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1. NEW MEANING AND POETIC VOCABULARY
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NEWMEANIN GAN D POETICVOCABULARY Untilthen I'lltypeouthere,surroundedby papers,dictionaries, filefolders, notebooks, Coronamatic cartridges. Isthis the word "Coronamatic" 's firstappearance in verse? WouldEliot've allowed "Coronamatic" in his verse? Ifso,under what circumstances? —JacksonMacLow, "56thLight Poem: ForGretchen Berger — 29November 1978" Towarda culturalpoetic so fth emateria ltext ,I willbegi nwit ha constructionof "theword sthemselves."Thi schapterchartsthedevelopment— inAmericanmodernist an dpostmoder npoetry— oftheus eofpreestablished ,nonauthoria lpoetic vocabulariesfo rliterar ycomposition .Whil eColeridge' sconcep to fpoeti cdictio n isnormativ ean dhierarchica linit sselectio no fappropriat evocabulariesforliter ature ,wha tI amgoingtocal lpoeti cvocabularyi sbot hopen-ende dan dcritical , allowingthene wmeaningo fjargons ,dialects ,idioms ,andtechnicalsensesint o poetry.Th eemergenceoftheconcep tofpoeti cvocabularymaybediscernedina historicistreadin gofColeridge' saccountofpoeti cdictionb ymeansofthecritica l termdesynonymy, whic hI willusetounlin kColeridge' ssynthesisoftheethicso f newmeaningi nexperimentalpoetry(a tthetime,thepoetr yoftheLyrical Ballads) fromhi scal lfo ra readershi pof"suitabl einterpreters "(lookin gforwar dt ohi s culturallyconservativenotiono fa nationalclerisy)whowoul dpreserv e—andenforce — distinctionsbetwee nwordmeanings .Coleridge'ssynthesisdirectlyinflu enced theinventio nan dpopularizatio no fBASI CEnglis hbyI .A.RichardsandC.K. Ogden,wh owishe dt oreduc eth evocabular yo fEnglis hi norde rtocreat eauni versal secon dlanguag etha twoul db etransparen tt one wmeaning si nscience, industry,an dcommerce .Ogdenan dRichards' sexperimen ti nmoder nlinguisti c hygienewa squickl ynotice db ymodernis texperimenta lpoets ,an di n193 2the expatriatejourna ltransition publishe da translatio no fJame sJoyce' sFinnegans Wakeint oBASIC ,thusplacin gsid eb yside"th esimplestan dmostcomple xlan guages o fman. "Asa modernist ,Loui sZukofsk ywa sals oinspire db yBASIC' S reducedvocabularyof850words,an dinturnmad eliterarywork susingpreestab1FROM COLERIDGE TO JACKSONMACLOW lishedvocabularies ,suc ha shisearl yexperimen t"Thank stoth eDictionary. "Zukofsky alsowrotea critiqueo fOgde nan dRichards' sBASI Can dcontinuedtous e delimitedvocabularie si nhi sexperimenta ltexts.Inthe1950s ,postmoder npoe t JacksonMa cLo wdirectl yincorporate dth e850-wor dBASI Cvocabular yi nman y experimentaltexts.Inhiswork,vocabulariessuchasBASICprovidethesourcetext that,throughtheapplicationofcompositiona lrules ,yieldsthetargetformo fhis poeticoutput .Thismovemen tfromsourcetexttotarge tformi sreenacte di nthe readingandproductionofMacLow'sworkaccordingtothecarefu linstructionsof hisprefaces .I nthetarge tformso fMa cLow'stext sthemselves,wema yidentify bothanethicsofreadin gandanotionofcommunityinthearbitrarines sandcon structedness ofhi spregivenpoeti cvocabularies. POETICVOCABULARY JacksonMa cLow' squestio nfo rT .S.Eliot,whetherth ewor dCoronamatic couldunde ran ycircumstance shaveoccurredi npoetr ya sEliot understoodit ,mark sa nimportan tparadig mshif ti nAmerica npoetics . WhileMacLowwasnotth efirstAmericanpoett oconsiderlanguageitself asa materia lfo rth econstructio no fpoetr y...