"Tender Buttons" is an interesting piece of work. In a way, it reminds me of Charles Simic, a poet who immigrated to America as a boy during World War II. Simic write prose poetry--which is sort of what Stein does, only without coherent sentences--but the thing about Simic is that he writes these cryptic freaking poems that, without significant analysis of every word, make no sense whatsoever.
The difference is that Stein doesn't set out to make meaning out of her poems, as far as I can tell. It's all modern art. It's a Rothko painting, or some abstract sculpture that means something different to everyone, because whatever you get out of it is whatever you project onto it. Darren Arnofsky's "The Fountain" is a great example of this. The movie has a definite meaning to its director, but Arnofsky has not commented on that meaning, rather hoping everyone will draw their own conclusions. And there are many interpretations of the movie, not all of which do I agree with, nor would some have even occured to me. (I highly recommend that movie, by the way.)
I didn't get Stein most of the time, but some of her poems clicked immediately. I still prefer her to Simic, because at least I can just appreciate Stein's alliteration and word association without having to search desperately for meaning.
If you were in Adrienne's 212 class (and Christian, you WERE!) you might remember that she asked us to "look with different lenses." That has slammed into my thoughts every time since that comment was made that I read something I just HATE. I take it apart and look at it in another way and then I am a bit more comfortable with it.
ReplyDeleteGertrude Stein comes with a built-in lens...a KALEIDOSCOPE!!!! She bursts into a million imaginative pieces, all with brilliant color and no one sees her the same way. I would LOVE to have been in the audience when she presented...love to have heard the comments!!!