Ye gods and newts! Jonathan thinks the average college student would find the poetry of Ron Silliman and Bruce Andrews no more opaque than that of Tennyson and Shelley — either he's delusional or the students he knows are functional illiterates to whom all writing is equally opaque. Lemme show you.
I don't own a line by Andrews, so I'll just borrow the passage Joan Houlihan quoted from BAP (hyphens in that copy, anyway):
No, dirt aliens: don't waste good mascara, fiber gives you confi-
dence. Spin doctors vs. gravity, do you spandex wooden leg plus spaz
hemp tempi seize the fey crawlspatiality creatures peel off. Barbie pro-
tons slobber the manual seedling wrapped in human skin. Happy puppy
preconscious vouchers don't brownnose your pal's girlfriend, a swagger
unanointed affect in its gob phase. Automated preparation H—a non-
goosing, a midriff melody—stir the rack up…mere child has her permit.
from "Dang Me"
Because I don't know the context of the above (if "context" has any meaning with such stuff) here's some fairly random (I didn't want anything too easy) lines from Tennyson:
Then spake, to whom thro' those black walls of yew
Their talk had pierced, her father, "Ay, a flash,
I fear me, that will strike my blossom dead.
Too courteous are you, fair Lord Lancelot.
I pray you, use some rough discourtesy
To blunt or break her passion." Lancelot said,
"That were against me; what I can I will."
from Idylls of the King
Not wishing to vary the protocol of our little experiment, I've picked a little equally random (except I didn't have to look for difficulty) Silliman:
A stone crowd and chose the mime.
Is this a spray or cat of poor.
This universe, really in its personal.
The garbage is never glad bags.
As if a circus, the cruel riders saw
through the park.
Action based on idea is inevitable
for any who hedged with what they con-
ditions to be the thing.
The porridge, more, are a form of eat.
We advanced house by house, block by
block.
from "I AM MARION DELGADO"
And finally a strip from Shelley:
But, should we stay to speak, noontide would come,
And thwart Silenus find his goats undrawn,
And grudge to sing those wise and lovely songs
Of Fate, and Chance, and God, and Chaos old,
And Love, and the chained Titan's woful doom,
And how he shall be loosed, and make the earth
One brotherhood: delightful strains which cheer
Our solitary twilights, and which charm
To silence the unenvying nightingales.
from Prometheus Unbound
What difficulties there are in the Tennyson and Shelley can be quickly overcome with a dictionary. What aid is there for the hapless reader of the other two passages?
Here's a little story from last night, connected with the article on working class literacy I cited yesterday.
I went to the bar next door for a shot of Irish whiskey, carrying Charles Martin's wonderful translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses with me. While I read and sipped, the cook, a man about my age (fifty-something) was sitting near me, waiting for his ride home. He asked "Are you studying?"
I told him no, that I was just enjoying a translation by a man I'd met a few years ago, and showed him the cover.
"Ovid!" he said, clearly recognizing the name and the work. "You really know the guy who did that book? That's so cool."
10:16:52 PM 
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