Relationships

The connection between philosophy and poetry is not always the most apparent. When we think of philosophy, our associations immediately tend to be of logic, reason, of strong facts and musings about the innermost workings of the consciousness. Poetry is free, exploring everything and anything under the kind of creative lens chosen at will by the respected poet. The fact is that both poetry and philosophy seek to explain the way we live our lives, the way we look at things, and the way we can continue to look at things. Poetry chooses to explore the way our perception changes the world by recreating it, while philosophy attempts to explain it.

If you look at the poetry of Gertrude Stein, there appears to be no real sense or reason to anything. The grammar is lacking, the pairing of objects and adjectives strange, and the associations are completely obscure. How could this have anything to do with what I was talking about, about the way philosophy and poetry come together? Well, from a pragmatist view, there is some kind of rhyme and reason to Stein’s madness. Pragmatism – like in William James’ essay “The Stream of Consciousness” – acknowledges the way in which our mind makes connections. The objects that create these associations and connections do not change; it is only the way we perceive them. An infamous example in our class is that of seeing a leaf. No matter how many times you may see the same leaf, if will never be exactly the same experience because every time you are different.

An example of Stein: “Enough cloth is plenty and more, more is almost enough for that and besides if there is no more spreading is there plenty of room for it. Any occasion shows the best way” (Tender Buttons: Objects, page 469). Now I won’t lie and say I understand what this means at all because I don’t. Stein does though. She has made connections, strange and wonderful connections , that are all formed from the experiences she has had with cloth. How she experiences it is expressed here. It is not necessary for any other than herself to completely understand it (though I do wish her poems came with an instruction manual sometimes).