“That Thing You Do”
2016; Oxford University Press; Volume: 28; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/alh/ajw018
ISSN1468-4365
Autores ResumoBut I have come to say that we have gone too far. Looking through the advance program for the American Literature Association's symposium on poetry, held in Savannah on 24 October 2014, I came to the title of Stephen Burt's keynote address, “How is American Poetry Still a Thing,” and paused, wondering if we were to hear an exegesis on Object Oriented Ontology, or if perhaps Professor Burt had made a recent foray into Thing Theory. I came of age with Isley Brothers poetics; used to dance to “It's your thing. / Do what you want to do.” One of the cultural institutions in my hometown, not far from Burt's, was the New Thing Art and Architecture Center in Washington, D.C. The Ashford and Simpson song that set the metrics of my youthful prosody, masterfully realized by Marvin Gaye (another hometown guy) and Tammi Terrell, went “Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing, Baby.” Even Lou Rawls warned that “Your Real Good Thing's about to Come to an End.” Charles Johnson began his career in fiction with the tale of Faith and the Good Thing (1974). We were all about the things of this world. More recently I have been contemplating poet Duriel Harris's “Thingification” performance piece, but what thing was Burt going to do?
Referência(s)