One of my peculiar habits is reading texts out of order. Lots of people who read mysteries will read the last chapter first, to relieve the curiosity and suspense of wondering what the ultimate revelation of the plot is. This is the riddle of detective fiction. The detection genre, which Sherlock Holmes more or less invented. Scientific deduction, etc.
In high school, in journalism class, we were taught to make each paragraph of an article a sequential, stand-alone unit. That way, if the editor wanted to cut your story, he could simply lop off paragraphs, starting at the end, perhaps keeping the last paragraph or two to save the conclusion. (It also meant writing generally in shorter paragraph lengths.) Amazingly, if written correctly, a news article can actually be cut without the reader really knowing that this has occurred. It's a trick of the news business, not much known by the public.
As a voracious reader of many disciplines, I've had to limit my coverage of most of the work I sample. I rarely read a novel end-to-end, and prefer shorter works--poems, essays, short stories--because I can skip around, sample taste, and derive vivid impressions of style, drift, form, without having to invest hours and hours, or days and weeks, methodically and laboriously devouring long works. Few long books (texts) justify such laborious expenditures of time.
Reading my first experimental fiction and poetry in the late 1960's, I realized that some writers (John Ashbery's Tennis Court Oath comes immediately to mind) were constructing work out of quotation, lifting sentences or paragraphs or phrases directly from source-material and using them as specimens--not as quotations, but as literal parts of the argument or dramatic sequence in a poem or story. This resulted in the poly-contextuality which is such a common device used these days in metafiction or post-Modern poetry. You can quote, silently, or manipulate source material, and call it original, new, integral text.
I began to meditate about chance methods of composition in the early 1970's. I had read a lot about Duchamp; and the idea of arranging pre-existing textual matter into new form was intriguing to me. I came up with a number of schemes, e.g., taking the last five words of the third line from the top page of each recto of a novel, and stringing them together to create a new sequence. The result would be a tiny sample (or fraction) of the whole work.
Other people had tried this. Jonathan Williams and Ronald Johnson had tried skip-quotation, or whiting out, Burroughs had cut up text lines and rearranged them in various orders, there were Cage & Rauschenberg, Mac Low, suggesting collaged text. Treating the text as a "thing"--instead of a syntactic sequence of built argument or narrative--was not a new idea. Larry Eigner had been writing poems since the early 1950's made out of the "parts" of perceptual nodes or fragments, presented as organized disjunction. And Clark Coolidge had already explored a synthetic syntax at the level of the word (which he would in due course expand to include the phrase, and the sentence). But the idea of making a sequence of statements, or phrases, derived from disparate sources or "places" in the head, or in the world, was still waiting to be explored.
I don't remember the exact sequence of events, but Barry Watten had written "Factors Influencing the Weather," Tom Raworth was working on what would become Ace [1977], Bruce Andrews and Ray DiPalma had been playing with non-narrative poetic constructions.
The idea occurred to me that I might make a poem from the sentence fragments of books I was then reading on architecture, literary criticism, and music. Such a poem, I thought, would have no narrative or argument, but would consist of a sequence of phrases of varying kinds, disparate and discrete, which might express some gratuitous relationship to each other (but only of an accidental kind). I would be free to alter phrases, and to add others which popped into my head or which I thought showed more wit or interest, but there would be sufficient separation between the lines that there would be no confusion about their possible attraction--that was for the reader to deduce (creatively), i.e., there was no "correct" or single "interpretation" to apply to the poem as a whole. The result was "Rotterdam" a poem of 142 lines (which I included in my collected earlier poems Stanzas For an Evening Out [L Publications, 1977]). (I elaborated on this form in three other poems: "Sonar," "Star Root" and "A & S.") Each of these works bears a fair resemblance to "list"-making as a technique, but what's listed is clearly poly-contextual, with no hidden narrative or rational agenda aside from the form. Here is the poem in full:
Rotterdam
happening meant to
incline and reflect
of an interval to oblige
band of gilded without the consolation
in alternate windows
of very great merriment possibly
it can be they're tall
with pleading or cause shed
for the nuisance of polite as shown
in a collision
forbearance with an appeal
towards a suitable exodus
and the neck of land was
plain cut in counting
lames him hot
succor like sugar
chinese junk shake a leg
known akin and bowed to
the dilapidation of utter edge of outer egging
to the curl of their negligence
repressing as open to ironing
folder in resume
the difference between simmering
scare me with a wave
plan of acute bogus
and the moaning of the blocked
really with a definite demand
by implication known as a joint
splice to rest
pushed bother nodding
to sully the movement
why do they spread
and apply forfeit
springing up shut powerfully
