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Unread 05-15-2022, 03:38 PM
John Isbell John Isbell is offline
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Hi Susan,

I guess my answer has various parts. As to appropriation, I agree, you'd think folks would be glad to see tools they invented - which after all poetic forms are - being used by folks worldwide, even if for radically different purposes. Thus, here's Beethoven's Ode to Joy sung by 10,000 Japanese singers, which I played to my German classes to show them he belongs to the planet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayw4l58IWb8 . Moreover, I Googled and found no online sign of offense at appropriation of non-Western verse forms, ghazal or haiku in particular. However, this is emphatically not the case in the Boston MFA kimono story: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ou...o-event-314534 . The question then might be, what's the difference? And that question I think bears consideration. Is it just that one has an easy visual? Is a kimono not just a tool much as a haiku is?

So that's part one. Part two remains the question: how do different forms shape our seeing and understanding of the world? Sarah-Jane had some provocative thoughts on what the ghazal and the sonnet impose on their practitioners., and I for one would certainly welcome thoughts on what writing a villanelle, a sestina, a triolet, does to the universe of thought we inhabit. Is it narrowed? Expanded? What is the meaning of form?

I think that's about it. Thank you, Susan, for redirecting this thread (here's hoping it gets some traction, I think the questions merit it!).

Cheers,
John

Last edited by John Isbell; 05-15-2022 at 03:40 PM. Reason: for for
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