tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57907876816896604132024-03-13T14:32:38.393-07:00 Thing Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.comBlogger142125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-53892842461927318252023-12-25T16:11:00.000-08:002023-12-25T16:11:34.627-08:00Double B-Sided Christmas Single<p> <b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Peace on Earth<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“Remember that thou art dust<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">and unto dust thou shalt return.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">busyness trying to trick depression<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">for some can be (seasonally adjusted) love<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">but is the joyous spirit of late December <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">so fragile it can’t take a couple of sad sufferers <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">in snowy manger’s footnote, in Blue Christmas Lights <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">singing “I’ll have a star-spangled Christmas without you?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> ****<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 1in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Santa Baby, It’s Cold Outside<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Santa cutie, hurry down the chimney tonight<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> I really can’t stay<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Been an awful good girl<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> I’ve got to go away<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I’ll hold your hands they’re like ice<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 2.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The children will be pacing the floor<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Come & trim my Christmas Tree<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Their mothers will start to worry<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Think of all the fun I’ve missed<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 2.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">But maybe just a half a drink more<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Listen to that fireplace roar<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Maybe just a cigarette more<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Sign your “X” on the line<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> At least I’m gonna say that I tried<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I really do believe in you<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> There’s bound to be talk tomorrow<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Let’s see if you believe in me<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Think of my life-long sorrow<o:p></o:p></span></p><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Santa Baby It’s Cold Outside</span>Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-46632990364184289782023-11-08T17:49:00.002-08:002023-11-08T17:49:20.957-08:00of course, of course<p> it's hard enough to live without adequate housing or healthcare at 50,</p><p>it's even harder at 60.</p><p>some mythical 70 you may not make it to says</p><p>"appreciate what you got now</p><p>more than you did at 50..."</p>Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-18648664461134105372022-10-21T18:09:00.001-07:002022-10-21T18:13:33.932-07:00 Intersections of Style and Intentionality: Retconning the Harsh Realm of the 1990s with Daniel Nester<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="500" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjrgTN1ShPr8si9uBrtWXU7vEQmQ54GgsHmnAQ8y8NN2G-BBMMc-gxsSU0gR9eIJIcf5uUjqpk6p8eU3us79zbSgxADi7xsC_SYs-DfdKK2Ke6iQh-Tu9UP5pIN02p3_DQPRkUu0ds82FvXHSYer2j-eEnAsDg_mRjj3-YI7tTuKo9atUp7J844ri3YIw" width="160" /></div><br /><span style="color: white;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><span lang="EN"> </span><b><span lang="EN">CS: </span></b><span lang="EN">Reading <i>Harsh Realm, </i>your first book of poetry in 15 years, I get a sense of the uncanny. In one poem you mention you lived at 16<sup>th</sup> and Spruce in Philly. I did too (probably a few years before you), but in deeper ways too, and I suspect my reading of the book is very different than readers who didn’t have somewhat overlapping interests and experiences of the time, like people born after 2001 or in other places? Did you imagine particular readers as you wrote this book?</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">DN:</span></b><span lang="EN"> I am wondering—I have always wondered—who would want to read my writing, especially these days, at my age. I suspect there are shared sensibilities between us regarding how it fits into the Philly and NYC scenes—and I keep forgetting you got your degrees up here in Albany, where I’ve been since 2005. Of those three, it’s New York that was the most transformative and drenched in things that inform the present book. I get serious pre-1999 flashbacks of Philly in Albany: the smallness of the scenes, the territorial nature of staking claims to running little fiefdoms. And that’s <i>outside</i> of academia! It’s almost as if college towns beget parallel systems that both criticize and imitate the industries that dominate the area. Anyway. I don’t have loads of students interested in my work—I make a point not to talk about my own writing in class. I teach undergraduates who would much rather talk about their own writing, really. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">CS:</span></b><span lang="EN"> I admire your written “eye” skill for vivid sensory detail grounded in the lived experience of psyche and body of the speaker throughout <i>Harsh Realm</i>, and how you have a better memory, more visceral detail of the 90s than I have: To take just one early synesthetic example:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> “…pogoing in the mud,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> in Piscataway, hearing Michael Stipe<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> sing for the first time, I wore white jeans<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> and a Corona poncho. I cut off the jeans.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> chucked the poncho, and wore a Murmur shirt” (pg. 17)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;">It is almost as if this sound demanded a style, a look, for instance. Virginia Konchan speaks of these as “remixed” poems. and I wonder if many of these poems in this book are rewrites (or say, samples) of poems, or notes, you wrote back then, but now seen from the point of view of a present speaker in a very different emotional state of being?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">DN:</span></b><span lang="EN"> That particular run of lines is expanded on in a chapter from a memoir I wrote called <i>Shader</i>. I do remember that concert pretty vividly, since at the time I was a new and rabid R.E.M. fan, listening to the first two full-length LPs, <i>Murmur </i>and <i>Reckoning, </i>nonstop. I suppose as a result of writing that, I did more online research I might have done if it was a poem. I confirmed that the R.E.M. gig, <a href="https://www.setlisting.com/setlists/r-e-m-rutgers-university-piscataway-nj-usa-1985-04-28"><span>which was free and outdoors at Rutgers New Brunswick</span></a>, was in fact in Piscataway, which just sounds great, and I also confirmed in the Old Farmer’s Almanac that it was rainy around that time. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;">I’ve always been self-conscious of the presentation of the self in everyday life. I’ve always suspected I didn’t fit in or obsessed over what others think or have thought about me. That R.E.M. gig was liberating in that I discovered people who didn’t care what others thought how they looked or acted, and felt I fit in. Now of course, that is another pose, and other persona one adopts. But it was a genuine liberation, as I recall it. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">CS: </span></b><span lang="EN">R.E.M’s first two albums were crucial for me too. I like the way you counter the dominant myths of fashionable lifestyle music of the 1990s, in such early (space-clearing?) poems as “I can’t say punk was important…” (8) Not only does this poem, to me, perfectly capture the sense of belatedness our generation felt, but also that it was the glamourous “punk rock girl(s)” (as the Dead Milkmen put it) that drew many to become partisans of particular scenes; like for me there’s a sense that if these had been “goth girls,” you would have gotten more into goth?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">DN:</span></b><span lang="EN"> I like this idea of space-clearing, or maybe claiming. “I can’t say punk was important” is a bit of an answer-poem to some Diane Seuss poems I was reading in <i>Frank: Sonnets</i>, which as I write this has just won the Pulitzer. I love those poems, and there were a couple that seemed to embrace punk ethos in a way that just escaped me then, and from today’s vantage point feels very class-specific. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;">Goth, as a concept and in practice, eluded me at the time, and maybe still. At least by the late 80s, Goth and punk were pretty much one and the same in many social spaces and clubs I encountered, so the difference really wasn’t there to make. I understand what you’re getting at, that goth was a kind of “third way” to go, as much as maybe New Wave might be as well. Punk, or being “real punk,” was a genuine obsession in the late 80s and early 90s where I lived, in South Jersey and Philadelphia. I suppose it’s still something people obsess over. And “punk” is such an elastic term that it’s lost its meaning. But back then, to be punk cost money. It required access to money or you to be born into the kind of caste where money wasn’t a factor, so you could engage in that scene. If you were lucky enough to find yourself as a punk in a punk scene, then you were someone who had access to people who were wealthy or kids of the wealthy. It felt absurd to be inside some punk club where you just knew the kids were acting out a rebellions that didn’t register to me genuine as a working class kid. It seemed like rebellion karaoke. The worst part: I really loved the music, and couldn’t understand why you had to take some sort of aesthetic loyalty oath to be considered a true lover or punk.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">CS: </span></b><span lang="EN">I hear you; I knew some of these rich kids too. In a way I felt they envied us poorer kids, it’s like when expensive boutique stores started selling pre-made ripped jeans. Anyway, reading this poem, alongside “Heavy Metal did not die in ’91” (14), a “we poem” that also, not without self-deprecating humor, becomes a working class anthem, given the sociological, class contrasts in these poems. In these poems, as well as the poetryland poems, I can’t help but identify with the frustrations of the speaker against what I call the OUGHTISTS. Against the backdrop of, say, that Thurston Moore documentary, “the year punk broke,” in which “broke” can be taken two ways, in these, as well, as “The Death of College Rock,” (17) I also find your interventions on behalf of the iconoclasts that these movements were ostensibly touted to free away from the trickle-down corporate demographic targetters to be appealing and refreshing. Is there anything you’d want to respond to here?