in a pillow slip
to be returned to ought
nearly aching in retrenching
elongation to fraternal
cry they must make cake
convinced and joined to the care of
flexibly zeal
when fed through
cracked about the vellum
not a powder of the poker
blight that is perverted
agate inlaid and a double of the endorsement
feasibly upon the prevailing
smoking habit
dumped fresh
mournful as most rain is
brushed with a glance
feet and the tides
with doubt plaited as a cooling
weather loved in truly rusted channel
of their biting it
hurled above without a thought
blooming altitude
is a kind of neatness in the blend nutriment
crease in realignment
the appointing of lots
having fathomed should next be named
whither in bestowed rushed
tethered to the elastic
reliable fast plain
the claim of their reveling
to hover let it down
tamed by the resonance
masses making no preferred
in liking to rely
form in the care weights
reversing the loops
cordial imbibed
the rightly loving angel
restlessly whaling
every once in a while which is mode
to meddle in the advice
from a neglect of chosen
simply to go about
divulging the progression
for the consumption of repercussion
restored to the calendar
soap that she might sing
for the fun of the new color
parallel to the waist
mix of white and egg
soothing of the ushered within
is a mirror and the quinces
outlined a valve
circular pianos
favorite spoon
with dreams that whet
shutters made of wood and lead
just faintly on account of the curfew
hour when the ship was owned
held in rapt jagged
pieces of the establishment
partly divided the reward
raincoat for a cut-out
up the daily bust of bread
emerging as the foundation
clarity of bowsprit
the immense coincidence
with a little dear trust
pedigree from a prefix
to collapse an inhibition
replacing ahead of time
the recklessness of not being mistaken
for the flowers out loud
beneath a row of pails
motion to arrest
so that is why dots
when at her floor a shawl
couple of the age
the habit of calling us here
whelped to pass muster
spanning the Atlantic
stored in airtight
how the pair breathes
in a white ovoid
surface rubbed to pine
relief when the old
patting a beseech bed
exploits to the notion of pondering
whether they can pay
carpeted the adjoining
flimsy annex
context of vacates
mended with jails
rapid widening of the river
in a burst does displace
believed to be calm region
heartily lain they were trimmed
grown with a wish pull
provision for large open
established an early gain
as the forest jumped
to break the glass extinguisher
tug of what for
catapult to the difficulty
with fringes soluble
they may be following
clearing out the clutter
***
What occurs to me now, reading the poem, is that the statements seem to fall into groups or classes. Some refer to something outside the poem which is not clear/evident, others are self-contained units that can stand alone. But how do these statements cohere into a meaningful whole? In terms of length or duration, none is composed of fewer than two words, nor more than nine--most are four or five words in length. None forms a complete "sentence" requiring punctuation; there are no commas, colons or semi-colons, periods or question marks. Many seem to be bridges or connectives, part of a longer statement of which the specimen phrase is an incomplete part (fragment). They show contrasting levels of interest and specificity: "the recklessness of not being mistaken" is of a different order than "circular pianos." The refreshment of attention occurs at the level of the individual line, hence the line break is a splice of focus, a momentary frame which enables each line to be distinguished from all the others.
The poem's title didn't really clue the reader into any aspect of the poem's meaning. Rotterdam, the big Dutch seaport city, has literally nothing to do with anything "in" the poem. Its only possible meaning for me would have been that it was a measureless mosaic, something so big and unmanageable that it couldn't possibly be contained.
I remember Stan Brakhage presenting a series of experimental short films at Pacific Film Archive in the mid-1970's. Two of the films used "flashing" colors or "subliminal images" between partial narrative sequences. This technique struck me as a variation on how poems, only heard orally, were perceived by the listener--a totally different impression than the way poems are experienced (read) on the page (as when a musical piece is played from printed text). Reading a text allowed the mind to dwell, if even for a millisecond, on the discreteness of the specific word, phrase, or line, whereas in listening, the mind was forced to experience the sequence non-stop, irrevocably, like riding fast on a motorcycle, unable to pause long enough on any one feeling or image to "digest" it before being obliged to address the next thing.
I got to thinking again recently how short phrases of varying lengths, experienced as irrevocable, stand-alone units, could function in a poem that did have an underlying subtext to which all the phrases might have a tangential relationship, an unconscious "pull," a poem which still didn't, in the traditional sense, function as a poem "about" something, but was in a very abstract way still referenced by the initial "subject." Virgil Thomson, during the 1920's, inspired by Gertrude Stein's concept of the verbal "portrait, " set about creating a series of short musical portraits, equally abstract and non-referential (as those of Stein). (One imagines going to "sit" for one of Virgil's portraits ! "Please move your head a little bit to the left. Good. Now hold that pose!")
