Yang Lian - Lectures / Workshops / Seminars

POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY - Poetry and Philosophy Workshop with Invited Guest Poet. (3 Credits).

Description: The complex relationship between poetry and philosophy and the notion of poetry as thought will be explored in a cordial dialogue with an internationally recognized poet. Alessandro de Francesco, Michel Deguy, Yang Lian, Jan Zwicky, Jacques Roubaud, Philippe Beck have previously participated.

Objectives: Most of us as readers of poetry do not make an association of poetry with ontology. Prof. Judith Balso's argues, that (taking the liberty of Gertrude Stein's laconic insistent syntax) a poem is a poem is a poem is a poem is a poem...and we take away from the reading of a poem only the moment. (Compare Hemingway's parody of it: "a rose is a rose is a rose is an onion".) In short, there's no relation at all between poetry and ontology, and philosophy for that matter.

Prof. Balso claims that there is indeed a debate between philosophy and poetry concerning Being, though she is not only referring to a philosophical poetry (if indeed there is such a thing), one that propounds a philosophy. Judith Balso is instead referring to post-Rimbaud/Mallarme poetry, arguing that for Pessoa and Stevens poetry must assert itself where Being can be thought, or can be a thot. She claims that, unlike Plato's banishment of the poets from the republic for their miming of the truth and the corruption of education with myths, poets do not intend to make people err; that there is a very close relation between thot and poetry, that modern poetry at least has become a thot related to language, the nature of which relation makes a poetry language itself manifesting in this thot.

Course Outline:

Module One: General presentation of the relationship between philosophy and poetry. Readings: Plato, “Republic”. Heidegger “Chemins qui ne menent nulle part”, “Approche de Holderlin”

Module Two: Invited poet talks about poetry.

Module Three: Pasolini as anticipating the crisis of “history” within progressive politics. Readings: “The Ashes of Gramsci” and “The Tears of the Excavator”

Module Four: Wallace Stevens as anticipating the question of the State. Readings: “Owl’s Clover”

Module Five: Evening Lecture (with discussion)

Required Readings:

Pasolini, Pier Paolo. Poems. Vintage Books. 1982: Reprint: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1996. Paperback, 256 pages, Language English and Italian, ISBN: 0374524696. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Pessoa, Fernando. Poems of Fernando Pessoa. City Lights Books. 2001. Paperback, 240 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0872863425. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Stevens, Wallace. Collected poetry and prose. Library of America. 1997. Hardcover, 1030 pages, Language English, ISBN: 1883011450. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Recommended Readings:

Deguy, Michel. Recumbents: poems. Wesleyan poetry. 2004. Paperback, 268 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0819567485. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Roubaud, Jacques. Great Fire of London. Dalkey Archive. 2006. Paperback, 328 pages, Language English, ISBN: 1564783960. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Yang, Lian. Where the Sea Stands Still: New Poems. Bloodaxe Books. 1999, Paperback, 96 pages, Language English, ISBN: 1852244712. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.