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">DN:</span></b><span lang="EN"> I like that term, OUGHTIST. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">CS:</span></b><span lang="EN"> I borrowed it from Brett Evans.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">DN:</span></b><span lang="EN"> Interesting. The way I look at it, in my mind then and in the poems, is that all of this culture we’re talking about is mediated in some way, be it MTV or some Simon Frith book you pick up at a used bookstore or some group of middle-class kids in line for Cure tickets. There is no pure way to experience these things, and definitely not writing about these things. At the same time, there is no way moments listening to hair metal that can be just as genuine and heartfelt and sublime-approaching as any other cultural experiences. The issue I’ve always had, in music as well as poetry, is how the critical discourses that surround reception foregrounds middle and upper class reception, and not only discounts working class reception, but the art that working class people love. Remember <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBryTebK2Og"><i><span>Heavy Metal Parking Lot</span></i></a>, the 1986 documentary of the Judas Priest/Dokken concert in Maryland? I remember watching it in the 90s and celebrating it as well as giggling at the metalhead fandom as well. I think it’s a powerful thing to be at once self-conscious and sublime-seeking when it comes to, say, listening to Dokken at the height of their powers. On top of that, there is this idea, in the “Nirvana killed hair metal” narrative, of some sort of good triumphing over evil. It’s maybe score-settling on my part in the form of a poem-as-barstool rant. But I see it in other pop music writing today. I am skeptical of the poptimism of the recent generations of music critics, but I guess that’s another topic. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">CS:</span></b><span lang="EN"> It’s interesting though! Of the pop-culture poems, “Nostalgia Ain’t What It Used to Be” reminds me both thematically and tonally to Burmese writer ko ko thett’s “my generation is best.” In contrast to these poems that read the self in terms of pop culture (and pop culture in self), “The Plan Shifted With a Ferocious Snap” portrays a speaker in the act of reckoning about his youthful recklessness. But this meditative “I used to” themed prose-poem is interrupted on several occasions by forces’ in the speaker’s present environment: the first is the noise pollution of a rant. When the meditation on the past resumes in the second stanza, the act of othering takes on more urgency, as it’s clear the older, more contemplative speaker, still must confront darker temptations to be reckless:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> “One night, driving/out in the pines, I shut off the lights in my car, and took on the highway in the dark,/quiet, unmediated by light or sound or direction. I held a cold coffee in my hand,/waiting or wanting to hit some tree. I waited some more. Then the glow from my/phone lit up the interior.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;">The “intrusion” of the phone turns out to be so much more. Was this a very difficult book to write? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">DN:</span></b><span lang="EN"> I can’t really say that the book as a whole was difficult to write, but I will say “The Plan Shifted With a Ferocious Snap” was a specifically difficult poem to write, primarily because it deals with reckoning with a death wish. Driving in the middle of South Jersey and turning your lights off and thinking or perhaps hoping to hit a tree or a wall, that’s not exactly what I would call healthy behavior. The memory has all kinds of moments around it—triggers, I guess I’d call them—most to do with going back home where all these memories lurk in the woods. And so as I think of the poem now, the cell phone call might have caused me to look away from the road and lead to an accident, but instead it snapped me out of it. If any poem in the collection should come with some sort of content or trigger warning, I think it’s that one. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">CS:</span></b><span lang="EN"> Did <i>Harsh Realm </i>germinate in you a long time? When did you first conceive of this book? Did you go back to scenes where these memories took place as research? You mention that you had written a memoir called <i>Shader </i>before the poems? Did you come to feel that there were things you wanted to say in the memoir that could only be said in poetry?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><b><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">DN: </span></b><span lang="EN">Some of these poems have been knocking around a while, for years, while others came out in the past five years, after I wrote the <i>Shader</i> memoir. The poems cover the period after I write about in the memoir, for the most part. Why I decided to write about that period of my life in prose, and the next in poetry is something I still think about. One pet theory I have is there is something about writing about the 90s and the dawn of digital technologies that necessitates a fractured and even granular poetics. A single-paragraph prose poem seems to say on the page HERE IS A MOMENT. It says to the reader, <i>that’s all there is</i>. When of course there are connections to be made, perhaps with other single-paragraph prose poems in the book, but also with the white space on the page and whatever is happening in the reader’s head. Another pet theory I have is I don’t want to make those connections. There is a certain kind of false nihilism that comes out of the 90s, a product of prosperity and stupidity, borne out of a desire to seek out discomfort. That particular poem also has some echoes of Robert Lowell’s “Skunk Hour”—but for all the wrong or worst reasons. That idea of the speaker-as-voyeur moving around this othered space. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">CS:</span></b><span lang="EN"> At the Zoom Book release party I “attended,” you only read one of your “Poetryland” poems, as if you were purposely trying to spare the audience of mostly non-poets. While some of these poems, such as “From My Desk, c. 1997” and “This is Not a List Poem,” emphasize a critique of some prevalent aesthetics (I, for instance, certainly wrote my share of, in retrospect, cringe-worthy “list poems” during that time), in others, aesthetic & ethical arguments and ethics blur—for instance, in “Debate Outside The Four Faced Liar, 1999,” we see an oughtist bugging the speaker about the need for “a sense of play,” in a very unplayful, and annoying way, highlighting the (hypocritical) discrepant hubris in a hilarious (meta-playful) way.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">DN:</span></b><span lang="EN"> I do resist reading those “Poetryland” poems in mixed company. My assumption has always been that non-poet civilians just wouldn’t get those poems. But when you describe the nexus of ethical and personal and aesthetic concerns in those poems, it makes me think that maybe I could read more of them. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;">I published an essay years ago about leaving the New York City poetry scene called <a href="https://themorningnews.org/article/goodbye-to-all-them"><span>“Goodbye to All Them,”</span></a> which laid out a couple aspects of how cruel and careerist poets in NYC can be. It kind of went viral, getting mentions in all these different mainstream places, and I started hearing from people all over about how it resonated with them. Like, someone from Kansas saying how it sounded like their scene, or some artist from Ireland and their experiences with, like, other landscape painters. The takeaway for me was that it’s not just poets who are subjected to a clannish ethical wasteland. I found that oddly reassuring? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;">In <i>Harsh Realm</i>, I think what I am writing about is slightly different. It’s more along the lines of <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/retcon-history-and-meaning"><span>retcon</span></a> attempts or correcting the historical record. The one I did read that Zoom reading, “Two 90s Poetry Readings,” went over just fine, and that poem was about as inside baseball as you could get. Using initials instead of real names make the poems perhaps more universal or like 19th Century novels. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;">I will always lay claim to being a grump or snob about certain poems. It’s just impossible to love every poem and every poet’s work. Poetry is so vast in its approaches, I do think it always has fed on itself, in the best and worst ways. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;">In the middle of a reading I attended recently, a poet friend asked me, “Do you think it’s possible to hate poetry and love it at the same time?” And I totally got what they were asking. My answer to that is yes, yes, yes. I think it’s essential to hold onto the idea of anti-poetry and poetry in one’s head at the same time. And I bring this up because I think when I write about another poet badgering me about aesthetics—using a very 90s-type argument about elliptical poetics as a way of discounting personal experiences and “exposing” narrative as some bourgeois tendency, as I remember that debate now—I think about it with a kind of nostalgia. People really thought this was a life-or-death discussion, right outside a bridge-and-tunnel Irish bar in the Village! It seems quaint to think about it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;">As a true product of the 90s, my main coping mechanism when faced with conflict is humor and ironic distance. The world of poets and forging alliances and networking and readings and editing small journals and promoting other people’s poems, back then, seemed like a full-contact interpersonal sport to me. It goes without saying that writing poems wasn’t enough. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">CS:</span></b><span lang="EN"> I find your portrayal of the toxic ethos and traumatizing dynamics of the mostly male-dominated scenes of that time to be compelling in ways that go beyond mere “score settling” and self-pity. Many of these character portrayals, and ethical critiques of other (unnamed) poetry scene types, such as “To The Heckler At My First Poetry Reading, 1994,” bring me back to that time with a lot of “uncanny feelings and unsettled bellyaches of energy” (8).