Great discussion Friday about fan values of Rupi Kaur poems. One thing we might didn't get to fully discuss was “How would we look at these poems through the traditional, “Professor of Poetry” criteria? Are all evaluations good/relevant for all audiences? Does this place these poems or those criteria in a different light? And what if the author knows this and may even be doing it on purposely?” This last question might be the best possible transition to consideration of John Cage, a composer and writer who knew perfectly well what the expected criteria were but then made works which challenged fans, listeners and critics.
Guardian article link and video.
John Cage (1912-1992) was an influential composer who challenged listener and many convention of classical music, sometimes by using non-traditional instruments, often by using chance or “indeterminate procedures” to compose. Later in his career, he adopted similar “experimental” procedures to writing. Study of Eastern religion was one influence (on the idea that that artist's ego and intentions shouldn't be taken too seriously). There's also a revealing story about the HS valedictorian enrolling at the liberal arts Pomona College:
I was shocked at college to see one hundred of my classmates in the library all reading copies of the same book. Instead of doing as they did, I went into the stacks and read the first book written by an author whose name began with Z. I received the highest grade in the class. That convinced me that the institution was not being run correctly. I left. link
Discussion
How do we approach Cage's “Water Walk” as a piece of music? What kinds of things make good instrumental music (conventionally)? In what ways does this piece play by those rules? In what ways does it ignore or even challenge them?
Does viewing the “musical score” alter how we react to the experiment or the terms we use to discuss its value? Water Walk score
Read the John Cage essay, “Experimental Music” via Perusall. link.
“Experimental Music”
Orienting questions and key annotations link via Perusall
Discussion Experimentalism can involve a challenge to the way art (poetry, music, theater, painting, etc.) is made. Often it presses two questions : whether the new work qualifies as music (poetry, art, etc.) AND then how it is to be valued. This second part – how it is to be valued – has a double sense, both whether it is any good AND how would we tell. For instance, if you approach poetry with the notion that rhyme is essential, then all unrhymed texts would either be disqualified (i.e. NOT poetry) or valued poorly (i.e. BAD poetry). Does music require proper instruments? Melody? Rhythm? How would we know if music made according to Cage's experimental framework were Good? or Bad? Does experimental composition necessarily lead to experimental (changed) evaluation? Or should the “standards” remain the same, and the new work must meet the established standards? (And who is qualified or authorized to answer these questions? !) Could we also change the rules for how music is evaluated, to make this fit (if we wanted to do so)? Or is there something about this experimentalism that would make that impossible?
Watch Prof. Julian Dodd, TedX lecture on Cage,via Youtube link. On MS Teams, please discuss: Is Dodd persuasive? Where might you differ (or what other argument could be made)?
Orienting questions?
What is the difference between stating an opinion and making an argument?
Discuss the Dodd lecture with your group mates. Can you outline the main claims and logic of his argument? (Whether we like someone's conclusion or not, it's a good idea to try to consider the logic and evidence used.)
Teams - outline space link
(Sherwood premise: it's hard to tell if something is good before you know what it is …)
Homework
Cage increasingly worked with language later in his life. Please see the excerpt from the Norton Anthology of Postmodern Poetry via Perusall
See final groups from Thursday
What assumptions do we make about the role of intention or ego in writing? Rupi Kaur gave one version of a challenge to academic notions of poetry. Cage presents a very different one.
Explanation
General Questions
Not required, but if you are interested (or confused and want some help), the critic Marjorie Perloff dedicates a portion of an essay (later included in her book The Poetics of Indeterminacy: Rimbaud to Cage ) to the analysis of Cage's mesostics.
How would we go about discussing and evaluating?
Homework
Next week we will move back in time to May of 1917. We'll be looking at a provocative piece of “ready-made” art named the Fountain, as well as the discussion about the “modern” and the modernist poetry which surrounded it in an issue of the magazine The Blind Man. Please view two brief videos: