Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Irt t1 The Cr BY DAVID HAVIRD Of The Gamecock staff The generating cir cumstance for this article is the Dec. 5 publication of USC's literary magazine, The Crucible. And realizing this discussion probably will venture rather far afield, I will state initially, and as concisely as possible, my opinion of the magazine itself. Earlier in the semester, when The Crucible staff was beginning to solicit material, one member stated what I assume to be the guiding purpose: "We want to return The Crucible to the students." That was perhaps a reaction against the pretentions of the previous editor whose elitist BY CHUCI AND TER] Of The Gan In this, our last issue of the ser diversions available for those who j We also are going to take the oppc people and events who have had community. To kill some time and money, cat Orchestra, and Elf in concert at th Tickets are $6.50, $5.50, and $4.501 With a new album and two new should be quite a test to see if Dee be. The most visible activity on caml University Union Cinematic Arts with W.C. Fields and Mae West, great spinner of melodious euph, and inner nastiness, teams up witt disappointing comedy. One of the most intelligent scieni shown Monday. The Incredible spiders and drains for pure ente teresting insight into the place of care. On Tuesday, one of Alfred Hite Thief, will be shown. Starring Ca revolves around retired jewel thi4 who is trying to frame him. Wednesday night, the Marx B1 shown. This is one of the most u stretches of dullness with two of ti on film. King Kong closes out the year TI New York find out that the wo' relationship between a gorilla ar "An evening of Christmas Oper Music, will be presented Saturday in Fraser Hall. The opera, direct well known holiday selections, " "Mr. Scrooge." Tickets may be College. Focus awards are dedicated to past semester. The Invisible Man Award goes booking "no show" rock groups I publicized. The special citations for being too sickly to perform In 4 There was one event that far su campus this semester. The Best is presented to the classical rocd perfrane in the Golden Spur lucible: A attitude toward literature dominated the publication for three issues. At any rate,~though I realize the Student Allocations Commission's stiqginess with the purse strings prevented the publication of a more ex C:nsive issue, I would wish to lieve the tabloid format is in some vague way symbolic of that stated purpose. Terry Coon, Steven Foiles and Susan Kearns of the production crew indeed suceeded in putting together an extremely professional and attractive Crucible; and, having seen dozens of student publications from other universities, I can say without qualification this one competes with the very best as far as [CROMER RIY DUGAS tecock staff aester, we want to point out some re not going to attend their exams. rtunity to give out some awards to I outstanding impact on the USC ch Deep Purple, The Electric Light e Coliseum Sunday night at 8 p.m. or the event. members to promote, the concert p Purple is as good as they used to pus will be the exam breakers of the Committee. My Little Chickadee, Nill be shown Sunday. Fields, the emisms, euphoric malaproprisms a sterilized Mae West in this often ce fiction films of the fifties will be Shrinking Man offers battles with rtanment while providing an in man in the universe for those who :hcock's better works, To Catch a ry Grant and Grace Kelly, the film if Grant and his search for the man rothers' Day at the Races will be neven of their films as it combines se funniest sequences ever recorded hursday as the audience, Kong, and rId just will not accept a platonic id a woman. a," sponsored by the Department of , Tuesday, and Wednesday at 8 p.m. ed by Donald Gray, will feature two mahl and the Night Visitors," and picked up In room 210 of McMaster the most memorable events of the to the Carolina Coliseum's policy of or their not appearing In concert as go to "Traffic" and "Robin Trower" solumba. rpassed the normal activities on our Entertaining Event of the Semester Sband, "Caravan" for its two-night last October. Uit true mel layout, organization of material, and artistic taste are concerned. Simply flipping its pages and observing the variety of the typesetting and illustrations and the relative sophistication of the artwork in general is a treat. Presumably a wish "to return The Crucible to the students" also implied the intention of providing a more "open minded atmosphere for selection of material" which would represent a "variety of artistic tastes." If that indeed was the case, then once again the staff succeeded. Shaye Areheart, Tim Beall, Johnny Beavers, Ian Davis, Michael Lagrone and Ric Murphy have presented us with an enor mously wide ranging selection, from obfuscated metaphysical drivel and confessional shredded prose one presumes is meant to be poetry, to the splendidly controlled, in tentionally subuded, professional story, "A Rainy Day in Paris," by Gene Able. I do not wish to belabor the generally