perfect, fixed identity category by revealing its glitter and blemishes.
From Laurence Lerner's "What Is Confessional Poetry?":
"It is not difficult to see why this material is called "confessional"...First, there is the factual element: she provides plenty of biographical detail, identifies the members of her family, states the time and place of many of the episodes, not attempting to disguise the fact that all these things happened to the poet-outside-the poems...Second, there is the sordid, often degrading nature of the experiences: she confesses to pain as well as joy, and (more difficult) to experiences that deprive her of dignity in her suffering-- precisely what one is normally most ashamed to own up to...And then there is a peculair and disturbing intensity in the language, an attempt to render raw and disturbing experience through ugly and disturbing images that do not always seem to be under control...and along with this, a deliberate jokiness, a shrugging off of her own suffering as something melodramatic" (Lerner 229).
"Sexton herself sometimes insisted that confession is not art, and that a poem needs to depart from factual truth and raw emotion" (Lerner 229).
I think confessional poetry is art (obviously), but with all poetry the content needs to bow to what best serves the world of the poem. Poetry, music, and art may provide emotional release, but they are not a therapist's couch, nor is laying on the couch of a therapist a form of art. It is that this is art that makes it so powerful a tool for both assimilation and subversion, and I would like to argue mostly subversion. It is something to be appreciated, enjoyed, consumed. The fact that it directly communicates these "truths" makes it more...effective than simply telling your therapist that you are odd in "x" ways, and she/he/sie documents and categorizes.
Music isn't a direct communication unless it has text or is supported by opera dramaturgy, so its ability to confess manifests itself in different ways.
Current question about confession in music: can it not be an outpouring of emotion the way it feels in poetry, or does it have to have a certain degree of calculation/manipulation. How much of the lament was absolutely calculated by Tchaikovsky, how much of it came naturally because we naturally feel lament? We naturally feel music coursing through our veins, just as natural as the language of poetry. Still, even in those terms, how does the audience of musical confession have to be privileged with a musical education? I mean, one can understand lament without knowing lament has a form, a tradition. This is helpful to know as a composer because the composer can manipulate this so that it is felt universally by an audience.
And I think I need this theorizing to accompany my creation of art because in the process of doing this I started a poem (a little too Iris Murdoch in the "what it means to be good" sense, but I'll take it), and a string quartet that kind of accompanies it. Is this (indisputable) fact enough to unify the elements of my project?
I am so in love with the CA Conrad poem "Editorial Statement" that I want to tack it to every tree on campus. Go read it: POEM!
I'm currently working on the fourth chapter of Marcia J. Citron's Gender and the Musical Canon. Things are starting to feel like they're coming together. This is exciting.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Link(s?)
Reference Post 1/29/2008
Interlibrary Loan:
The Kristeva Critical Reader-- The Kristeva Reader is limited to her writings from the 1970's.
The Human Voice by Anne Karpf
Meredith Monk by Deborah Jowitt
Impressions That Remained- Memoirs of Ethel Smyth
Poems by Minnie Bruce Pratt; Stacey Waite; Chelsey Minnis; Jillian Weise, CA Conrad
I need to focus and spend a minute (by which I mean a WHILE) focusing on the confessional poetry aspect of this. I need to write about the connections (and misconnections) I have and haven't been making. I'm starting to fear that this project has a too-sprawling focus.
I've decided that I want to look at the blues a little bit, even if just for experience sake. Tonight I'm going to download some Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey, and I want to look at The Gossip's Beth Ditto's performance in the context of a blues tradition. I need to read more by/about Ditto and delve more into The Gossip's music.
I wish I could somehow make Meredith Monk magically more confessional so I could talk more in terms of modern- era art music that at least brushes shoulders with the acceptable (somewhat oppressive) art music canon, but unless I can get my hands on a recording of Education of the Girlchild (or whatever the title is?), this idea is pretty doomed.
As for poetry...feeling indecisive. I want to look at someone fresh-- I like Jillian Weise, her poetry is exactly what I'm looking for and there's an essay in one of Mattilda's books (Nobody's...crap. the one that's anti-assimilation...) that I could relate it to, somehow. Part of me feels like I need to google "queer poets now" and see what comes up in terms of first published books or chapbooks or crazy dykes doing readings in basements.
I wrote a poem tonight about being sick of writing sex poems but not really thinking flowers could be as subversive. Maybe I'm not giving flowers enough credit.
Basically, I have a busy three weeks or so ahead of me, and in the great words of Apollinaire, "je ne veux pas travailler; je veux fumer..." or a similar sentiment. Though I'm starting to feel really one with my project again, which is a fantastic feeling. I just need to make it as important as yoga or cleaning out my humidifier every three days.
Oh, back to thinking about the canon and art music and what not: ETHEL SMYTH. Need to read more about her correspondence with Virginia Woolf, all of the work Elizabeth Wood has done on her music. And holy crap, her Mass in D is giving me MAJOR goosebumps....
With faith this will all come together, somehow. And I am oozing faith...
I need to focus and spend a minute (by which I mean a WHILE) focusing on the confessional poetry aspect of this. I need to write about the connections (and misconnections) I have and haven't been making. I'm starting to fear that this project has a too-sprawling focus.
I've decided that I want to look at the blues a little bit, even if just for experience sake. Tonight I'm going to download some Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey, and I want to look at The Gossip's Beth Ditto's performance in the context of a blues tradition. I need to read more by/about Ditto and delve more into The Gossip's music.
I wish I could somehow make Meredith Monk magically more confessional so I could talk more in terms of modern- era art music that at least brushes shoulders with the acceptable (somewhat oppressive) art music canon, but unless I can get my hands on a recording of Education of the Girlchild (or whatever the title is?), this idea is pretty doomed.
As for poetry...feeling indecisive. I want to look at someone fresh-- I like Jillian Weise, her poetry is exactly what I'm looking for and there's an essay in one of Mattilda's books (Nobody's...crap. the one that's anti-assimilation...) that I could relate it to, somehow. Part of me feels like I need to google "queer poets now" and see what comes up in terms of first published books or chapbooks or crazy dykes doing readings in basements.
I wrote a poem tonight about being sick of writing sex poems but not really thinking flowers could be as subversive. Maybe I'm not giving flowers enough credit.
Basically, I have a busy three weeks or so ahead of me, and in the great words of Apollinaire, "je ne veux pas travailler; je veux fumer..." or a similar sentiment. Though I'm starting to feel really one with my project again, which is a fantastic feeling. I just need to make it as important as yoga or cleaning out my humidifier every three days.
Oh, back to thinking about the canon and art music and what not: ETHEL SMYTH. Need to read more about her correspondence with Virginia Woolf, all of the work Elizabeth Wood has done on her music. And holy crap, her Mass in D is giving me MAJOR goosebumps....
With faith this will all come together, somehow. And I am oozing faith...
Friday, January 25, 2008
Notes on Listening to the Sirens, Chapter II
"The Germanic-- or, at any rate, post-Beethoven-- understanding of the symphony involved a quasi-narrative progression from initial strife to final victory and redemption, , celebrated in a high-energy triumphal ending. Ending with a lament flew in the face of this understanding" (Peraino 85).
"So if we want to pursue the question of confession encoded in this movement, we should ask what does Tchaikovsky do in this finale that might signify a practice? And what might that practice be that was so very personal and perhaps unspeakable for Tchaikovsky?" (Peraino 86)
"If there is a moment of confession in the Adagio lamentoso, it is a confession to the performer and music reader (not necessarily the listener), and it is not with the initial "eye music" but rather with this ironed-out return" (Peraino 86).
"And why reconsititute a rent musical subject near the end of the lament? Is this a disentangling of the lovers as they are thekn down off their enmeshed crosses? Such literal explanations actually work against the psychological lore that surrounds this movement, suggesting not disclosure but rather dissociation and further sublimation into elaborate but silent madrigalisms" (Peraino 88).
