Scarriet finishes its March Madness Poetry Tournament (the Sublime) for the year 2020 in this post. Congratulations to all the participants, in this our 10th anniversary season.
The crowds are fevered, excited, massing in great numbers into the arena with whoops and screams, as Final Four play descends upon March Madness Island.
Ovid (Classical Bracket) It is art to conceal art.
Matthews (Romantic Bracket) Green dells that into silence stretch away.
Fitzgerald (Modern Bracket) So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
Sociu (Post-Modern Bracket) The quakes moving for nothing, under uninhabited regions.
When it comes to the sublime, we have no time to think.
The sublime stops thought as it overwhelms our senses.
But paradoxically, poetry is not sensual—poetry is born of a priori thought; it is a medium made, and that medium, language, is a system of signs, not something which, in itself, is sensual; nor does the creative impulse have anything that we can recognize as sensual—we cannot “see” the chess player thinking, nor do we know how the moves of the chess pieces are shaped by the mind, or what sensuality belongs to any decisions as such.
And, as opposed to the mere 64 square chess board of the mere chess player, the blank page of the poet contains many more possible “moves” than a chess board, which nothing physical could understand in real time and not be overwhelmed and defeated before it starts.
Perhaps the sublime is the paradoxical attempt of thought to be physical—the poem understood physically is sublime by this very fact, beyond any “content” per se.
But this does not seem quite right—content must matter. The sublime simply cannot be codified in words. And yet—would the sublime be satisfied with no definition of itself?
I suppose one could attempt a formula for the sublime, as Poe did, with his “Raven”—what is the best way to write a popular, yet learned poem? How many lines? What subject? What structure?
To attempt a definition of the sublime right here and now (as fans at this moment are filling the arena, and before Marla Muse has appeared on the scene):
A sublime expression requires two compact, highly simple, and distinct, ideas which war and unite in a wave/particle state of paradox, in a manner which gives us a pleasant, non-thinking experience.
Ovid: It is art to conceal art.
If art is good, then we should not want to conceal it, and if art is bad, then art is good to conceal itself, but how can art be both good and bad?—in both cases Ovid’s assertion would seem to be false.
Unless art is both good and bad—bad when it is not concealed, good when it is concealed, and therefore good when it conceals itself, and therefore the concealing (which if it is good, we don’t see) is the good action, and therefore it does fit our definition: “two compact, highly simple, and distinct, ideas which war and unite in a wave/particle state of paradox.” But does it meet the second requirement? Does Ovid’s “It is art to conceal art” give us a “pleasant, non-thinking experience?” For the cheering, singing, and excitable Ovid fans, the answer would seem to be yes.
“Green dells that into silence stretch away” would seem—
But now it is too late. Play has begun, Marla Muse has turned down the lights; fires lit all around dance to the collective urges of the fans.
Away, away stretch the green dells…
The vista resists the concentrated might of the screaming circle in the center of the throng.
The art of each opponent looks for an opening, creates an opening—but to enter, or to trap?
What risks are taken! The “art” is momentarily exposed, and a gasp goes up from the crowd! Matthews suddenly brings what he has from silence, into the green dells…
The play is unbelievable!
The fans are going crazy!
Ovid concealed a bit too long!
Cornelius Matthews wins! He’s going to the championship!
~~~~~~~~~
In the other Final Four match-up, F. Scott Fitzgerald has us “beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
We attempt to go forward, but the current takes us back.
Here is the whole passage:
Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound. And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes—a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an æsthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.
And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning——
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
Fitzgerald’s passage has so many marvelous parts: “that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes—a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house…”
Please open your gold filigree program, Poetry March Madness acolytes, to Dan Sociu’s poem (Marla will bring up the lights in just a moment):
Nimic Nu Mai E Posibil
Nothing is possible anymore between me
And a nineteen year old girl, just as nothing
was possible when I was nineteen
years old. I listened to them carefully, they ruffled my hair,
they’d gently reject my touches, no, Dan,
you are not like this, you are a poet. They came
to me for therapy, they’d come with their eyes in tears
to the poet. I was a poet and everyone was in love
around the poet and none with him.
The poet would go out every evening
quaking like a tectonic wave and
in the morning he’d come back humiliated
in his heart—the quakes moving
for nothing, under uninhabited regions.
******
Here, then, the paradox which slams us in the heart as true:
“they’d come with their eyes in tears to the poet. I was a poet and everyone was in love around the poet and none with him.
Dan Sociu defeats F. Scott Fitzgerald!
~~~~~~~~~~
Dan Sociu faces Cornelius Matthews in the 2020 March Madness Championship!!
Sociu has saved the best for last.
“Green dells that into silence stretch away” has concision, it has painterly beauty, and loftiness and yes, sublimity.
And now the conclusion of Sociu’s poem:
The poet would go out every evening
quaking like a tectonic wave and
in the morning he’d come back humiliated
in his heart—the quakes moving
for nothing, under uninhabited regions.
The arena erupts. The fans are now pure energy. The sounds of the arena blare across the sea, the news hesitant and anxious no longer. Even the children know.
Dan Sociu has won the 2020 Poetry March Madness.