"Formalism, with its dream of finite measurement, is a beautiful arrogance, a fantasy of materialism. When we find what's to measure and measure it, we should understand style-as-fingerprint, quantifying characteristic phonemic sequence ... or whatever. But it seems likely that we will continue to intuit qualities, like degrees of intensity, for which objective measure is impossible. Then hard-noses will claim that only the measurable exists—which is why hard-nose usually means soft-head. "
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From "Poetry and Ambition" Kenyon Review, n.s., 5, no. 4 (1983), and was reprinted in Pushcart Prize IX: Best of the Small Presses, 1984-85, and the AWP Bulletin, Feb.-Mar., 1987. Published in 1988 in Poetry and Ambition: Essays 1982-88 by Donald Hall.
2 comments:
"which is why hard-nose usually means soft-head."
that made me laugh. i have a book of his essays that's really good, it has a weird title, i can't think of it right now. --Goatfoot, Milktongue, Twinbird-- Yea, that's it.
RE: "Goatfoot, Milktongue, Twinbird"
I'm hunting it down on Amazon.com as I write this. Thanks for the reference, Jenni.
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