Transrational (zaum) poetics
 

Watten summarizes on Osip Brik's thinking about rhythm vs. sense:
 
"when the rhythmic requirements of a language outstrip what is possible to say, poetry enters into the area of 'transrational' poetics" (9)
 
"Brik would say that [a] poet is tending toward zaum" when "[that] poet's language is excessively rhetorical or overloaded with connotation to the point of blur" (9)
 
this doesn't have to be nonsensical--Watten uses the example of Dylan Thomas, where "the sound is 'almost taking off with blood'" (unclear if the internal quote here is Thomas)
 
I'd argue that "overloaded with connotation" could describe Dickinson as well

> from Barrett Watten's Total Syntax (1984)

> tagged with #rhythm, #sound, #poetics

> created December 4, 2024 at 10:33:33 AM


> part of unfinished everything


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