Postcards from the Imagination

...in film can transport the viewer to different times and places, either within or without the narrative, instantaneously. How the hell does one do that with words, specifically poetry? That's what I'm thinking about at the moment. Simple disjunction doesn't do it, because a single visual image conveys far more sensory and semantic information (I think) than a single word or phrase can.  And once the linguistic structure grows larger than a word or phrase, there is (I think, again) a significant loss of momentum versus the jump cut in film. Simple disjunction doesn't do it, because while jump cuts may be momentarily disorienting, they don't entirely (or sometimes at all) resist the production of meaning. In fact, the foregrounding of authorial intent is what makes the Godard films I've seen so interesting.

I'm leaning toward the idea that achieving the effect in a poem means striking the right balance between orientation and disorientaton--in part by ordering the appearance of 'information' to mirror the sequences of perception and understanding through which cinematic jumps are processed. I'm also leaning toward the idea that these sequences aren't universal, but vary according to context. That is, if there's a monster in the room, one's going to notice the monster before the shade of paint on the walls--and how one notices the monster will be a product of whether an infant, or a vampire, or a meadow full of daisies appeared in the previous shot. Gross oversimplification, but I've never formally studied cinematic techniques and am feeling my way through.

And that's all the time I have for thinking/feeling through since my daughter's home from school for European World Domination Day. 

P.S. This October heat wave (it's 80+ degrees in Ithaca) is disturbing if not entirely unpleasant.