Interesting discussion on poetics and disablement.

Here’s a gem of a thought from Exoskeleton on the poetics of overdeterminacy:

I think the concept of “indeterminacy” has been very bad for poetry; in many ways a kind of recuperation of avant-garde energies as updated versions of Empson’s new critical “ambiguity”.

Seems like the concept of “indeterminacy” plays into Max’s caricature of the avant-garde as writing that willfully merely “breaks the rules” without offering anything of its own. If this was true we wouldn’t still be all be obsessed with ideas and techniques from the 1910s and 20s.

If I understand indeterminacy correctly, this is the act of making a text – be it a line, a sentence, a word, or even a space – purposefully contrary to anything within its vicinity for no reason at all. The effect is un-understanding. I’m trying to choose my words carefully. We can’t say misunderstanding because a misunderstanding is based on an intent to communicate. And we can’t call it non-understanding because the prefix “non” affirms a negation. A non-understanding would be a lack of understanding, which presupposes an attempt to communicate. But “un” is a prefix that refers to a contrary notion. An un-understanding would be a lack of understanding based on an attempt not to communicate. That’s a fine distinction.

Indeterminacy then is the act of communicating by not communicating. It is un-communicative in the sense that the poet is purposely attempting to not communicate something just because. In other words, they’re just speaking gibberish.

In a certain sense, this gibberish is bad. There is no communication and of course no communication means no understanding. Most people have no interest in an art form that purposely attempts to obscure communication. What’s the point?

But upon more careful examination, one can see that there is sometimes a point. I have read – and have heard read – some poems that musically and rhythmically are very attractive. They may not say anything meaningful or important, or attempt to communicate at all, but they do produce an effect. And that has value if, and this is a big if, it is done with a meaningful purpose. By “purpose” I do not mean an afterthought. We do not speak gibberish and then when asked, “Why did you do it that way,” we fabricate a reason as a way of explaining ourselves. That would be dishonest and, well, capricious. But a purpose is an intentional obscuration that has a point. And I can see some room for that, but I’m not sure that I would call that indeterminacy.

An example of purposeful gibberish would be Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky.” The poem, of course, is a “nonsense” poem. That is, it makes no sense, and rightly so. But there is a purpose to it. It’s simply to entertain, but even then on a deeper level, there is some serious wordplay, which is itself a form of entertainment for the literate. And within the larger context of the novel in which it first appeared there is an even greater point, though it would take far too much time than I have now and would supersede the scope of this blog post.

Poets should be encouraged to experiment. Even to experiment wildly. But to experiment only to produce work that has no meaning and serves no purpose is to engage in a playful nuisance. It is much like a 10-year-old who takes up smoking because it annoys all the adults in his world or a teenager who drives his automobile off a cliff just to see what happens. It’s self-destructive. And poets who engage in this kind of behavior have no excuse when everyone writes them off as a quack. Such is the train wreck that much of the avant-garde has led us to.