Saturday, July 7, 2007

A tendency to show upward when drilled I

What if I were tell you a fairy tale?
The Old Witch might wander through the night
in search of an ending, only to find her role
in this story had never really been worked out.

It would be interesting to see from a study of their works, what idea the various artists had not only of Agnes’ character, but of the kind of death she died; unfortunately this would take far too long.

For the same reason, I cannot cite all the poets; for that reason, and for another too, which is not to their credit: it is rare that Agnes has inspired anything very good.

Will I ever be able to say “Today it writes,” just like “Today it rains,” “Today it is windy”? Only when it will come natural to me to use the verb “write” in the impersonal form will I be able to hope that through me is expressed something less limited than the personality of an individual.

And for the verb “to read”? Will we be able to say “Today it reads” as we say “Today it rains”? If you think about it, reading is a necessarily individual act, far more than writing. If we assume that writing manages to go beyond the limitations of the author, it will continue to have a meaning only when it is read by a single person and passes through his mental circuits. Only the ability to be read by a given individual proves that what is written shares in the power of writing, a power based on something that goes beyond the individual. The universe will express itself as long as somebody will be able to say “I read, therefore it writes.”

This is the special bliss that I see appear in the reader’s face, and which is denied me.


A very old man who had sung in Rabbi Shmelke’s choir when he was a boy, used to tell this: “It was the custom to lay out the notes for each text, so that it would not be necessary to fetch them when the praying before the pulpit began. But the rabbi paid no attention to the notes and sang utterly new melodies which no one had ever heard. We singers fell silent and listened to him. We could not understand from where those melodies came to him.”

“We think we smell with our noses [but] this is is a little like saying that we hear with our earlobes,” wrote Gordon Shepherd, a neuroscientist at Yale University.

Explorer: Don’t forget the knee cap. That’s missing in the arm.
Camel: I wonder if I have knees in my arms?
Explorer: This gentleman had good-sized feet for his height. Look at the length of these bones.
Camel: How firm a foundation!
Helper: Who’s mumbling in his beard now, Professor? Well, now that we’ve got him, what are we going to do with him?
(Enter Genii)
Genii: That’s what I’d like to know.
Explorer: Who are you?
Helper: Where did you come from?
Camel: I thought it was about time for you to show up.
Genii: This is Can’t-Believe-Your-Eyes-or-Ears Oasis. I’m the spirit of the place.
Helper: Does every place have a spirit?
Genii: Of course. Isn’t there an American spirit?
Helper: Why, yes, I guess there is.
Genii: And school spirit?
Helper: I hadn’t thought of that.

For the heart he put it as dogma: the heart dances in the line. Where the intellect shapes. In this concept of a syntax where there is no duality of body and spirit, the organic forces are reflected in the counterpoint of the poem. There is no “body” as there is in closed-form poetry to be inhabited by the spirit of the poem — as a sonnet is inhabited by the poet’s. Projective verse is a process. The poet practices it as a science (there is no duality between science and art, knowing and creating).

1 - Jonah Winter. The Continuing Misadventures of Andrew, the Headless Talking Bear. Lincoln, NE: Octopus Books, 2006.

2 - Louise Andre-Delastre (tr. Rosemary Sheed). Saint Agnes: Child-Martyr (Your Name Your Saint Series). New York: Macmillan, 1962.

3 - Italo Calvino (tr. William Weaver). If On A Winter's Night A Traveler. New York: Harcourt, 1981.

4 - Martin Buber (tr. Olga Marx). Tales of the Hasidim: Early Masters. New York: Schocken, 1966.

5 - Alexander Tsiaras. Body Voyage: A Three-Dimensional Tour of a Real Human Body. New York: Warner, 1997.

6 - Frances W. Butterfield (ill. Dorothy M. Weiss). From Little Acorns: The Story of Your Body. New York: Renbayle House, 1951.

7 - Robert Duncan. Introducing Charles Olson, 1957 — a handout. Reprinted in Minutes of the Charles Olson Society #18 (November 1996). http://charlesolson.ca/files/Duncan.htm

2 comments:

hema said...

For the heart he put it as dogma: the heart dances in the line. Where the intellect shapes. In this concept of a syntax where there is no duality of body and spirit, the organic forces are reflected in the counterpoint of the poem. There is no “body” as there is in closed-form poetry to be inhabited by the spirit of the poem — as a sonnet is inhabited by the poet’s. Projective verse is a process. The poet practices it as a science (there is no duality between science and art, knowing and creating).
thank you

hema said...

Accept my greetings
Thank you
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