some notes on zukofsky's 'for my son when he can read'

I volunteered to give a brief presentation on Zukofsky's essay "For My Son When He Can Read" (from "Prepositions", published by Berkeley, UC Press, 1967). I don't know enough about Zukofsky to know whether or not I'm focusing too much on one thing and not enough on another -- or whether or not I'm taking him too literally. But for what it's worth, here are the notes I took.

Need for a general (scientific) definition of poetry.

. . . as I heard your first syllables [ . . .] I saw why definitions of poetry rounding out like ciphers (abstract and like numbers on clocks that read only this century or that century and so no other) should not satisfy either of us. (p. 3)

Current definitions are too abstract. “To write poems is not enough if they do not keep the life that has gone.” (p. 3)

Current definitions apply only to poems of specific time periods. “The poet may visibly stop writing, but secretly measures himself against each word of poetry ever written.” (p.3)

side note: I think Zukofky’s getting at something like Kant’s notion of an “a priori” judgment – for a judgment to be a priori, it must be both logically necessary and universally applicable. E.g., a triangle has 180 degrees. So no poem could be a poem without fitting the definition, and the definition would apply to every possible poem that ever has and ever could be written.

Commonalities between poetry and science.

Someone alive in the years 1951 to 2000 may attempt a scientific definition of poetry. Its value would be in a generalization based on past and present poems and always relevant to the detail of their art. All future poems would verify some aspect of this definition and reflect it as an incentive to a process intended to last at least as long as men. (p.6)

Poetry, like science, is the living history of its self-critique. “A person would show little thought to say poetry is opposed to – since it is added to like – science.” (italics mine) (p. 4)

The future (of poetry) is a project of the past. “We look at the stars and because the light from them has traveled we see them shining tonight into tomorrow. With the same sense we look back and at once forward to ‘The Pitcher’ of Yuan Chen.” (p. 4)

Both science and poetry measure reality, and seek exactness in their utterances; both require standards in order to achieve this exactness. “The need for standards in poetry is no less than in science. [ . . .] Good verse is determined by the poet’s susceptibilities involving a precise awareness of differences, forms and possibilities of existence [ . . .] poets measure by means of words [ . . .] In poems, as in works of science, the involved susceptibilities always function with respect to some concept of exactness of utterance [ . . .] The choice for science and poetry when symbols or words stop measuring is to stop speaking.” (pp. 6-7)

Both science and poetry order events that impinge upon the human subject, then bring this ordering to language (“utterance”); inasmuch as all utterance can be considered poetry, science and all forms of intellectual or artistic endeavor can be considered a form of poetry. “[Poets] should embrace at least such action that informs skills and the intellect ordering events at once outside and in the head or whatever impinges upon it anatomically. / Utterance is but an extension or limit of this process. Poems are but phases of utterance. The action that precedes and move towards utterance moves toward poetry. The scientist compelled to make order of a hunch, the architect . . .” (p. 8)

Criteria of good poetry and steps toward a definition.

One of [a scientific definition's] forms might be: that matter worth the ‘highest common speech – all that flows from the tops of the head s of the illustrious poets down to their lips’ – properly embrace the whole art of poetry which is ‘nothing else but the completed action of writing words to be set to music’ – music being the one art that more than the other aims in its reach to speak to all men [ . . .] For the whole art may appear in one line of the poet or take a whole life’s work in which to appear. (p.9)

Poets must avoid clutter. “With respect to such action [qua that which precedes and moves toward utterance], the specialized concern to the poet will be, first, its proper conduct – a concern to avoid clutter no matter how many details outside and in the head are ordered.” (p. 8)

The poet should reveal not the poet’s own self or subjectivity, but rather and objective ordering of reality that can speak to all. “ . . . the order of [the poet’s] syllables will define his awareness of order. For his second and major aim is not to show himself but that order that of itself can speak to all men.” (p. 8)

Poets should put their effort into precise use of ordinary language, not in clouding their discernment with imprecise metaphor, elevated language, and obsessive concern over the rules of grammar. “ . . . those like us, son, ‘to whom the world is our native country’ [ . . .] will declare [ . . .] with Dante writing of the common speech, that ‘the exercise of discernment as to words involves by no means the smallest labor of our reason.’ [ . . . Dante] warned against metaphor whose discernment is lost in the making . . . Rhetoricians [ . . .] exist entirely in that frozen realm without crises that Dante called the ‘secondary speech.’ In poetry one can sing without stopping and without commas of the redundant commonplace action of the species.” (pp. 9-10)

A scientific definition will not concern itself with petty quibbles over how to classify various forms. “The question as to whether a long poem is composed of short ones, or of stanzas [ . . . ] whether what he writes is epic, lyric, or dramatic; -- seems to [the true poet] as vain as the question whether it is best to speak of inspiration, or felicitous speed, or hard work. In his order of poetic intellect all clinical charts say almost nothing about poetry.” (pp. 9-10)

A scientific definition of poetry must incorporate, in principle, all of human knowledge and experience. “ . . . it appears that the scientific definition of poetry can be based on nothing less than the world, the entire humanly known world. / Like the theories of science which are valid because they explain most, this definition will be valid inasmuch as it will be comprehensive.” (pp. 9)