INSIDE UNDIVIDED (17)

a series of fragments & notes about Chance, Fate, and Context by Dara Wier ____________________________________

HOW DOES THIS SAY WHAT?

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so someone says:   that painter doesn’t achieve perspective by the usual means, no lines of perspective to be seen; that painter achieves perspective by juxtaposition

you take this and you think that’s not so difficult to move into another setting, to imagine, to believe, a sentence might be thought of as a line of perspective

or

a sequence of words might be achieving depth by means of being next to one another

by being together so closely so that no light can get through between them

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Thus begins the era of verbal narrative. 

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As in to imagine is to pretend to believe.

(to imagine to imagine to believe)

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what it must take to say one has faith in X, in ________, in anything

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What’s thoroughly enticing about saying one’s stealing.  Writers are always saying they’re stealing.  Fine.  Steal all you want.  No one really cares if you steal or not, not ultimately.

Not eternally.  Meanwhile

you are involved in moving things around. 

I Covet. I Envy. I love Forbidden things. 

Why has it always been that what one’s stolen seems somehow more wonderful than something one’s not stolen.  

I wonder if the motivation to steal is at least as important as what’s stolen.  

What’s stolen as in a stolen kiss, what’s so sweet about that, it is, stolen kiss is possibly revered beyond given or earned kisses, and two who kiss forbiddenly steal the kiss (the literal kiss that could have been, they together steal it from someone else), they have a conspiracy of kiss stealing in action, it is very ordinarily very exciting, it is often fairly dangerous

what can be stolen as in intrigue, a heist, a caper, a hidden love, the dark end of the street, forbidden love, etc.

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a category:  books one feels as if one’s read but most likely haven’t

      I feel as if I’ve read GULLIVER’S TRAVELS.  

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Referenced in a footnote in MANY SUBTLE CHANNELS (Dana Levin Becker, HUP, 2012), (See Part III, Chapter 5 in a certain edition of GULLIVER’S)

Becker mentions “die-sized blocks of wood that contain all the words of their language, in their several moods, tenses, and declensions, but without any order”.

This, I would say, definitely produces good feeling.  Satisfactory feeling. Acceptable. To imagine all the words on blocks of wood, thrown about, waiting to be used for building.

However, it could be otherwise; anyone might feel anxiety over not knowing what one’s read or not. 

And not in any way enjoy the instability of this quasi-knowledge.  

Or reading that might have been done.  

Or possible books

which have possibly been read

by people who are possibly alive 

or possibly sometime to be born

(one reason it is admirable when one keeps track, typically in a notebook’s listing, of every book one has read) (truly or by means of wishful thinking) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sometimes the house of the future is better built, lighter and larger than all the houses of the past, so that the image of the dream house is opposed to that of the childhood home…. Maybe it is a good thing for us to keep a few dreams of a house that we shall live in later, always later, so much later, in fact, that we shall not have time to achieve it. For a house that was final, one that stood in symmetrical relation to the house we were born in, would lead to thoughts—serious, sad thoughts—and not to dreams. It is better to live in a state of impermanence than in one of finality.

—Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

THE POETICS OF SPACE, in which Gaston Bachelard goes deeply into what space can do for intimacy.  He is always wanting to know (and us to know) what sort of immensity will become of intimacy.  As a paradoxical combination (immensity/intimacy) potentially will do,

Bachelard’s investigations serve their purposes)

The drawer next to a bed.  Someone’s lingerie drawer. A sock drawer.

Someone’s empty suitcase (or is it empty, is it).  Someone’s briefcase.  Someone’s satchel. Someone’s catch-all kitchen drawer.  The space (or drawer) that lures you over and over again to examine its contents.  To get on intimate terms with it.  To discover what intimacy feels like by means of it.  (he also likes attics, hallways, corners, he also gravitates toward other small spaces, you can imagine)

Intimacy, which Bachelard continues to explore in his POETICS OF REVERIE 

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when you see or sense a sonnet’s end coming your brain shifts gears and just as leaving anywhere anytime requires an endless variety of shiftings, when you know the end is coming or you’re walking out a door or the proceedings are obviously concluding……some of us are very good at saying good bye, others of us complete failures, certain circumstances produce easy clear simple conclusions others complexities unending 

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related to paralyzing self-consciousness:

Auden:  The girl whose boy-friend starts writing her love poems should be on her guard,” (1948) perhaps he really does love her, but one thing is certain:  while he was writing his poems he was not thinking of her but of his own feelings about her.

