Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Failure, expendeture, Sacrifice - Joyelle McSweeney on Poetics

Johannes just posted this piece By Joyelle - apparently the whole piece is in Fence.

Exerpt, in keeping with the discussion here (in the comment stream), follows:

"3)Bataille says “the term poetry [...] can be considered synonymous with expenditure; it in fact signifies, in the most precise way, creation by means of loss. Its meaning is therefore closer to that of sacrifice.’ By sacrifice he means a loss unto extinction; Sacrifice produces sacred objects. Furthermore, “in particular, the success of Christianity must be explained by [...] the Son of God’s ignominious crucifixion, which carries human dread to a representation of loss and limitless degradation.”

"5)Or, put another way, there’s no success like failure."

4 comments:

Andrea said...

She has some really interesting ideas and theories about writing. I just ordered Nyland, the Sarcographer so I'm really looking forward to reading that one.

Ross Brighton said...

I've got it and it's amazing - one of the best novels i've read in a long time. I've also got The Commandrine and Other Poems, which is fantastic as well.

Ross Brighton said...

I also can't wait to read Flet - there's a copy in the uni library.

Andrea said...

I hadn't thought of the uni library for books like that, though they do have some great stuff - thanks for the heads up.