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">DN:</span></b><span lang="EN"> That experience reading poems in a real venue as a 25-year-old and having this drunken poet heckle me the whole time was nothing short of traumatic. I didn’t want to write about it because I still feel embarrassed about it, all these years later. But I knew that if I was going to write about becoming a poet in the 90s, I would have to write about that awful night. I never looked this dude up, but I found out this person was not some chimera who appeared at the back of the Tin Angel folk club, but was in fact a member of the Philadelphia poetry scene. And maybe that’s why no one told him to stop? I’m still not sure. If anything, it made me happy to just leave Philly and start all over. If there is one thing I have learned about writing nonfiction, particularly memoir, it’s that if you’re going to write about someone who did something wrong to you, you need to at least examine your own motivations for writing about it. That poem about my heckler was something I could have written about for more than 30 years but didn’t. And that’s because I couldn’t. The guy still exists out there, and writes poems, and never thought to apologize. I’ve had drunken nights myself where I misbehaved, but I did that whole thing where I called the next morning and apologized. After writing the poem, I think I realized that this wasn’t one of those one-off things. I think this is just what happens in poetry and the one very valid coping mechanism is to write a poem about it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">CS: </span></b><span lang="EN">Yes, I think it’s very valid, and you handle it with grace and flare. When I read a sentence (from “More Poets”) like “whether this is a failure of the city, or merely/ of the poet, is an open question,” I remember how many of us younger poets (including myself), in poetry scenes at that time, in our attempts to dig ourselves out of the divisive pettiness we felt in elders, ended up falling into such cruel dynamics ourselves—in a way that just makes me want to escape from the whole “poetry scene” dynamic that tends to bring out the worst in people at least as much as today’s social media, with the temptation to speak before thinking, without any awareness of how we might come off to others.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">DN:</span></b><span lang="EN"> That’s completely true. I would like to think that, because now I am older and have other interests and am no longer so monomaniacally focused on poetry and poem-making, I am not as susceptible to the divisive pettiness you’re talking about. To be honest, I’m torn between trying to assert myself in some ways—writing poetry reviews, putting readings together, publishing journals—and think of that as a way to just be involved, as opposed to taking up space others could, and should, otherwise inhabit. It’s a relief, to be honest. I have been cruel in many of the same ways I write about, and some other ways I haven’t written about. I was really inspired by David Trinidad’s 2016 collection <i>Notes on a Past Life</i>—that poem “More Poets” is sort of an homage to one of the poems in that collection. The way Trinidad wrote in narrative and artful ways about a poet’s life felt both breezy and transgressive at the same time. Breezy because the poems are just eminently readable, filled with New York references from about a decade before my time, as well as all this yummy gossip that reads as sincere. It made me realize I could write narrative poems again in ways I’ve tried to avoid, for fear of being uncool or “mainstream” or some other nonsense. It also made me realize that I don’t mind writing for a coterie of other poets.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">CS:</span></b><span lang="EN"> I like breezy and transgressive; I feel that in your book too. Did you feel a sense of purgation digging through these “retcon” memories? By emphasizing the negative, were you responding to a feeling of 90s nostalgia that many are tempted to have these days? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">DN:</span></b><span lang="EN"> I feel a little purge-y when I read these poems. If I put in my self-promotional marketing hat on, I do think there is something in the air about the 90s now. Not only people who lived through the 90s but also people who are interested in it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">CS:</span></b><span lang="EN"> Do you feel that, perhaps, these days, poetry scenes are more supportive of each other than they were then? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">DN:</span></b><span lang="EN"> I really don’t know. It’s kind of obvious, but scenes are as much more digital and virtual now as opposed to proximal and geographical. I do think that, in the last 30 years, poets who have professionalized themselves and have gotten really, really good at institutionalizing things that weren’t institutionalized before. We’re in a world where Submittable makes it possible to submit to hundreds of journals all over the country and the world, all without reading them, and charge fees. We’re in a world where submitting 10 times to the same journal in a single year is not only normal, but encouraged. Where poets are now getting PhDs but also not going into academia because tenure-track jobs have disappeared. People still want to be poets and make their mark, but the definition of how a mark is made has shifted. There is still nothing and everything at stake. At the same time, and more importantly, I love how there are not just white dudes and tokens anymore—the field feels more diverse, and it has improved the poems I read.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">CS:</span></b><span lang="EN"> Yes, I love how it’s more diverse now too and am very excited by many poets who began publishing in the 21<sup>st</sup>century. You mentioned you might do a reading where you emphasize reading these “poetryland poems.” Have you? I feel this could be useful to younger writers who are trying to form more supportive communities, as well as those who are sick of worrying where they belong or fit. Even if you don’t share your own writing with your students, I imagine that when a student expresses a desire to be published or do readings, your experience in this school of hard knocks provides excellent, caring, advice. Is there anything you want to say about these?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">DN:</span></b><span lang="EN"> Now that you have asked, and reminded me about that, I should definitely schedule a Poetryland Only Reading. So when this thing is published, I will have a link!<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;">Most of the students I teach aren’t writers, and that, to me, is refreshing. It feels gratifying to know I am the first teacher to show them what some aspects of creative writing is, how it can improve their lives, no matter what they go on to do after college. I have some experience helping students get published or doing readings or making their way in the literary world. Not as much as I gather from other professor-types who teach at, say, MFA programs. When students do ask or express interest, I totally help and encourage them and offer them a realistic outlook on how things will be. I have always edited literary journals, and for the past 10 years or so, the one I edit, <a href="file:///G:/My%20Drive/04%20Harsh%20Realm/Harsh%20Realm%20Graphics%20Publicity/Stroffolino%20Interview%202022/pinehillsreview.com"><i>Pine Hills Review</i></a>, is loosely affiliated with my college, and students help edit it as interns or as part of a class. That sort of hands-on experience feels interdisciplinary and organic to the student profile I have at my current job. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;">For many of my students, I know I am not the ideal mentor—I’m just a working class white guy from South Jersey. So a lot of my help comes from helping my students find their communities, whether it’s Cave Canem or Kundiman or VIDA or other places. Most of my students don’t even know there are these institutions out there, waiting for them to feel like they can be part of supportive communities. I do feel like that is real mentorship and good advice. I have former students who have gone on and done MFA programs or have gotten published, and have made their way into the world in ways I never did. That’s mind-blowing at this point. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><b><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><a name="_ob9f2etjxllc"></a><b><span lang="EN">CS: </span></b><span lang="EN">It makes me happy to hear you so gratified by being the introductory teacher (me too). You mention the digital technologies that emerged in the 90s may necessitate a “fractured and even granular poetics,” and how Trinidad’s <i>Notes on a Past Life</i> helped you write narrative poems again without the fear of being uncool or “mainstream” or “bourgeois.” One of the reasons I’m drawn to the narratives of <i>Harsh Realm</i> is that, in an age where the fragmentation of the digital realm is so culturally omnipresent, the attention and the discipline required to actually construct a more meditative sustained narrative becomes more and more attractive. Yet, beyond any argument of “what the age demanded” (perhaps a kind of <i>deacceleration</i> of its grimace), I feel your narratives do make room for what you call “the granular.” Would you like to elaborate on any of these formal concerns of your poetics, or your revision process?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">DN:</span></b><span lang="EN"> I would like to think that the process a poem that I write takes—from reading poems of other people, thinking about language in my head, listening to music, scratching notebooks and poem drafts—has gotten more genuine or true to what kinds of poems I can best write. I am not sure I was consciously thinking I was kicking it old school or whatever in the poetic modes department, but I do think that, after returning to writing poems on a more consistent basis after a bunch of prose projects, I didn’t feel the weight of technique anymore, at least not as much as in the past. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><b><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">CS:<i> </i></span></b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Is reading poems by others the usual way you begin the process of writing a poem? Are there any poems in Harsh Realm that came about without reading poems by other people?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;">Reading other writers definitely would be one of several ways a poem might begin. I mentioned Diane Seuss and David Trinidad. Lucille Clifton and Fernando Pessoa are always on my desk. I’m a huge fan of Matthew Lippman, who wrote about this book, and he indirectly led me back to reading Gerald Stern. I wrote an essay about being a student of Philip Levine <a href="https://www.uipress.uiowa.edu/books/9780985932527/coming-close">for a collection a few years back</a>, and that led to a poem in the collection that imitates his 1992 poem, “On the Meeting of Garcia Lorca and Hart Crane.” It’s called “On the Meeting of Frank O’Hara and David Lee Roth.” At the same time, there are things I read and listen to and enjoy immensely that just don’t find their way into my poems. I’m cool with it, but I don’t think anyone who reads my poems would guess I am a huge sound poetry freak. Slam poems, too, although that might peek through. But sound poets and Language and post-Language poets, love them all, but they don’t show up in my poems. It’s like when CC Deville of Poison jokes about about all his influences—Hendrix, Jimmy Page—and he ends up playing Poison songs. That’s me.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;">I don’t think I am alone when I talk about the interferences and distortions that come along. There’s the anxieties of influences and the social, coterie aspects in poetry scenes—again, I would like to think—has been put in a less pronounced place. I’m being super-general here, I know. But what I am trying to say is that I worry less about what I think people think, what other poets think. I trust my instincts for when a poem is going to happen.