Vancouver Lecture 1: Dictation & "A Textbook of Poetry"

Spicer. Not on my list, but recommended to ease comprehension of his idea of "Outside"-ness and Blaser's essay on that practice. Some quick notes:

(10) Outside v. inside-- impulse to override what's coming in from Outside

***I think this could be interesting in a poem, to see the struggle, but maybe not... this thought did make me think of two poems that have moments like this, sort of, that I really like: one of Stepha's hound poems, dreamscape, ending with God help me, nice moment that disorients the reader from narrative/passive listener to direct addressee, and Edson's "The Neighborhood Dog," with the line, "I don't like to see that/don't like to see a dog get like that" or some such. (Also of course Bishop's "One Art" ("Though it might look like (write it!) like disaster"). I like those intrusions and visible seams.

And it's become clearer that the Martians are just a handy metaphor (bearing across) to describe something that's pretty difficult to describe: the Martians seem to be the source, the inspiration (I mean that in the sense that the writing is inspired, in the Biblical, God-breathed sense-- which somehow, I think, aligns with Spicer's idea of dictation) that we're to listen to and not to interfere with (that is, to listen to and write down what they say). BUT what he's saying seems not dissimilar to other ideas about this, which he addresses (well, poets' ideas, anyway) but sort of dismisses... however, q: how is this different from an oracle? Religious connotations aside, the only significant differences I see are that the poet exercises some authority (chooses to write it down, weighs its authenticity) and the poet (for some reason, probably lack of humility) claims the poems as his/her own, whereas the oracle would acknowledge the message comes from somewhere else. Which is another difference, perhaps: Spicer is pretty adamant that he's receiving POEMS NOT MESSAGES. And he's of course very clear that he can't identify the source but it's not divine. But what's the real difference?

Even thinking biblically (thinking of John writing Revelation) the book claims to be a recording of a vision, which he probably couldn't comprehend and therefore translated it into the language/images/references he had access to, this taking for granted of course the idea that Scripture, including prophecy, is inspired and therefore a form of dictation. So what's the difference, and what the hell do these Martians want with poetry, anyway?