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while self-consciousness is well tended in William James’s VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

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and similarly:

Auden quoting St. Augustine: I would rather be deprived of my friend than of my grief.

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writing a review, Maureen Bell, of GROSSLY MATERIAL THINGS (WOMEN AND BOOK PRODUCTION IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND)  OXFORD U. PRESS, 254pp, 2012

includes:

We are reminded that early modern printing houses and bookshops coexisted within the master’s household.  The necessary everyday work encompassed both housewifery (food, lodging and laundry for family and apprentices) and business (minding the shop, keeping accounts, taking in and distributing copy, dealing with customers).

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Le Lionais:  (translated by George Agoston and Pauline Bentley-Koffler, found in MANY SUBTLE CHANNELS)

I have never turned on a light switch in a darkened room without the sudden flood of light releasing in me an undeniable emotion, the impression almost of having witnessed a miracle.

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Here are Harry Mathews and John Ashbery talking (The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Vol. 7.3, 1987; reprinted by Dalkey Archive, for CONTEXT, Dalkey Archive website)

HM: I think that’s what’s hard to . . . Readers get worried about reading something right or wrong, they don’t trust themselves in the act of reading, and so they don’t let that process work for them. They try to piece together a sense by taking out the elements that are used in . . .

JA: That’s certainly particularly true of poetry, where people will go to any lengths rather than actually read the poem, such as read a thick book about it. What’s the position of Oulipo in France? How’s it regarded by writers in general?

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Here comes Allen Ginsberg talking about writing:

The problem is then to reach the different parts of the mind, which are existing simultaneously, the different associations which are going on simultaneously, choosing elements from both, like: jazz, jukebox, and all that, and we get the jukebox from that; politics, hydrogen bomb, and we have the hydrogen of that, you see “hydrogen jukebox.”  And that actually compresses in one instant like a whole series of things.  Or the end of “Sun-flower” with “cunts of wheelbarrows,” whatever that all meant, or “rubber dollar bills” —”skin of machinery”; see, and actually in the moment of composition I don’t necessarily know what it means, but it comes to mean something later, after a year or two, I realize that it meant something, clear, unconsciously…. Because we’re not really conscious of the entire depths of our minds—in other words, we just know a lot more than we’re able to be aware of, normally—though at moments we’re completely aware, I guess.

and earlier he’d said:  Usually during the composition, step by step, word by word and adjective by adjective, if it’s all spontaneous, I don’t know whether it even makes sense sometimes.  Sometimes I do know it makes complete sense, and I start crying…..

Because I realize I am hitting some area which is absolutely true.  And in that sense applicable universally, or understandable universally.  In that sense able to survive through time–in that sense to be read by somebody and wept to,

maybe, centuries later.  In that sense prophecy……

(excerpts from 1967 interview reprinted in WRITERS AT WORK, PARIS REVIEW series)

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Dara Wier is the author of twelve books of poetry, including Selected Poems, Remnants of Hannah, Reverse Rapture, and You Good Thing. She teaches in the University of Massachusetts MFA Program for Poets and Writers. Her awards include the Poetry Center and Archives Book of the Year Award, a Pushcart Prize, the American Poetry Review’s Jerome Shestack Prize, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. She edits Factory Hollow Press. Her forthcoming collection You Good Thing will be published by Wave Books this spring. Visit her author page at Wave Books or read an interview.

INSIDE UNDIVIDED (16)

a series of fragments & notes about Chance, Fate, and Context by Dara Wier ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Something we tend to do a lot of–experience apophenia– and it seems the only questions might involve when is too much apophenia too much–can there be too many connections or too much meaningfulness–ever——and what is “abnormal” meaningfulness—-ever——–

apophenia comes around: the “unmotivated seeing of connections” accompanied by a “specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness”

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Preface (from THE LOST WORLD, ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE)

Professor Summerlee gave a snort of impatience. “We have spent two long days in exploration, ” said he, “and we are no wiser as to the actual geography of the place than when we started. It is clear that it is all thickly wooded, and it would take months to penetrate it and to learn the relations of one part to another. If there were some central peak it would be different, but it all slopes downwards, so far as we can see. The farther we go the less likely it is that we will get any general view…You area all turning your brains towards getting into this country. I say we should be scheming how to get out of it.” “I am surprised, sir,” boomed Challenger, stroking his majestic beard, “that any man of science should commit himself to so ignoble a sentiment….I absolutely refuse to leave until we are able to take back with us something in the nature of a chart.