So, I thought recently, why not make a long meditation, a la Stein, in which one's "deep image" projector was allowed to run unfettered by concerns about sequence, meaning, or form, but which nevertheless would be "inspired" or "condensed" by a vague notion of a series of impressions about a place. The poem I've been working on, "Africa," is the result. I don't know where it's going, ultimately, or if it works, but I like some of the things it makes me feel when I read it back to myself. A lot of it is about irrationality, crazy, wrong-headed connections. I freely admit that, but I feel bound to explore those areas in my mind.
You could call this "skip-reading" through the unconscious, riding the image generator vehicle as it careens through dreamland. Except the references and odd hybrid nodes are all in my mind, not in any exterior "reality" or text. Here is the unfinished text of the poem--
Africa
After Herb Ritts
Africa is every color, all of them poisonous.
Genes are blind.
Spectral monkies.
Black is blonde.
Zebras run backwards.
Bodies in convulsion.
Milk and blood.
Water comes from animals.
Cut the head off, the body lives on.
Diagonal stripes, horizontal bees.
Ash is shit.
Green dies back.
Water buffalo slobber.
Intuitive and counter-intuitive are one.
Wring it out.
Pain is ecstasy.
The light is swollen.
Ants. Locusts. Mosquitoes.
Flakes of light stick to your arms.
Tan is orange.
Angels have no genitals.
The brain is an implant.
Walking 100 miles.
Snow evaporates from the mountain.
The logic of cannibalism.
Hanging upsidedown.
Darkness drained of fluid.
Spiders are cross-eyed.
Plato in his tree.
Grass is a symphony.
Trajectory of epaulettes.
Naked bone.
Money into sand.
Our shadows evaporate.
Two and a third.
Jumping back and jumping in.
Water is mud made of clay.
Fissure.
Dried blood.
Seed pods.
Living stump.
Unbalanced loads.
Black rain.
Dung beetle.
The aimlessness of jackals.
Glycerin puddles.
Milk and blood.
Flash flood.
Breeding and grinning.
Swarms.
Bats marinated in piss.
Mud is dung and blood mixed with ash.
Death as a shrinking circle.
Cup of hallucinations.
Salt.
Haunches.
Crinkling lakes.
Red grit.
Slime.
Flashing grin.
Water is thinned blood.
Venom is milk.
Sunset.
Powder.
Fluke.
Eclipse in ellipsis.
Lisp.
Lips burn white.
Rashes.
Dwarf grass.
Elephant grass.
Flat feet.
Hose attached to wild dog.
Red and green dye.
Red and green ants.
Eye water.
Rubber guts.
Dreams cut off circulation.
Squeak of leather on leather.
Beetle snaps.
Crouching.
Crouching and fleeing.
The futility of lying.
Sunset burns.
A rash and a blight.
Shimmering screens of organ failure.
Cheetah is a thorn song.
Flakes of fool’s gold make your teeth rot.
Hang nails.
Rainbow sarong.
Volcanic glass.
Black ash.
Blue ash.
Brown ash.
Orange.
Green.
Red.
Triple dikes.
Leaking fissure.
Scoured hill.
Time lapse.
The mineral fact.
Groping for a nub.
Dried mud and rainy ash.
Black cool-aid.
Acid flowers.
Skin cracks.
Face-mask for a sandstorm.
Orange fever at sunset.
Aimlessly wandering.
Aimlessly killing.
Flat echoes.
Gnarl.
Fractal cities.
Plucked.
Doodle bug.
Scrotum wrinkle.
Eye-slit.
Ankle bell.
Nose-ring.
Boomerang boomerang.
Fever dream.
Maggot swarm.
Stinger.
Sac.
Blood thorn.
Semen & glycerin & blood.
Urine & ash.
Yellow clay.
Skin crackles.
Sun virus.
Bleak light.
Buzzing before detonation.
Powder blue.
Powder yellow.
***
The poem seems to be about disquieting images and irrational deductions from my unconscious. But on the other hand, I feel no requirement or duty to be "accurate" or PC or "smart" about any of it. The poem doesn't need an "excuse" for its irrationality. The unconscious isn't ruled by morality or ethics--that's partly what makes it so interesting, so independent. The moral relativism of free association (of "automatic writing" or "automatic thinking" ?) is one of the real strengths--the salvation, if you will--of a lot of Modern and post-Modern art and literature.
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