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;">For example: I feel like I’ve always had a feel for the line, or a particular line that I can identify with as having some sort of meaning or feel to them. It wasn’t always that way. For example, even though I got a lot of pleasure out of it, I was worried I was somehow retrograde in thinking or hoping each of my lines would have its own world of meaning, independent of the poem. It’s sort of an “every frame a painting,” fetishy habit I picked up in workshops over the years, and it directly influenced how I break the line. Breaking before syntactical units so that each line seemed like some complete thought, that seemed to me to be a given when breaking lines. But over the years, I have tried to disrupt that practice and let lines hang and even lose track. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;">These thoughts really come to the fore when I think of some of the more narrative poems in the collection, like “The Death of College Rock: September 5, 1995,” which recounts an episode of wandering around New York and catching an awards show on a TV. The lines get shorter for me, to give some tension to the grammar and syntax, and I also think it reflects the jumpiness of the time, of being in your late twenties and not knowing what the fuck is happening. What also comes to mind is returning to older styles I used when I was younger, like when I had the influence of certain William Carlos Williams poems hard-coded in my drafting process. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b>CS:</b> Revisiting this poem in light of your comments, I am struck by how my earlier question totally ignored the importance of the final line, in which the cultural opinions yield to the character of the speaker (figure becomes ground?); but thinking about lines, perhaps an excerpt could illustrate:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="color: white;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;">“If you were to establish<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;">which songs were objectively awful,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;">this song would be the index case<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;">against which all other objectively<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;">awful songs were compared.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="color: white;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;">I like the way this seems like a straightforward discursive statement, but in these medium length lines “objectively awful,” in the second line becomes “objectively/awful” as if to highlight the emotion of disgust the speaker feels in a hyperbolic self-mocking statement. I can hear your voice in this performative rhetorical utterance. I imagine gestures. I wonder if you prefer to read this slower at readings to emphasize the line breaks and the tension that creates? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><b><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">DN: </span></b><span lang="EN">Right, I am delighted you picked that up. The enjambment right there to me would be an example of me doing work to avoid the directly prosaic when a reader encounters the poem. At least with my own performer’s tool box, I might even speak in the iambic lockstep “poet voice” to play up that enjambment, so listeners would get that I am disrupting the syntax there. It’s also a good example of my breaking my earlier habits of having lines work as independent units of meaning, because when you’re writing a poem that has narrative or expository surface, another way to compress language and give it energy, it seems to me, is to introduce enjambment. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">CS:</span></b><span lang="EN"> I also like the way the social milieu you describe/invoke in “poetryland” differs from that of “players in horrible rock bands, or those who care to remember true failure---wordless, naked-ass failure.” (“Hot Blooded,” 33). The meanness, and the sharp wit of the contentious ego-based poetry scene seems muted in the more collaborative art of music making. Arguments happen, but more in form of lighter banter, as in the 3rd paragraph/stanza of “Hot Blooded.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;">“After the gig, the singer’s girlfriend complains in her thick Danish accent that she cannot hear ze words. It makes sense that she wants to hear her man sing about her ass. Taking a page from literary theory, I explain that sometimes words aren’t important, that the simple sound of her husband’s easel-aided utterances would suffice. She rolls her eyes and carries her old man’s antediluvian teleprompter out to the cab.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;">And while there may be arguments about arrangements and aesthetics, but in “The Drummer in Our Band Tells Us He’s a Virgin,” they fade into moments of brotherly vulnerability and even, if compared to the poetryland poems, a kind of tenderness. Woven through this relatively straightforward narrative we see references to Othello. I admire the way you handle this “digression device.” For me, it could suggest what the speaker is thinking while this situation is happening, and this breathes mystery into the poem that can come in form of questions: How does this band practice scene connect to a Kabuki production of Othello, with an overblown “honest Iago?” I’m not asking you to talk about your “intention” on a meaning-level here, but if you’d like to add, or correct me on, anything here, I’d love to hear…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">DN:</span></b><span lang="EN"> I’ve been saying to people I feel more comfortable in music-related spaces—stores, clubs, gigs, practice spaces—than I ever was in literary spaces. Maybe it’s because in a music store it’s a once-removed situation, or there was no pressure to not suck, because I knew I sucked, or didn’t care that I sucked. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;">That poem about one of playing in my bands goes back a ways, but I do remember thinking the memory of watching a kabuki Othello production was related to this moment in the rehearsal space in the East Village. I wish I could make these digression device-type leaps more consciously or artfully, which is how I am taking your characterization, perhaps hopefully. I was having fun and pleasure with the assonance of that long o-sound. Bubbling underneath is the beta machismo of how some bands passive-aggressively argue with each other, in a small room but with microphones, and what I remember about Othello the most is how Iago orchestrates a whole sequence of events.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">CS:</span></b><span lang="EN"> Do you still make music?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">DN:</span></b><span lang="EN"> I do still play guitar, albeit really badly. I love the gear, the amps and pedals. I yearn to be in a band again, to play with other people. It’s probably unlikely to happen, although my daughter plays drums now, and someday I may go downstairs and plug in. Just to jam and get loud. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">CS:</span></b><span lang="EN"> A family band would be great! On a more micro level, as I reread this book, I look back over the many lines, or short passages, I’ve underlined, and quite a few of them are about language and metaphysics, in a rather casual offhand, and funny, way:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;">“Someone way write, ‘What is feeling?’ Someone answers: ‘It’s kind of like consciousness, dear, except you give it some goddamn value.’” (8—The Art of Prose (with Digressions)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;">Sometimes the word “God”, makes an appearance, in unexpected ways. One poem ends with “Let God’s love ruin it. And God’s love always ruins it” (31). And another writes: “Hint: it appears very likely our faith in God interrupts whatever truly tries to speak to us, which is a version of us, of course.” (56). Both of these lines are from poems addressed to a “You” uttered with an authority and a tone of wisdom, but do not belabor their points. I don’t feel atheism as much as a sense of letting go from reified words that get in the way of feeling, or should I say consciousness?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">DN:</span></b><span lang="EN"> You’re talking about a strand of poems of mine I feel less sure-footed talking about, poems where I am letting go of meaning as much as I can. I am forever hoping a poem will come through me in ways that are less conscious. I think that it’s in poetry where half-knowledge, or half-understanding things, can somehow become something else. And I suppose there’s where metaphysics and attempts at a variety of aphoristic experience comes into the mix. In my best moments looking at poems, I notice shades of meaning pop up that I did not intend but still add to the poem. That, to me, is the attraction to writing a certain kind poem; it’s a field of answers looking for questions. When that distills even further, I find mentions of God and faith popping up. That’s not just twelve years of Catholic school rearing its head, although it’s a part of it. It’s post-faith me trying to come up with a referent to all of those things I can’t figure out or don’t want to figure out. God’s the best name for it, at least in some poems.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">CS:</span></b><span lang="EN"> I recently quoted your attraction to a poem as “a field of answers looking for questions,” to a friend, and love what you say about the process of letting go of meaning. The book’s final poem, for instance, I read at first as making an important point about “sad cowboy songs,” but the more I reread it, the weirder it gets, and meaning “becomes something else.” Regardless of what some idea of “the reader” thinks, do you find sometimes that, when reading your own poems in this collection that they step outside of their utterance and can inspire you to feel different questions than you were aware of when writing them, like the old adage of poems knowing more than the poet does?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><b><i><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">DN: </span></b><span lang="EN">I don’t know if other poets feel this, but it takes a lot of work to let go and trust the language. Sometimes when I do that, the language ends up as a load of goo. I have notebooks upon notebooks of that kind of stuff: failed experiments and starts. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;">And then a poem comes along like “On Realizing Poison’s ‘Every Rose Has Its Thorn’ Has the Same Chords as the Replacements’ ‘Here Comes a Regular,’” the poem you’re referring to, and it feels like the language and negative capability falls into place. That long title does the expository heavy lifting, and lets readers know exactly what the poem that follows addresses, but it’s not just addressing something I suspect you know, as a real musician: there’s only so many chord progressions, only so many ways to put together a song, so of course there are going to be overlaps and, to me at least, versions of pastoral, a green world where different aesthetic impulses co-exist. It’s a possibility that I am always looking for, intersections of style and intentionality, the fields that I am talking about would be both in the mind and on the page, where we can at once acknowledge differences and clashes as well as find poetry. