Poetry does not have to
be grandiloquent. Only wanna-be-poets use pompous, overblown words without necessity. Poetry
can be laconic and still be great.
Some people (including
Dylan) might think that Dylan’s song Clothes Lines Saga is just a parody of Ode
to Billy Joe, an almost forgotten song about someone who jumped of a bridge. But,
to quote Roland Barthes/Nietzsche, the author is dead, in other words: who cares,
what the author thinks, it’s all about the text and the reader (Freud would
agree).
According to the
philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer one should use ordinary or common words to say
extraordinary things. Here is a Schopenhauer-ian
verse from Dylan’s Clothes Line Saga. Everybody is out in the garden, to check
if the clothes on the line are dry. The dogs are barking (standard blues element),
nothing special happens until a neighbor is passing by:
“Have you heard the news?” he said, with a
grin
“The Vice-President’s
gone mad!”
“Where?” “Downtown.”
“When?” “Last night”
“Hmm, say, that’s too
bad!”
“Well, there’s nothin’
we can do about it,” said the neighbor
“It’s just somethin’
we’re gonna have to forget”
B. Dylan, Clothes Line
Saga (The Basement Tapes)
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