"Rather than invoking the interpretive paradigms of individual narrative for Tchaikovsky's symphonies, Taruskin proposes that we should adapt the ideas of metonymy and topos from Wye Jamison Allanbrook's studies of Mozart's rhythmic gestures and their basis in class-encoded social dances" (Peraino 89)
"It is an attempt, as Allanbrook put it of the Mozartean method, 'to move an audience through representations of its own humanity.' In Tchaikovsky's time such a method was known as realism." - Taruskin, in a quote on Peraino 89
"The lament has a long history in musical traditions both folk and elite, and in both the lament is fundamentally vocal and specifically gendered: women sing laments as a particularly intense emotional display" (Peraino 89)
"Returing to Tchaikovsky's Adagio lamentoso, the music presents two different version of its lament theme-- one "queer" and the other "straight"-- which nonetheless sound identical. The motion is from needless complexity to simplification-- from fracture to coherence-- but most importantly from private to public identification" (Peraino 91).
"Without the dramaturgy of opera, however, such a knot must be manifested in instrumental performance. The two versions of the lament theme provide just such a performative manifestation, each producing a subtly different experience for both the audience and the performers." (Peraino 91)
"Like the traditional laments of women, his can also be understood as mediating between the dead past and the living present, and between subjective and social reality. The queer and straight orchestrations of the wails illustrate two sides of lamenting: one is a physically wrenching private act, the other a sentimental public ritual. Taken together, the two orchestrations suggest the disclosure of something unspeakable about the practice of a man lamenting as if he were a woman about about the practice of a symphony finale singing a lament as if it were a triumph" (Peraino 92).
The confession of the music is revealed by placing the music up against cultural symbols and meanings. Look more into the Mozartean method-- what does Wye Allanbrook do? When is this method not appropriate to use? How much does intent, or implied intent, come into play? I suppose it comes to play just as much in poetry-- yes!
I need to read some Julia Kristeva right now. I have a lot of thinking and TONS of reading to do on this to make connections in my head before I blog them out..
"So if we want to pursue the question of confession encoded in this movement, we should ask what does Tchaikovsky do in this finale that might signify a practice? And what might that practice be that was so very personal and perhaps unspeakable for Tchaikovsky?" (Peraino 86)
"If there is a moment of confession in the Adagio lamentoso, it is a confession to the performer and music reader (not necessarily the listener), and it is not with the initial "eye music" but rather with this ironed-out return" (Peraino 86).
"And why reconsititute a rent musical subject near the end of the lament? Is this a disentangling of the lovers as they are thekn down off their enmeshed crosses? Such literal explanations actually work against the psychological lore that surrounds this movement, suggesting not disclosure but rather dissociation and further sublimation into elaborate but silent madrigalisms" (Peraino 88).
"Rather than invoking the interpretive paradigms of individual narrative for Tchaikovsky's symphonies, Taruskin proposes that we should adapt the ideas of metonymy and topos from Wye Jamison Allanbrook's studies of Mozart's rhythmic gestures and their basis in class-encoded social dances" (Peraino 89)
"It is an attempt, as Allanbrook put it of the Mozartean method, 'to move an audience through representations of its own humanity.' In Tchaikovsky's time such a method was known as realism." - Taruskin, in a quote on Peraino 89
"The lament has a long history in musical traditions both folk and elite, and in both the lament is fundamentally vocal and specifically gendered: women sing laments as a particularly intense emotional display" (Peraino 89)
"Returing to Tchaikovsky's Adagio lamentoso, the music presents two different version of its lament theme-- one "queer" and the other "straight"-- which nonetheless sound identical. The motion is from needless complexity to simplification-- from fracture to coherence-- but most importantly from private to public identification" (Peraino 91).
"Without the dramaturgy of opera, however, such a knot must be manifested in instrumental performance. The two versions of the lament theme provide just such a performative manifestation, each producing a subtly different experience for both the audience and the performers." (Peraino 91)
"Like the traditional laments of women, his can also be understood as mediating between the dead past and the living present, and between subjective and social reality. The queer and straight orchestrations of the wails illustrate two sides of lamenting: one is a physically wrenching private act, the other a sentimental public ritual. Taken together, the two orchestrations suggest the disclosure of something unspeakable about the practice of a man lamenting as if he were a woman about about the practice of a symphony finale singing a lament as if it were a triumph" (Peraino 92).