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><i><span lang="EN" style="color: white; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">CS:</span></b><span lang="EN"> Scattered throughout <i>Harsh Realm </i>are a few poems that bring your 21<sup>st</sup> century more domestic life into the picture, for instance “Future Days”(42-3). After navigating a page and half of memories, both dark and light, from the 90s framed in a more recent present, the poem swerves into a more stammering cadence as the memories get closer:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> Alone with my headphones and coffee straws,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> passwords written in chalk on bricks gather light from a window,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> and I remember the day in the hospital just down the street<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> from here in Albany, in the second-string coffee shop<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> with high windows, when my daughter’s legs turned blue<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> last summer, and I couldn’t drive straight or walk straight,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> and I ran into the room where she was in bed and she was<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> OK but scared to have her face with tubes in it. My chest<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> froze there in the hallway, and I touched her small ears<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> and sang her name a little bit—it was all I could do to stand there<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> too appear fatherly, to breathe in and out, helpless and still.” (43---Future Days)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;">“Eavesfall” (40) and “Gethsemane” (62) are ‘lighter,’ poems also set in a domestic present. I find “Gethsemane” especially refreshing and charming, after these darker poems from the 1990s. The exchange between father and daughter, for me, has a kind of Frank O’Hara insouciance of “deep gossip,” in ways the poetry coteries (of the 90s at least) could’ve used more of. I wonder if you’ve written more poems like this; it makes me happy to see this speaker in the present. Have you shown any of these to your daughter?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">DN:</span></b><span lang="EN"> It’s funny you put “Future Days” and “Gethsemane” in the same question, along with “Eavesfalls,” but I guess it makes sense. Each mentions my daughters, or a daughter, and maybe their presence grounds some of the more highfalutin pantheistic feelings in the poems we just talked about. “Future Days” was a bear of a poem to stick with—I felt it had that “I do this, I do that” thing going for it, and the form of it felt open enough to throw in everything from the annoying dude who talked out loud every day in my local coffee shop and memories of poetry readings in Brooklyn where no one showed up. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">CS:</span></b><span lang="EN"> It’s nice to see people respond to that poem on Facebook.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><b><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: white;"><b><span lang="EN">DN:</span></b><span lang="EN"> To go back to another question, “Future Days” is a poem where I was trying out new ways of thinking about the line, and where words could break and still mean something but also disrupt an easy, comfortable reading experience. I also think “Future Days” is important for the collection, since it brings together memories of Poetryland’s absurd focus on who is doing what and why things don’t happen, with what happens every day: people drink crappy coffee, students in graduate school struggle with their papers, the kids we have end up in emergency rooms. And the more I thought about this, the more I thought about how Can and Neu! and the motorik drum beat relates to how I was living my life, or trying to: it’s a rhythm that’s a “restrained exhilaration,” is how it’s described somewhere. It’s how I try to actively listen to music while trying to write at the same time. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;">In the course of answering these questions you’ve asked, I do notice I am often setting up one tendency against another—narrative versus lyric maybe, darker poetryland poems versus lighter ones from the present. I don’t necessarily think it’s healthy to do this, but more and more I feel it’s part of my process: I’ll write one way in reaction or rebellion to another way, or write about one subject as a way of getting away from a topic I can’t stand exploring anymore. When people read these poems, they may not realize these are moments that happened years ago, and that’s intentional: I do want readers to think I am writing something that just happened yesterday and they’re getting the immediate reaction. For me at least, it’s those poems that are the most challenging to pull off, and not just because of writing in the present tense or anything like that. It’s the challenge of keeping that immediacy and deep gossip in the poems as they move through drafts. I have to work really hard to make those poems seem easy, whereas other poems that draw from more definite timelines in the past may come more naturally. My oldest did read “Gethsemane” when it was published, and what was great is I had to explain where the title came from, all the temptations of Christ and the stations of the cross. She had no clue about any of it. So just to get her up to speed on the title, I had to give her a crash course on Jesus. Her reaction to that was as if I was telling her the story of some musical artist from the 80s that just went viral on TikTok—it had relevance but not really. It was refreshing, at least to me, that she wasn’t burdened with religion. I’ve been writing poems about some of this. Maybe that’s the next book.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="color: white;"> </span></p>Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-25079687651773653572022-05-23T17:52:00.000-07:002022-05-23T17:52:14.365-07:00 Mettā in Dukkha: ko ko thett’s The Burden of Being Burmese<p> <b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Mettā </span></i></b><b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> in <i>Dukkha:</i> ko ko thett’s <i>The Burden of Being Burmese</i></span></b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhXFwHgS70woThYl9b8oCJGo5pRd7eaOJMTojt5RgvZ1ddB4btQnCv9LlA2pL-KZbG1By7mIQwkcObYPrLOmOm7B67_TNw5Ima21ggebgi9SzdVGymbFrM_We_PSBxGDaERo_OfRv5fKpK0ATNNzAAu3JQ_3VG2RMGXe-kDm0tzqjA_HlJXM1j6cVjNWg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="373" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhXFwHgS70woThYl9b8oCJGo5pRd7eaOJMTojt5RgvZ1ddB4btQnCv9LlA2pL-KZbG1By7mIQwkcObYPrLOmOm7B67_TNw5Ima21ggebgi9SzdVGymbFrM_We_PSBxGDaERo_OfRv5fKpK0ATNNzAAu3JQ_3VG2RMGXe-kDm0tzqjA_HlJXM1j6cVjNWg" width="179" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">As news of another military coup and mass murder of citizens in Myanmar goes viral in the (selective attention of) the American media, many are expressing outrage, sympathy, empathy, thoughts and prayers, </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">yet fewer, apparently, are speaking of our own culture’s fingerprints in the misery of modern militarized Myanmar, except perhaps as metonymy for globalism. In</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The Burden of Being Burmese (</i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Zephyr Press, 2015), ko ko thett, a Burmese living in exile among Anglos, is well aware of being a metonymy, that his book (whether he likes it or not) will be taken as representative, as speaking truth to power on behalf of the oppressed, but declawed into commodity exchange: (“Buy me, get my country free,” 61)</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Although this book is dazzling poetically and hilariously brilliant, it’s not what one would call a comfortable book. As he provides the English-speaking world with portraits of many (seemingly?) home-grown atrocities “where boys my age get routinely dehumanized” (19), “spent mortar shells are reborn as vases for/ Buddhist shrines and pagodas.” (20) and “everyone suffers adjustment disorder” (20), he’s a master of social and political ironies that, beyond nationalism, show the burdens of the various imperialisms that are sometimes more benignly called “globalism.” (for instance, the irony that many immigrants and refugees globally, moving to imperial countries that are responsible for destroying your own, understand all too well).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Among some of the manifestations of this, we find “a language that never makes you feel good about sex,” being “colonized by bottled water,” (4) “where street vendors who used to sell falafel for rice noodles/have found bootlegging dvds more profitable” (15). Nor is food colonization a new phenomenon, but part of a noble tradition, like chemical warfare, going back at least as far as the 19<sup>th</sup> century. Monosodium Glutamate, for instance, is: “the buddha’s poop that has colonized our cuisines since 1908….from the shrimp cocktail of Nasa astronauts in space to/ the food aid package in east Africa.” (86). Neither are Big Pharma and the opioid addiction immune. At times, one may detect a nostalgia-by-default for a prelapsarian pre-colonized time, though at other times, he has a great deal of mordantly recursive pleasure satirizing this tendency, whether seen in himself, or in others; for instance “my generation is best,” which also manages to satirize “my country is best” nationalism in the process.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Or check out the movement of this stanza from “chaos clock:”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">cockfights used to be popular here<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">the blood sport is barbaric<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">people now have other options<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">scorecasting is not a zero-sum game<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">investment is pouring in, reeking draws fruit flies<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">ricky draws angles. (17)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In thett’s exploration of what one reader called, “the possibility of the translatability of lived experience between the personal and political,” he sometimes speaks in the voice of, the “Caucasian engineers,” (20), the imperial self, and the masters of manipulation, whether they take more visible form (tanks), or more invisible forms (banks, or even perhaps even poets). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The speaker and situation of “urban renewal,” may be an urban planner speaking to a city, and nature, in the voice of a psychologist, preacher or ‘big brother’ offering tough-love advice to a friend. Lines that at first might not seem like such a bad thing tend to have a double-edged sword when considered as trickle-down policies. In “the public transit in your brain,” this speaker warns, there should be (and, dammit, shall be!): <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> “dog parks for dogs,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">amusement parks for amusements, child-friendly facilities<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">for the parents of children who may never grow up,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">bingo halls for all ages and sexual preferences.” (28)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Yet, on closer observations, one may ask questions: Why aren’t the amusement parks for <i>people?