I appreciated Harry Matthew’s playfulness with the English language; he takes the seriousness out of linguistics. The playfulness and underlying humor of Matthews’ paraphrases and perverbs was enjoyable to read. I liked that on page 104 he combined multiple phrases in different ways to alter their meaning and recognition. It was interesting to try to distinguish any meaning in the end statements after appearing to start out with the well-known proverb “The early bird gets the worm.”
Jackson MacLow provided an interesting insight into art. Is it art or is it a way of life? The impulse to make and respond to art appears to be deeply ingrained in us as the ability to understand language. Where does this urge come from? Is it a chosen pleasure or a natural impulse that simply leads to enjoyment?
I enjoyed the experimentation of the Jackson MacLow poems. Similar to the exercise we did in class, these remind me of madlibs. I tried to find a “reason behind the madness” (as to why some letters were capitalized or removed) but failed. I am beginning to like that characteristic of much of what we read- by trying to find reason, we find inspiration.
Ronald Johnson’s “Radios” I found to be very powerful. Starting with the first lines “O Tree into the World, Man the chosen Rose out of Chaos” makes me think of the overwhelming presence of humanity in the world today and the feeling of arrogance and ignorance that comes with. The work just seemed extremely powerful to me. Also, the lines “And
All is
And
And
And
That”
were…I do not know how to describe it, they just were. It is a sense of being.
Sadly, the link for Tom Phillips, Austin Kleon, and William S. Burroughs was broken when I tried to access them. I have not had any problems thus far accessing material, so this was unexpected.
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