impoverished quality of the verse, although what Wallace Stevens termed the "supreme fiction" is my chief interest. And I should pay special tribute to the rather exquisitely crafted peom, "Needles," by Miriam Rhame and the haunting "Unabridged Sounds" by Shaye Areheart. A crucible is, of course, a "melting pot," and I recognize the staff's stated purposes as being . appropriate in that particular context. Indeed a similar notion by Wordsworth formally established a new period of English poetry, but it took the "high sentence" of Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot to rescue Poetry from the watered-<down romanticism much Georgian poetry had become over a hundred years later. Although I despise William Carlos Williams and such poets as Sylvia Plath, I would much prefer to think they are the influences behind much of the poetry in The Crucible, than to acknowledge Bob Dylan may be. Reading Poetry should be some kind of experience. Poetry is, after al,as John Ciardi noted, an "exercise in words," and words do have correspondents within our imaginations. The purpose of poetry, unless It is purely therapeutic for the author, probably is to impart to the readers something of the poet's imagination. And since all imaginations are different, what is imparted necessarily will be something the reader ting pot o Simply flipping its the variety of the illustrations and the Y of the artwork in himself does not possess, and that has got to matter. But what the poet must do is convince the reader it matters. I've often thought the poet's greatest talent is the gift for inventing the memorable phrase; but, of course, each of those phrases must be able to operate successfully within a specific context. If I put much stock in most of the poetry appearing in The Crucible, I would be convinced I am incorrect. It seems most of these poets think poetry either has to be metaphysically philosophical, and in comprehensible at that, or it must be diluted Sylvia Plath which is nothing more than a confession of sorts laid out in chopped-up prose. Eliot is metaphysical but his gift for creating the memorable phrase, among other things, makes most readers wish to pierce his complexity because they in tuitively feel what he has to say really matters. Lowell is a confessional poet about whom a similar statement might be made. Since most of The Crucible's poetry seems to be in the confessional vein, perhaps a few specific comments on that type of poetry are in order. Lowell, who very much is at the center of that school, usually begins his poems with a specific description of either a setting or an action, and from there launches into -the imaginative world in which he really lives. The initial presentation of something concrete is one technique many young poets seem not to Christmas op "An Evening of Christmas Oper; "Amahi and the Night Visitors" ar Dec. 14, 17 and 18. Sponsored by the USC Departm4 begin at 8 p.m. nightly in Fraser Hi by the Opera Workshop under the d Based on Charles Dickens' "A brings to life those well-known chi Tim and Bob Cratchit. Libertto a Samuel Douglas. "Amahi and the Night Visitors, Carlo Menotti, features John Mo William Patterson and Lonnie Pay f ideas pages and observing typesetting and -elative sophistication reneral is a treat. understand. Confessional poetry is by its nature lyrical, and lyrical poetry is much more difficult to write simply because it Is much tougher to make the reader believe the et's emotional state can be of significance to someone else. One of the longest sustained confessional poems in the English language is Ten nyson's In Memoriam, but in it the poet often returns the reader to the world of sub stance through the presen tation of specific images. And it is worth noting In Memoriam is not simply a bundle of assorted lyrics-it does have a narrative structure. The same might be said of Wordsworth's The Prelude which is in every sense the autobiography of a mind. One final point: One thing which constantly irritatesme in the poetry following the vein of "The New American" poetry is the abandonment of punc tuation. That, of course, is a technique in itself, and such poets T.S. Eliot, e.e. cum mings, William Carlos Williams and W.S. Merwin are able to make effective use of it. But for young poets, the precise placement of punc tuation can be extremely important. After all, punc tuation is an integral part of our language, and for the poet an essential tool of the craft. That, of course, could take me into a discussion of the failure of most of these poets to create the "beautiful marriage of content and form." But that is indeed another matter. era scheduled a" featuring two holiday selections, id "Mr. Scrooge," will be presented nt of Music, the performances will ill. The program is being presented rection of Donald Gray. Christmas Carol," "Mr. Scrooge," acters of Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny d music for "Mr. Scrooge" are by " with libretto and music by Gian xiy as Amahl and Tommy Burns, ne na the three kings.