</i> What about the playgrounds you defunded? Why are dogs being segregated into the dog parks (or what he elsewhere calls “the hammer of animalism” 16). Do all ages and sexual preferences really want to be forced to play bingo? No! this is Blake’s “charter’d city” on steroids, brain candy, happiness pie! The speaker is a rage for order, control freak! Though thett may be talking about Burma in “urban renewal,” he is so adept at making the atrocities of the martial law panopticon visible, his wry observational eye in these persona poems in the voice of worldly power, stripped of specific context, could be easily translated to many of America’s and England’s social crises (which makes sense, since we’ve exported them), in however etiolated a first-world form. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And, yes, even the soul is gentrified. Not only shall graffiti “be encouraged/ on the inner walls of your empty chest,” but:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“all administrative quarters of your soul shall be made/<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">soundproof to prevent the intrusion of street noises<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">malling, walling, enthralling, and everything else…” (29)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">This sense of spiritual or psychic martial law reminds me of Jello Biafra’s “Stay In Your Homes” (“the luxuries you demanded have now become mandatory.”) Though this poem is presented as a future dystopia, perhaps America’s future can be seen in Burma’s present. We could also, however, see the past of Anglo-Americans in this portrayal of the durian-skinned soul. After all, it’s not too different from the dominant Anglo-American philosophies during the time when England first colonized Burma, and the one-way subject-object relationships they were used to justify---as in another poem spoken in the voice of worldly power:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">happiness is best served at room temperature<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">[my room temperature, not yours]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">it goes down really well with <i>dukkha<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">[your <i>dukkha</i>, not mine] (79)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Soundproofing your soul may lead to making you an absolute tyrant. Lacking <i>mettā<b> </b></i>(a Buddhist word for loving-kindness, compassion, or disinterested love), such a soundproof, bullet-proof soul radiates <i>dukkha</i> (the Buddhist concept of suffering, angst, anguish, frustration, pain, affliction, anxiety---the general burdens of life) and needs to be “cut” (53-54) with “fresh gags below the waistline” (16). He also directly addresses this imperial self beneath the well-intentioned American. Take, for instance, the first stanza of “fuck me untied:”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“are you one of those who will import<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">our rice so you can bomb our village<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">you believe in the charity of your moneyed class<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">now that my body is stuck in your bottleneck, there is<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">no spillover effect, save for your sperm.” (39)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In personalizing this global relationship between the first world “consumer” (and writer with “sweet monologues”) and the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ dehumanized producers (or human resources) as rape, in a world without <i>mettā</i>, thett expresses the trauma, depression and numbness personally. One effect of this is an absolute feeling of alienation:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“i no longer trust the public ride<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">faced with the leviathan, i will be playing possum<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">lying low like a benthic fish, if not committing<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">another suicide” (39)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Looking for a sliver of hope in this loveless disconnection, a reader may detect a defense of the inward turn of poetic solitude as a survival strategy that, if nothing else, can practice obstacles, and prevent him from turning the violence and threats directed at him from others into an act of self-sabotage, but such faith that this can lead to a kind of rebirth, or resistance to the aggressive hunger of the colonizer (or a ‘lover’ who may act imperialist) on a strictly personal level, is at best temporary. Near the end of another poem, “the rain maker,” thett presents, in a more detached third person tone, an “after picture” to the dark night of the soul in “fuck me, untied:”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">look how the dormant underdog,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">taken for granted rotten-dead,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">has sprung back to life on <i>dukkha</i> media! (71)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">By referring to <i>dukkha</i> as a form of media, I feel a skepticism towards the “resurrection” enabled by the path of possum-like dormancy. Perhaps we could read this as self-satire, but in the context of the poem this image is really a “mirage” onto which we, the reader, will inevitably project meanings, feelings, connotations or past experiences (as he sardonically invites us to “turn the projector on” in the first line). thett turns the gaze on his first-world reader by leaving it purposely contextless: This “dormant underdog” is a type, an “it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">sickened with divided attention disorder<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">it jumps over the crown, chokes and<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">strangles the aristocratic order (72)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The divided attention disorder could be his own project of combining the personal with the political, the domestic with the global, the multi-tasking and hybridism, or even those who try to combine poetry with social status in other poems. It could also a transcendental spirit or a revolutionary, which seems to have positive connotations, were it not for the fact that many who present themselves socially as transcendental (my kingdom is not of this world), or revolutionary become future dictators (whether in a country or a poetry community). After all, capitalism, too, “strangles the aristocratic order.” Perhaps it refers to Aung San Suu, who had been elected not long before (and who, in 2021, has been overthrown by military coup). Having seen this movie so many times, starring one who may even genuinely be trying to make things better only to make things worse, the next stanza suggests an alternative:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">the kingdom now needs a flea leap forward<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">the newly elected leader may be comely<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">just don’t expect her to change the clime (72)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In my projections of thett’s meanings, I take the “flea leap forward” as the possibility of lyric poetry, the inward turn, the need for dormancy against the “move-fast, break things” Zuckerbergian world that’s fueled by and preys on the insatiable addictive hunger of consumerism. Thett’s cynicism towards just about any strictly political solution is rooted in what in 21<sup>st</sup> century American poetics may be called “slow poetry” and/or “eco-poetry” in a way that appeals to ‘wit-crackers’ like myself who may not be moved as much by an earnest plea to truly humble ourselves before the power of nature as if that could maybe stop global climate change:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">isn’t it fascinating?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">how each and every cowry trapped in a hallowed-out bamboo<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">houses an entire symphony orchestra (72)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The defense of flea-like smallness in this poem’s final “mirage” could recall Emily Dickinson’s “The spreading wide my narrow Hands/ To gather Paradise—.” (466), yet even here, such a statement is not unqualified, for it must also be mentioned that the cowry was, in Burma, used for money. Unlike many poets, who believe they can fight a spiritual war against capitalism by banishing economic terms from their poetry, I dare say that thett’s reverence for nature comes through, like <i>mettā, </i>in between the lines of capital and its <i>dukkha</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In digging deep into the conscience of “woke’ readers who may feel they have no moral blind-spots, and poets whose conscience has “been ideologically castrated” (56), at one point he writes, “there’s no municipal services to collect your moral trash” (16), and “your karma is you.” (77) A question of morality arises: what is morality in a social media world of virtue signaling, where the private is more fishbowled, where “sale items, dressed in poverty and virgin virtue/ vie for the highest bidder (15)? Do we need the feeling or concept of immortality to live a kinder, more moral life on earth? Thett is certainly skeptical of how the promise of an afterlife is employed by people in power who want you dead (at one point he calls them the “afterlife insurance salespeople” 79):<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">people are welcome, problems are not<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">living is expensive, but dying doesn’t cost a dime<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">where else in the world can you enjoy a free funeral”. (17)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Or, perhaps:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“to age is to get less serious/about life, to die is to be incinerated to be reincarnated,/ a multi-purpose stadium for metal concerts and the /<i>vispassana</i> for the masses” (29, though I can see a reader saying, ‘that’s no worse than coming back as the grass in Walt Whitman’s “Resurgemus” before it got depoliticized in the more famous, “Song of Myself 6”). Hell, I like metal, and love vispassana.’).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> When I first read “Anxiety Attack” (73), with lines like, “every detail of your life will be laid bare,” it seemed like a poem about judgement day, or as the Sufi mystic put it:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Everything cruel and unconscious<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">done in the illusion of the present world,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">all that does not fade away at the death waking”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">But as the poem continues, it becomes clearer that the “immortality” this poem is talking about is your reputation on earth (“future generations will be overwhelmed….researchers will no doubt nose into your diaries” and, closer to home, a literary person with “a penchant for post-modern flip-flops,” an emblem for moral relativism and what thett, as “flip flop thief” (79), calls ideological castration. I read this poem as a conscience scouring cautionary tale, to at least question what the desire for any kind of fame, however modest, is, and whether or not you’re implicated in it more than you think, and whether it has maybe robbed your soul. This facing of the darkness of <i>dukkha </i>(whether in others or himself—if not ‘his own’) is not an attempt to outsmart death as much as it’s a reminder that we don’t have to wait for death.