The confession of the music is revealed by placing the music up against cultural symbols and meanings. Look more into the Mozartean method-- what does Wye Allanbrook do? When is this method not appropriate to use? How much does intent, or implied intent, come into play? I suppose it comes to play just as much in poetry-- yes!
I need to read some Julia Kristeva right now. I have a lot of thinking and TONS of reading to do on this to make connections in my head before I blog them out..
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Notes on Listening to the Sirens, Chapter II, 1st read through
On Tchaikovsky's letter to his nephew regarding the programme behind the Sixth Symphony: "The playfully cryptic hint at a secret autobiographical program for his new composition illustrates the intersection of verbal prohibition and a compulsion to tell that produces truth. A musical revelation, over which he sheds tears (of penitence for Augustine, of catharsis for Freud), is also a work that makes him happy and productive; the confession here is a musical production that sounds the truth" (81).
My only problem with Peraino's analysis so far is that the intent is everything. I suppose all confession is fueled by intent, but because one intends to unleash a secret in musical form, is it necessarily perceivable? On the flip side, if one aims to create absolute music, the composer is still there...music cannot be entirely absolute or come from an entirely objective perspective. How much of the author exists in the composition without the intent for confession? Does the confession necessarily have to be verbal? Would musicologists have theorized about Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony displaying a confession of his sexuality and/or possible suicide had Modest Tchaikovsky not published a letter revealing his intent for confession?
On evidence that Tchaikovsky had somewhat accepted his sexual nature: "Despite this evidence, Jackson and other scholars have held fast to the idea that the Adagio lamentoso confesses Tchaikovsky's guilt and abjection regarding his sexual proclivities. Jackson argues that, 'the biographer of a composer cannot rely exclusively upon the literary evidence of letters and diaries (as Pozansky has done)....As a non-verbal medium, music provides an ideal vehicle for expressing ideas, anxieties, and emotions that must never be articulated in words' (emphasis added)" (85).
WHOA, okay, awesome next paragraph. A bite: "So, according to the epistemology of the closet, Tchaikovsky's homosexuality (that is, knowledge) 'must never be articulated in words," but, according to psychoanalysis, it must nevertheless be confessed. Music is the confession: understanding Tchaikovsky's music, then, means knowing his sexuality" (85).
I am writing Judith Peraino a thank-you note.
Before reading Peraino's analysis on how/if the Adagio lamentoso constitutes the confession of an act (such as homosexuality) as opposed to the expression of a feeling (such as guilt), I gave the movement a cursory listen, no score. A descending motif is sounded by one instrument group and repeated overlapping by another, which creates tension in the beginning, but when repeated in the basement registers of bass instruments at the end, a similar motif sounds absolutely resigned. The climax of this piece is the closest I have every experience to a musical orgasm, but the release never comes. The build-up is divine, but rather than bursting, it falls back down into a decline, and the resigned ending that echos the motifs of the beginning. I would like to look at the score, and intend to email Dr. Derry as soon as I am done reading Peraino's analysis.
Actually, I want a score in front of me before I read her analysis, because so far, I disagree. Before I argue, I need to read more about her foundations of the confessional and psychoanalysis at the beginning of the chapter; it's fantastic information that I'm going to be able to use and it's going to save me SO MUCH TIME in doing my research (I'll probably go on an ILL-ing spree on Monday).
This blows my mind, but it's bedtime!
My only problem with Peraino's analysis so far is that the intent is everything. I suppose all confession is fueled by intent, but because one intends to unleash a secret in musical form, is it necessarily perceivable? On the flip side, if one aims to create absolute music, the composer is still there...music cannot be entirely absolute or come from an entirely objective perspective. How much of the author exists in the composition without the intent for confession? Does the confession necessarily have to be verbal? Would musicologists have theorized about Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony displaying a confession of his sexuality and/or possible suicide had Modest Tchaikovsky not published a letter revealing his intent for confession?
On evidence that Tchaikovsky had somewhat accepted his sexual nature: "Despite this evidence, Jackson and other scholars have held fast to the idea that the Adagio lamentoso confesses Tchaikovsky's guilt and abjection regarding his sexual proclivities. Jackson argues that, 'the biographer of a composer cannot rely exclusively upon the literary evidence of letters and diaries (as Pozansky has done)....As a non-verbal medium, music provides an ideal vehicle for expressing ideas, anxieties, and emotions that must never be articulated in words' (emphasis added)" (85).