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This is the epigraph that sits on top of the FOREWORD for Alberto Manguel’s and Gianni Guadalupi’s THE DICTIONARY OF IMAGINARY PLACES (1999).

______________ aside: irregardless of THE DICTIONARY OF IMAGINARY PLACES:

where apophenia comes around: the “unmotivated seeing of connections” accompanied by a “specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness” is the world we inhabit, when someone connects and means, especially when these return the thrill of an essential experience of presence, I am glad, grateful, curious, something has registered: alive ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is the first entry in THE BOOK OF IMAGINARY PLACES:

A

ABATON (from the Greek a, not; banino, I go), a town of changing location. Though not inaccessible, no one has ever reached it and visitors headed for Abaton have been known to wander for many years without even catching a glimpse of the town. Certain travellers, however, have seen it rising slightly above the horizon, especially at dusk. While to some the sight has caused great rejoicing, others have been moved to terrible sorrow without any certain cause. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

& emulous: eager to imitate, equal, or to surpass another. ~~~~~~~~~

(carving by Pamela Glaven for Flying Object’s 3rd year launch) (photo by Pam Glaven) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

HERE IS VLADIMIR NABOKOV WRITING IN speak, memory: (he’s writing about writing his first poem)

………A sunset, almost formidable in its splendor, would be lingering in the fully exposed sky. Among its imperceptibly changing amassments, one could pick out brightly stained structural details of celestial organisms, or glowing slits in dark banks, or flat, ethereal beaches that looked like mirages of desert islands.

[and here is the part that astonished most of all:]

I did not know then (as I know perfectly well now) what to do with such things — how to get rid of them, how to transform them into something that can be turned over to the reader in printed characters to have him cope with the blessed shiver — and this inability enhanced my oppression.

[and he continues, atmospherically accurately:]

A colossal shadow would begin to invade the fields, and the telegraph poles hummed in the stillness, and the night-feeders ascended the stems of their plants. Nibble, nibble, nibble — went a handsome striped caterpillar….as he clung to a campanula stalk, working down with his mandibles along the edge of the nearest leaf out of which he was eating a leisurely hemicircle, then again extending his neck, and again bending it gradually, as he deepened the neat concave.

(p. 165, SPEAK, MEMORY, Everyman’s Library, first included in Everyman’s in 1999)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ a little bit about irony: how it accounts for us our reduced appreciation of what we, in our overly rational mind activity, call “opposites” –irony lets us appreciate these not as opposites but as unalike parallel states of being, e.g. let’s you look at both of them without being blinded by either (when often, when irony is worth the bother, one should be blinded by each) (when one is bothering about or concerned with giant things (death, murder, envy, damage, love, lost love, power, betrayal, truth, beauty, lies, value, etc.) is a resort to irony necessary)

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~when a story in a book takes a turn

when circumstances make for anxious emotions

when one foresees what has to come or has to happen

when one wishes it were otherwise or accepts it (as fate? yes, fate of the fictional kind, the metaphorical sort) (the might as well be kind)

this constitutes a story

because one feels as if it matters

◊

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Dara Wier is the author of eleven books of poetry, including Selected Poems, Remnants of Hannah, Reverse Rapture, and Hat on a Pond. She teaches in the University of Massachusetts MFA Program for Poets and Writers. Her awards include the Poetry Center and Archives Book of the Year Award, a Pushcart Prize, the American Poetry Review’s Jerome Shestack Prize, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. She edits Factory Hollow Press. Her forthcoming collection You Good Thing will be published by Wave Books this spring. Visit her author page at Wave Books or read an interview.

INSIDE UNDIVIDED (15)

a series of fragments & notes about Chance, Fate, and Context by Dara Wier ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

after listening to Caryl Pagel read from her new book EXPERIMENTS TRIED AT MY OWN DEATH (Factory Hollow Press), I asked her to kindly send me something written about what she said, here is some of what she said about visions, apparitions, hallucinations & body:

VERIDICAL HALLUCINATION: when one experiences a hallucination–a three-dimensional visual scene that looks like but does not actually exist–which later comes true.