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In “the rain maker,” he offers (faux) advice to his readers, “you don’t want to be another down comforter.” Perhaps <i>The Burden of Being Burmese</i>, working in the trenches of arrogant contemporary corruption, suggests it’s better to be an<i> up afflicter. </i>But though thett’s book doesn’t offer any specific solutions for these systemic atrocities and human meanness, it engages in a cathartic, detoxifying karmic payback to anyone with ears; its meta-poetic aspects may even clear the way for more<b><i> </i></b><i>mettā.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">If I err, in the selective emphasis of this prose, by making this book seem more aggressively heavy handed than it really is, the only solution is to read the book first—and perhaps focus on the wit in such poems that explore the madness of discourse of a dissembling culture that may enable “divided attention disorder.” For instance, “after ‘the lie of art’”(41), with its playful, but at times maddening, binaries that remind of Lydia Tomkiw and Algebra Suicide’s “Proverbial Explanation for Why No Action is Taken,” or “faith supper” which may recall The Buzzcock’s “A Different Type of Tension.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">A more thorough essay would also consider how he’s able to transcend the page vs. spoken word divide as well as the three-dimensional wit of a single line. In “no football color” (57), he asks: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“shouldn’t the referee always trust her lineman?” Saying referees rather than the more conventional quarterback implies what many suspect: the game is rigged, fixed, government spies, Astroturf people’s movements, and what of the gender change to her? “Lineman” could also refer to poets.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Much more can be said, also, about the sad laments that appeal more to pathos than logos such as “the 5000<sup>th</sup>.” Many times, in reference to the contagion of the oppressor’s psychological aggressions, it’s been said, “oppression makes a wise man mad.” In ko ko thett’s poetry, “brahmin the economist” says “the mean reversion may or may not be inevitable,” (46), yet <i>The Burden of Being Burmese </i>suggests that that economic jargon, perhaps, can yet be translated poetically into an ethics of post-capitalist <i>mettā.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><div><br clear="all" /><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div id="ftn1"><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="applewebdata://78C91128-9B07-4B1C-8D2D-CEC8461776C7#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> See, for instance, “In Burma, They Have Come For The Poets.” </span><a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2021/03/21/in-burma-they-have-come-for-the-poets/" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2021/03/21/in-burma-they-have-come-for-the-poets/</span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p></div></div>Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-7894765995261637272022-05-23T17:48:00.000-07:002022-05-23T17:48:17.853-07:00 Gender & “Love” in the 19th Century: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Chris Nealon and “Attachment Theory” <p> <b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Gender & “Love” in the 19<sup>th</sup> Century: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Chris Nealon and “Attachment Theory” </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Chris Nealon’s “You Surround Me” (<i>The Shore, 2020)</i> weaves so many threads together to create a feeling of deeply thoughtful tenderness and wonder as he explores possible alternatives to traditional, say patriarchal, male gender roles for a 21<sup>st</sup> century readership justifiably skeptical of the rhetorical traditions of cis-het white male love poetry vows and declarations. At the same time, he does not want to do away with writing from love. Perhaps, these days, one has to use meta-poetic strategies to rescue the word “love” from its abusers in our brain. One of the threads in this multi-faceted poetic aria returns to me to bring refreshing light after being depressed by reading male “love” poetry of the 19<sup>th</sup> century in this learning community I’m called teacher of. In this passage, the ghost of cis-het 19<sup>th</sup> century Romantic poets Keats and Shelly are intercepted by the ghosts of 20<sup>th</sup> century poet objectivist poet George Oppen:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“Standing over the little bed where Keats died—thinking of that Oppen poem—<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> “A friend saw the rooms<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Of Keats and Shelly<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> At the lake, and saw ‘they were just<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Boys’ rooms’ and was moved<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> By that…” (30)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In a voice that seems part literary critic, Nealon comes back to this Oppen poem 7 pages later:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“The final stanza of that Oppen poem is interesting<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">He writes, “indeed a poet’s room/Is a boy’s room/ And I suppose<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> that women know it”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Then he concludes:<a href="applewebdata://F05B1626-2CD1-4090-8787-3B82101D5645#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[1]</span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> “Perhaps the unbeautiful banker<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Is exciting to a woman, a man<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Not a boy gasping<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> For breath over a girl’s body”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">So yeah poets are male<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">But also: boys are beautiful<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And: women don’t like boys. They like men who make them feel like<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> girls<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Also: fuck bankers<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And the whole perfume of ashamed resentment, I get that<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> I remember reading a passage in <i>The Book of Laughter and<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Forgetting</span></i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> when I was like 16 where a woman turns to<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Her lover and says, “You fuck like an intellectual”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> And thinking yeah, that’s gonna be me<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> But maybe most interesting---<i>breath</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> I’ve always had this feeling that maybe all my sexual fantasies are <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Really just breathing exercises… (37-38)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">As the poem winds to its Keatsian conclusion celebrating the ache of love, Nealon adds:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“I realize it’s preposterous to pit my tiny life against the tidal swells of/ the history of gender,…But ever day in graceful carriage I can see it undone so easily,/ If only we’d all undo it—"(40), and “I want my sexuality to be ‘courage.’” (41) While a fuller discussion of Nealon’s poem would take pages, these passages, like so many others in this book, makes me happy to live be living in the 21<sup>st</sup> century, for such empathetic frankness, and investigation into stereotypes of gender were rarely, if at all, available to many males (even if they define as cis-het) in the 19<sup>th</sup> (& 20<sup>th</sup>) century.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Since Oppen seems to be not only presumptuously speculating on women’s motivation in his passage, but also critiquing the boy gasping for breath over a girl’s body, one may ask whether Oppen, an avowed communist, in this instance is actually identifying more with the “unbeautiful banker”—rather than, say, a working class non educated (if not necessarily non-intellectual) laborer--than the overgrown refined girlie-man boy poet, as if those are the only two options for the cis-het man; part of Nealon’s point is that those aren’t the only two options.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In his essay “Love” (1841), Ralph Waldo Emerson also criticizes the limits of youthful male love, which at the time apparently dominated male love/desire poetry: “I know I incur the imputation of unnecessary hardness and stoicism from those who compose the Court and Parliament of Love. But from these formidable censors I shall appeal to my seniors” (1).<a href="applewebdata://F05B1626-2CD1-4090-8787-3B82101D5645#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[2]</span></span></span></a> Like Oppen, the assumed gender of his reader appears to be “men in general” (as Emerson does not blatantly use himself as an example in this essay). Emerson is careful to anticipate the objections, as throughout the essay he seems to be imagining his reader, as a younger more sensual earlier self he, too, had partaken in but now has outgrown: “In the noon and the afternoon of life we still throb at the recollection of days when happiness was not happy enough, but must be drugged with the relish of pain and fear “(6), which reminds me a line from No Trend’s “Teen Love” (“they programmed arguments into their relationship to make their lives more meaningful.”)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Given the widespread disillusionment felt in today’s society, as surely it must’ve been in Emerson’s time, about the youthful promises of love that many older people, whether divorced, or trapped in unhappy and unfulfilling perfunctory relationships (no longer in love, or realizing they never really knew what love is, or thought they’d grower closer) feel, perhaps Emerson’s essay can be as medicinal as couples counseling?