This is a copy of part of the discussion that developed out of my last post. In that post I argued very determinedly that poetry does not divide people. I placed the responsibility for dividing people on the agent; that agent being the reader/writer.
• Bonnie McClellan | November 30, 2010 at 5:14 pm | Reply | Edit
One other thought; perhaps the poem is not so innocent/inert…if the poem (A) is not written by the writer (agent a) then it is not there to be read / interpreted by the reader (agent b). Does this not make the poem an agent by which the writer is moved out of inertia and into active expression and by which the reader is provoked into a response (even if that response is inertia i.e. not reading)?
If you don’t have a brick at hand and you’re standing alone in the desert what can you throw?
• Brad | November 30, 2010 at 7:31 pm | Reply | Edit
That’s an interesting take Bonnie! I’ve read that from a couple of different angles so can I just confirm that the order of events I’ve settled on is the correct one?
a) the writer writes the poem.
b) the poem is now an agent which moves the writer into active expression.
c) the active expression of the writer primarily involves placing the poem in the reader’s environment
d) the writer leaves the environment of the poem and the reader is left alone with the poem
e) the poem is now an agent which provokes the reader to respond.
• Bonnie McClellan | November 30, 2010 at 8:53 pm | Reply | Edit
Yup, that’s it. It’s a version of the same argument and counter argument used by right to bear arms advocates vs. gun control advocates in Texas:
The former: “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”
the latter: “access to guns makes killing more likely”
so perhaps the real culprit is literacy?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ok. So to keep things on an even field, we could say that the conclusion of my argument grammatically mirrors the position of right to bear arms advocates.
“Poetry don’t divide people.Writers divide people.”
is like
“Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.”
Equally, since writers and readers are both people of the kind I have defined as agents;
“Poetry don’t divide people. Readers divide people.”
is like
“Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.”
It’s worth noting that ‘divide’ and ‘kill’ don’t equate, but that’s ok because we’re just talking grammatically at the moment.
We’re looking for an argument that leads to a conclusion which mirrors the position of gun control advocates such as – “access to poetry makes ‘divided people’ more likely.”
We don’t need a counter-argument to get the kind of result that the gun control advocate wants to demonstrate. Since I have made the writer a responsible agent who is capable of performing a purposeful action on people or the environment, it follows that if the writer does not place the poem in the environment, and thus does not ‘perform a purposeful action on people or the environment’, the consequence of ‘access’ does not follow. If the writer does place the poem in the environment, the consequence of ‘access’ (that consequence being divided people) is more likely. That’s the same thought process that I imagine the gun control advocate uses.
What I find interesting about the sequence of events that led Bonnie to recognising that ‘rights based debate’, is that it makes the poem or the gun an agent. The thing is, you would have to define it is a different kind of agent. For instance, you would need to define a kind of agent that is a non-sentient substance yet still capable of performing an action on the reader or writer. And that seems like a reasonable expectation to have of a poem. When I write a poem, I want it to move you!
Now the question(s) surely must be asked: do poems move people, or do people move into poems? I’ll put my money on people moving into poems. That way, I get to keep my argument!
Thanks Bonnie.