CRISIS APPARITION: a scenario in which one is suddenly struck with the certain knowledge that someone they know or love is in trouble, has been harmed, or has died. For example, you wake up in the middle of the night with an anxious feeling about Uncle Joey, and the next day find out he was hit by a car at that instant.

VISION: a vision is–in my experience–something less tangible, less measurable or defined, but more stunningly physical. It is the absolute (bodily) knowledge of something that you cannot possibly know. It is an unearned–unexperienced, unempirical–understanding of events in the future, or occurrences that exist outside your limits of perception.

BODY: what holds you down.

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We had to find some less reasonable ways to tell if a poem is finished.  Stick a broom straw in it, if it comes out clean, run a clean thin knife blade into it, if it comes out clean, gently push down on it with one of your thumbs (the one you trust the most), see how much it gives.  This last one seems to indicate one can like one’s poems, rare, medium or well-done.  This seems possible.

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We feel strange when we write like this:

A life that is not metaphorical is not worth living.

Hyperbole is a swinging door.

If you’re carrying a tray, back out of the room.

Leave argumentative positions aside.

Let the little pugilist wither on the vine.

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One day as I was spending some time in Emily Dickinson’s house, because I live in North Amherst which is part of Amherst and near enough to Emily’s house, I’m often taking guests to her house, and sometimes going on in and doing the tour of the house with them,  …….

the docent, the tour guide who saw me disinterested in her guidance…….because I’d been there many many times before and I always have a sad habit of thinking when I’m there I wish they would take everything that is a replica out of the house, let the house be empty, for which it would be more haunted, and stop saying this is what it would have looked like, this is a replica of her, here is an imitation of, this is what it would have been in…….

(that is all so distracting)

anyway, what the docent said to me when she left her charges to linger over a glass box of relics, first class, second class, third class, all kinds, she said, as she wandered over to where I was looking out a window,  she said…….I lived in this house longer than Emily Dickinson ever did.

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Marcel Duchamp’s “retinal flutter”

The art critic who asked that an artist not “intrigue us with associations with things we can experience more authentically elsewhere”

(to be considered when considering “this reminds me of……..”)

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Why would we bother to have memories if we weren’t meant to have them?

The question is what do we do with them?

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It’s a fairly tough calculus of calibrations you’ll need to be adjusting in order to tell the difference between memories that are necessary and memories that are expendable.

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How a single night in a poem is an eternity.

(or it at least presents us with the thought of how things might be were we to imagine something eternal)

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What is it if you really have forgotten something and you don’t know what it is that you’ve forgotten.  It is truly lost on you.

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There come times when I know I have wasted my entire life believing it to be most desirable to lose myself in others’ thoughts.  I am always inclined to do this.  Lost in others thoughts seems to be where I am most at home.

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I am so glad you are good-natured because otherwise you could bedevil anyone with how you say what you say such that anyone might believe everything you seem to believe.

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The lengths we go to identify with one another.

There is an excellent essay about this in the most recent jubilat, Lee Ann Roripaugh’s POEM AS MIRROR BOX:  MIRROR NEURONS, EMOTIONS, PHANTOM LIMBS, AND POEMS OF LOSS AND ELEGY

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And all we do to construct individual character, and what we’re born with, and what we do with that……..

the wonderful way someone can be saying:  Who Are You?

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How we have to sometimes pretend we know everything when we know nothing.

We have to pretend we know everything when we know nothing.

We do so many things to make ourselves feel as though were are having an illusion and

living through something in the same instance.

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A formula:  believing the opposite of what you know is true

What did she say……..she said  that the great thing about lying is that the more you lie, and the farther away from the truth you get,  the more certain you are of what truth is…or something like that.

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Technique, ways of doing things, is the subconscious, if one were to do this this way.  It might seem technique (or manners, style, or means) is too dry to be called sub-anything.  It’s not.  It’s what lets all the words in the world settle down briefly, momentarily, what happens might be thought of as something similar to what happens when a bird lights on a branch, or a fencepost, or a fire escape, or a wire, or when a big flock of birds do these things, even more so.

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Veering into the flock, The Swarm School.

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