What's An Objectivist Poem?
I'm supposed to be writing one of these this morning. Having a hard time focusing on objects, my mind wants to ramble and rant. Below, some notes on what an Objectivist poem is from the Writers on the Net class I'm taking with Barbara Henning.
These kinds of poems:
-- Concentrate on the luminous details in the present conscious world.
-- Includes historic and contemporary particulars.
-- Follows William Carlos William's "No idea but in things."
-- An organic poem with no parts to analyze, rather an accumulation.
-- Yet it makes a social statement.
-- The opposite of symbolist and surrealist poetry in that it's about immediate conscious reality, no streaming consciousness.
-- The object is primary. No metaphors. Instead the material quality of the word.
-- The poet in the background as a collector or arranger.
-- Use documents and newspapers and talk of people. This school of poets wrote usually urban poems, but this isn't necessary.
-- Use local speech and rhythm. Immigrant particularities. Documents.
-- Condense and collage.
-- "The poem as a field of action" (W.C. Williams again). Shape grows organically during the process of making. All at once. All together.
-- Intellectual & moral.