WHOA, okay, awesome next paragraph. A bite: "So, according to the epistemology of the closet, Tchaikovsky's homosexuality (that is, knowledge) 'must never be articulated in words," but, according to psychoanalysis, it must nevertheless be confessed. Music is the confession: understanding Tchaikovsky's music, then, means knowing his sexuality" (85).
I am writing Judith Peraino a thank-you note.
Before reading Peraino's analysis on how/if the Adagio lamentoso constitutes the confession of an act (such as homosexuality) as opposed to the expression of a feeling (such as guilt), I gave the movement a cursory listen, no score. A descending motif is sounded by one instrument group and repeated overlapping by another, which creates tension in the beginning, but when repeated in the basement registers of bass instruments at the end, a similar motif sounds absolutely resigned. The climax of this piece is the closest I have every experience to a musical orgasm, but the release never comes. The build-up is divine, but rather than bursting, it falls back down into a decline, and the resigned ending that echos the motifs of the beginning. I would like to look at the score, and intend to email Dr. Derry as soon as I am done reading Peraino's analysis.
Actually, I want a score in front of me before I read her analysis, because so far, I disagree. Before I argue, I need to read more about her foundations of the confessional and psychoanalysis at the beginning of the chapter; it's fantastic information that I'm going to be able to use and it's going to save me SO MUCH TIME in doing my research (I'll probably go on an ILL-ing spree on Monday).
This blows my mind, but it's bedtime!
Plan Post: 1/17-oh, who knows, Sunday?
Self-discipline is a fickle beast. Somehow, I've managed to integrate daily meditation and exercise in my life, but I can't seem to keep up with my Gipson goals. Right now I'm literally locked in my bedroom, but I've managed to write a blog entry and play Scrabble on Facebook for the past, oh, 2 and a half hours. My back is crying "yoga, yoga!" and there's that nagging voice inside my head that is letting me know that this paragraph simply functions to make excuses.
So what did I get done last week? I've read a little bit of both Peraino and Rich, but not anywhere near my goal amount. The second chapter of the Peraino book is all about the confessional and music, so I'm pretty jazzed to take notes on it tonight. I'm obsessed with the poem "Transcendental Etude." I also wrote the rough draft of an introduction to my project that references texts as diverse as Gertrude Stein's Three Lives and the introduction to Michel de Montaigne's Complete Works. I will send copies to my advisors this week, as I would be getting worried if I were them.
I've also worked on a poem that is seriously suffering from the lack of synonyms for "to hover above."
This week, I want to zero in on exactly what it is I want to write about. Using the second and third chapters of Peraino, I would like to critically listen to some music, evaluate her ideas and see how they mesh with mine. While I know it is important for me to keep reading, I need to be writing more-- both poetry and music. I'm weighing the benefits of purchasing Finale 2008 for my laptop so I can compose in peace. My biggest goal is simply to take the time to do my work, to make it as important as meditating and exercising. This week will be the test to see whether I can be my own taskmaster. Otherwise, advisors, expect and email asking for harsh deadlines and other spirit-squashing punishments.
Hopefully there will be notes in here later.
So what did I get done last week? I've read a little bit of both Peraino and Rich, but not anywhere near my goal amount. The second chapter of the Peraino book is all about the confessional and music, so I'm pretty jazzed to take notes on it tonight. I'm obsessed with the poem "Transcendental Etude." I also wrote the rough draft of an introduction to my project that references texts as diverse as Gertrude Stein's Three Lives and the introduction to Michel de Montaigne's Complete Works. I will send copies to my advisors this week, as I would be getting worried if I were them.
I've also worked on a poem that is seriously suffering from the lack of synonyms for "to hover above."
