Eliot, or Louis Zukofsky, or Paul Celan, or Gerard Manley Hopkins, or Anne Carson, or John Ashbery, not to mention the work of my three co-panelists. The taxonomy of difficulty is as vast as the available poetic instances, which are many and various, from the poetry of Paul Muldoon to that of Ezra Pound, or T. Whatever that is: Clearly, our discussion would not be venturing more than provisional swipes at that immensity. Indeed, I would say that difficulty is the friction that accompanies all the attempts we make on meaning. Difficulty bears directly on the question of meaning. I looked right past the signpost of the stated title, which struck me as a subhead to the issue I wanted to address-I mean "getting it," with obscurity just one of the obstacles to the desired comprehension, and clarity only one of its avenues of access. This was my first thought, anyway, as I started to think toward moderating a panel on the topic of "Clarity and Obscurity in Poetry" with Carl Phillips, Kay Ryan, and James Tate. Not difficulty for itself, necessarily-though that may be part of it-but for what it suggests to the reader about his or her inadequacy in the face of meaning. Moore, many out there too dislike it, this may have less to do with gardens and toads and more with the simple fear of difficulty. This is why I fight each and every day.Īll I know for certain is my time on this earth will come to an end.If, with Ms. I am a professional portrait photographer, and I make people look good! I am able to spot the confidence in the young man to see the pure innocence of childlike bliss in the older downtrodden woman who doesn’t see herself as beautiful anymore to see the perfect person in the unhewn block of marble. What will my life’s legacy be?įor me, it is an undying commitment to my work. It means to disappear into oblivion! It's as if you have never existed! What does it mean to fade away into the darkness? Just check mentions of obscurity in the Bible it was mentioned in Isaiah 29:18 as (ophel, “darkness”), in Esther 11:8 (gnophos, “darkness”), and in Proverbs 20:20 as “in obscure darkness.” Obscurity and darkness have been around for millennia! In some shape or form, this is true for all of us. We desire to be important or influential to other people. No matter our age, there is that little child that still lives within saying, “Look, Mommy! Look at me! Look what I’m doing!” We all love praise and being celebrated. In my case, I Kirk Francis, have a fear of obscurity. For example, someone with a fear of poverty may go out of their way to give sound business advice to others, so that they themselves may avoid the trappings of poverty. With our deep-seeded fears - fear of poverty, fear of abandonment, fear of being alone - we often translate that into all of our relations. I thought I would open up and share the more people I can talk with the better. Like Grant Cardone overtly states obscurity as one of your top 3 problems, and Kevin Hart and Gary Vaynerchuk both make references to their legacies in their books - see comments for links, this is my biggest fear. To fade into obscurity is to essentially fade away into the dark oblivion. “Obscurity is the opposite of fame, and living in obscurity means that nobody knows your name.” -the Online Dictionary
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