Steve's Peeves

"In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
who squatting upon the ground,
held his heart in his hands
and ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter -- bitter", he answered;
"But I like it
because it is bitter,
and because it is my heart." "

- Stephen Crane

I ask myself to criticize this poem - it has long been close to my heart. Criticism is accounted secondary, but why not? Do I care, I, the brave defier of hierarchies? Perhaps, if the truth is misted, or perhaps if it is too bold. The anxiety of the critic infects his work - he is made to kneel, he makes the usual gestures with his hands. Undertow, if he is lucky, and pluck have nothing to do with it? He asks questions, and in the questing, we see something of him. But we are wrong to be curious, it is not part of the game.

The poem is seen to be directed from , and criticism is directed to . Or: poetry is addressed to the reader, and criticism to the poem - is there not a symmetry here? No, for the reader is imagined, but the poem is real. The poem is at the center of things, and not ashamed. There is no space to feel; to feel is to be seen to feel, and that makes the feeling false.

We take it that there is need for a remedy. Everyone in the room needs to be made comfortable, while they are still awake. Tangents are equal.

The new word is this: "occasion". Exchange the figures of "source" and "derivative" for "occasion". The pineapple is the occasion for a picture, the picture for a poem, the poem for criticism. The pineapple occasions criticism. Criticism may ignore the pineapple entirely (but not entirely). There is a debt here, and there may be a debt in turn. We may, occasionally, be wrong.

What can we say about a pineapple - that it is a crown of thorns? There are further questions here about authority, and play, and why something or the other is essential, to keep the mystery alive, if there is a mystery...