The Forensic Caesura

It was purely by accident that I dropped Galway Kinnell's name a post or two ago.

Not.

Long ago and about a block from here (I'm writing from my Olde Hometowne), I bought a little mass-market paperback. I was still a Poundean (or was it -ian?) and looking to fill out my "How to Read" list of translations.

That's when I saw it, on the rack (wooden, next to the wall) just past the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section (where I'd bought all those Tarzan and Doc Savage books five-six years before) -- a new translation of the (according to the Gospel According to Ezra) untranslatable Testament of Francois Villon. This one was by a relatively unknown poet (unlike John Ciardi -- whose Divine Comedy translation I'd read the year before) named ... yeah, you guessed it.

This thing cost (as I recall) something like 85 cents. It was worth a lot more to me than that.

The best thing about this excellent work was its candor -- it strove to translate Villon's rough language with modern-day vigor, but without sounding "modern." The next best thing to me at the time was the Introduction (or maybe it was the Preface?). That's where Kinnell outlined his methods for discovering the truth behind Villon's fabled obscurities.

The answer was pretty simple: the "obscurities" weren't obscure to Villon's original readership. Kinnell combined historical research with language analysis (the concrete kind, not the abstract "signifier/signified" kind) to uncover what Villon was actually referring to when he referred to it.

And Kinnell applied his own considerable poetic talents to render the result of his discoveries in semiformal verse that was simultaneously kinetic and entertaining.

I can't remember if Kinnell used this term or not, but I'll use it: his work was an example of "forensic poetry."

He wasn't translating Villon as a scholar, he was translating Villon as a poet aided by his academic skill. And what was so dramatic for me was that I really dug it, so much so that I never forgot it (obviously!).

I think writers can use these same techniques in a general way for their original verse. They can use it to ask themselves the kind of questions Kinnell asked of Villon's work: "What does this really mean?" "Who is it written for (or to)?" "What does it mean for readers in general now?" "What might it mean for readers to come (unanswerable, really, but worth pondering)?" "What is the context for what I've written?" "Does my meaning apply to people's daily lives?" "Does it need to apply to them?" Et cetera.

Just a thought. Maybe I'll get to caesuras someday ... .