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Dante & the Response Poem |
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David Shapiro & Frank Lima create another kind of collaboration
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Join the Discussion
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“Is Dante's opening the most famous line in all poetry?”
What do you think?
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We’re all for Formalism, especially when you make up the forms. The other day I went to the Bridget Riley show -- my eyes were most bugging, and the poem will show up here someday to join the Rothkos and Pollocks and other painting-inspired forms.
Today, though, we are blessed with the Response Form, which could follow the Call Form, as David Shapiro discusses: he and Frank Lima would discuss a form/theme in a phone call and then see who could include the most of the Other’s. I am reminded of the “Bean Spasm” form, Bean Spasms being the book that defined collaborations in the 60s, between/among Ted Berrigan, Joe Brainard (artist), and Ron Padgett:
- Call someone up and tell them you’re coming over,
- Both parties begin immediately to write,
- The poem ends when you arrive in person,
- What you’ve both written is The Poem.
What Lima/Shapiro did here was to take the most famous line in all poetry (or is it? dear Community, please respond!), the opening line of The Divine Comedy: “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita” (“Midway through our life’s journey”). They wrote upon arriving there themselves chronologically. They dealt with what Mr. Dante thought and did and what they were up to. They responded; ergo, The Response Poem.
Bob Holman
Next page > Shapiro's response poem, +notes on the form > page 1, 2, 3
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