This week, I want to zero in on exactly what it is I want to write about. Using the second and third chapters of Peraino, I would like to critically listen to some music, evaluate her ideas and see how they mesh with mine. While I know it is important for me to keep reading, I need to be writing more-- both poetry and music. I'm weighing the benefits of purchasing Finale 2008 for my laptop so I can compose in peace. My biggest goal is simply to take the time to do my work, to make it as important as meditating and exercising. This week will be the test to see whether I can be my own taskmaster. Otherwise, advisors, expect and email asking for harsh deadlines and other spirit-squashing punishments.
Hopefully there will be notes in here later.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Plan Post 1/9-1/13
So, I’m back. It’s a new term; the fate of where I’ll be writing next year is officially in someone else’s hands, and my only class (besides the music classes that feel as natural as going to bed at night) is all internet work, no attendance policy. This means that if I conjure up some self-discipline, the rough draft of this baby should be on its feet by the end of winter break!
Before I get too excited, I need to explore some of the obstacles facing my project. I have a thesis, but no real way to integrate the creative and academic aspects of the topic in a way that I see fit. I believe that the poems and compositions that I include need to be able to stand alone rather than merely be illustrations of the theory. Luckily, what I’m waxing poetic about in the academic part comes largely from my own experiences as a reader, writer, and musician. I would like the project to be more than a random smattering of things related to my three concentrations; to use the words pounded into my skull fall term, it needs a center of gravity. I suppose I can hope that one magically pops up, but I never seem to have that sort of luck.
The other obstacle is focus. My analysis I’m doing is decidedly queer, but does that limit me to queer-identified subjects? Queer-identification is somewhat antithetical to some aspects of what I’m trying to do, but key to others. Really, what I am looking at is identity categories overall, not just queer identification. I need to think about this more, listen to more Antony and the Johnsons and read more Adrienne Rich.
As for reading goals this week, I would like to:
Finish the poetry (p. 91-161) in Adrienne Rich's Poetry and Prose
Read through Chapters 1 (Songs of the Sirens) and 2 (A Music of One's Own) of the Peraino book (p. 11- 110)
My writing goal is to take inventory of what I have in my Gipson binder and evaluate the kind of revisions that need to be made. Also, think about gaps in the project. Free write about what I would like the end result to look like. I also need to be doing some more creative writing. I need to borrow a new book of writing prompts to get me going...I've been using the same exercises for the past two and a half years and they don't spark my own ideas in quite the same way as they used to.
I also need to be composing. This is tricky because I compose best without distraction. I don't have Finale on this laptop, and it seems ridiculous to buy it when I can use it over in Langroise for free. It's just that every time I go to compose in the lab, a million distractions present themselves. I need to learn how to ignore them.
I am going to go submit some poems to the National Undergraduate Literature Conference!
Before I get too excited, I need to explore some of the obstacles facing my project. I have a thesis, but no real way to integrate the creative and academic aspects of the topic in a way that I see fit. I believe that the poems and compositions that I include need to be able to stand alone rather than merely be illustrations of the theory. Luckily, what I’m waxing poetic about in the academic part comes largely from my own experiences as a reader, writer, and musician. I would like the project to be more than a random smattering of things related to my three concentrations; to use the words pounded into my skull fall term, it needs a center of gravity. I suppose I can hope that one magically pops up, but I never seem to have that sort of luck.
The other obstacle is focus. My analysis I’m doing is decidedly queer, but does that limit me to queer-identified subjects? Queer-identification is somewhat antithetical to some aspects of what I’m trying to do, but key to others. Really, what I am looking at is identity categories overall, not just queer identification. I need to think about this more, listen to more Antony and the Johnsons and read more Adrienne Rich.
As for reading goals this week, I would like to:
My writing goal is to take inventory of what I have in my Gipson binder and evaluate the kind of revisions that need to be made. Also, think about gaps in the project. Free write about what I would like the end result to look like. I also need to be doing some more creative writing. I need to borrow a new book of writing prompts to get me going...I've been using the same exercises for the past two and a half years and they don't spark my own ideas in quite the same way as they used to.
I also need to be composing. This is tricky because I compose best without distraction. I don't have Finale on this laptop, and it seems ridiculous to buy it when I can use it over in Langroise for free. It's just that every time I go to compose in the lab, a million distractions present themselves. I need to learn how to ignore them.
I am going to go submit some poems to the National Undergraduate Literature Conference!
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