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Since he speaks with an authority that makes him seem like an expert in male psychology in general (is it descriptive or prescriptive?), he writes: “Each man sees over his own experience a certain stain of error, whilst that of other men looks fair and ideal. Let any man go back to those delicious relations which make the beauty of his life, which have given him sincerest instruction and nourishment, he will shrink and moan….Every thing is beautiful seen from the point of view of intellect, or as truth. But all is sour, if seen as experience.” (3)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Although the absolutism of his either/or binary seems a little extreme, this universalizing of guilt or shame is seductive in the sense that it can make me feel less alone, as does that the intellect (or hope) can rescue us from the retrospective gaze over our own mistakes and errors. By validating my experience and hunch that many people who seem more “well-adjusted” than us (rather than just me), some Jones-norm of the soul we’re failing to “keep up with,” once we get to know them more intimately, may really do as many screwed up things, or think of themselves as fuck-ups, as we do (albeit with different flavors). When he speaks of these universal flaws in terms of the soul, which for Emerson is a journey of infinite improvement of self and other towards greater connection with humanity, nature, and god, I feel Dickinson’s conclusion-rebuking “Tooth/ That nibbles at the soul—"<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">But though Emerson devotes much of his essay to this feeling of love in the individual mind of the young male lover, from the vantage of an older couple, “so variously and correlatively gifted,…in the nuptial society forty or fifty years” (18), such lover-ing must be supplemented with a shared, mutual desire to “seek virtue and wisdom everywhere, to the end of increasing virtue and wisdom” (19), and manifested in actions & behaviors both in and outside the relationship. Perhaps the most convincing description of his more noble and refined older person love occurs when he writes: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“in the particular society of his mate,… with mutual joy they are now able, without offence, to indicate blemishes and hindrances in each other, and give to each all help and comfort in curing the same”(15) and “to employ all the resources of each and acquaint each with the strength and weakness of the other. For it is the nature of this relation, that they should represent the world to each other.” (18)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Reading these vague contours, I get the sense that Emerson had a very harmonious relationship with a soul-mate who is presumably his wife, a fellow intellectual who needs solitude as much as a warm presence. Lovers can correct each other and also point out strengths in each other that they couldn’t see in themselves to comfort each other and heal their relationship (“What we feel that we love is not in your will…It is that which you know not in yourself and can never know,” 13).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Mutuality becomes important for Emerson, but a 21<sup>st</sup> century reader may wonder more specifically about the dynamics: for it’s true that many people may claim their relationship is mutual even if their partner may disagree, and surely this was the case in a 19<sup>th</sup> century context in which equality between a man and a woman was even more illegal and uncommon that it apparently is today. I feel I need to turn to his contemporary Margaret Fuller, considered by many to be the mother of American feminism and , in contrast to Emerson (who doesn’t really mention the role of gender in heterosexual love), primarily writes about love in context of gender relations:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“Much has been written about woman's keeping within her sphere, which is defined as the domestic sphere…. It is not generally proposed that she should be sufficiently instructed and developed to understand the pursuits or aims of her future husband; she is not to be a help-meet to him in the way of companionship and counsel, except in the care of his house and children…(2).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Were the destiny of Woman thus exactly marked out; did she invariably retain the shelter of a parent's or guardian's roof till she married; did marriage give her a sure home and protector; were she never liable to remain a widow, or, if so, sure of finding immediate protection from a brother or new husband, so that she might never be forced to stand alone one moment; and were her mind given for this world only, with no faculties capable of eternal growth and infinite improvement; we would still demand for her a far wider and more generous culture, than is proposed by those who so anxiously define her sphere.<a href="applewebdata://F05B1626-2CD1-4090-8787-3B82101D5645#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[3]</span></span></span></a>We would demand it that she might not ignorantly or frivolously thwart the designs of her husband; that she might be the respected friend of her sons, not less than of her daughters; that she might give more refinement, elevation and attraction, to the society which is needed to give the characters of <i>men</i> polish and plasticity,—no less so than to save them from vicious and sensual habits. (“THE WRONGS OF AMERICAN WOMEN. THE DUTY OF AMERICAN WOMEN,” 3). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Fuller’s <i>Women in the 19<sup>th</sup> Century</i>, <i>(</i>originally titled “Man ‘verses’ Men, Woman ‘versus’ Women), in showing the horrific condition of most 19<sup>th</sup> century American women, for whom Emerson’s poetic and idealized description of love was simply not available, is motivated by a desire for social justice at least as much as it is what we call love (you could make the argument that part of what she’s trying to do is show that the two are one, over a hundred years before ‘the personal is the political’ became a feminist rallying cry). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Yet it also has many similarities with Emerson. Like Emerson, she adopts a detached, generalizing tone (not speaking of herself but of women, and men, in general) and shares a belief in an immortal soul, “capable of eternal growth and infinite improvement,” as a standard by which to criticize “vicious and sensual habits.” Like Emerson, her primary audience is males, but while Emerson is more interested in showing how love fits into his cosmic scheme, Fuller offers prescriptions for men’s actions, both <i>in</i> the “domestic sphere” of a relationship, and with women they will interact with outside a relationship, especially if they take seriously her public policy proposals (for instance, a government supported job’s program for women teachers).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“Man should prove his own freedom by making her free…. Let him trust her entirely, and give her every privilege already acquired for himself,—elective franchise, tenure of property, liberty to speak in public assemblies, &c. “EDUCATE MEN AND WOMEN AS SOULS (1)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In Fuller’s ideal love relationship, there would be “a wisdom, a mutual understanding and respect, unknown at present. Men will be no less gainers by this than women, finding in pure and more religious marriages the joys of friendship and love combined” (Wrongs, 6) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Aware that she was considered too radical by both men and even many prominent women of her time, she takes persuasive pains to appeal to man’s fears and wounded vanity to show that women’s gains will not be man’s loss. You don’t have to read her as accusing men of lacking “plasticity and polish,” or bragging that women are more polished, as much as genuinely offering help, healing and comfort. When she mentions that women should be discouraged from ignorantly or frivolously thwarting man’s design, she’s not promising that she <i>won’t </i>thwart men’s design, only that she will do it with what Emerson would call virtue and wisdom!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">While Emerson makes it seem like it’s merely the love of a woman, as an abstract feeling, that can give the young affection-ruled male who presumes himself lover that plasticity and polish, Fuller suggests to her cis-het male readership that maybe the feeling of love that inspires you to such heights is actually in women.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">At times, she may even seem to suggest that women are superior to men (which many contemporary feminists and gender theorists consider an essentialist viewpoint which also plays into the patriarchy in such statements a “the nature of woman is opposed to war,” (which certainly didn’t stop her from serving as a care-worker and chronicler during the Italian Revolution of 1849), <a href="applewebdata://F05B1626-2CD1-4090-8787-3B82101D5645#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[4]</span></span></span></a>but the emotional core of such rhetoric is more a sense that men should learn to <i>defer</i> more to women in their relationships (for their own good):<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“These exquisite forms were intended for the shrines of virtue. Neither need men fear to lose their domestic deities. Woman is born for love, and it is impossible to turn her from seeking it. Men should deserve her love as an inheritance, rather than seize and guard it like a prey. Were they noble, they would strive rather not to be loved too much, and to turn her from idolatry to the true, the only Love. Then, children of one Father, they could not err nor misconceive one another. (2)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In a similar vein, elsewhere she warns men and women not to become too dependent on one another: “I wish women to live, <i>first</i> for God’s sake. Then she will not make an imperfect man for her god and thus sink into idolatry. Then she will not take what is not fit for her from a sense of weakness and poverty.” She seems to be saying that as long as a couple doesn’t have a shared mutual belief in something like God (or what she calls the “Doctrine of the Soul”) couples will inevitably fall into such dysfunction.<a href="applewebdata://F05B1626-2CD1-4090-8787-3B82101D5645#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><sup><sup><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[5]</span></sup></sup></a> Her sketch of the kind of woman a man’s demand for “idolatry” creates, too often, alas, is forced to make her choices based on a sense of weakness and poverty.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In this sense, her Doctrine of The Soul has some similarities to what, in the 21<sup>st</sup> century, could be called “couples’ counseling,” a profession that was not available to women at Fuller’s time, and didn’t yet exist<a href="applewebdata://F05B1626-2CD1-4090-8787-3B82101D5645#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><sup><sup><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[6]</span></sup></sup></a>. The negative relationship of which she speaks doesn’t seem all that different from what attachment theory calls an insecurely attached relationship. Although attachment theory is careful not to make an any essential connection between gender (or even age, as in Emerson’s contrast between young and old) and attachment styles, and also either avoids or inverts the intellect/emotion hierarchy, their brief summary of the anxious-preoccupied individual is similar to this overly dependent woman caged in a role of idolatry:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“Anxious-preoccupied adults seek high levels of intimacy, approval and responsiveness from partners, becoming overly dependent. They tend to be less trusting, have less positive views about themselves and their partners, and may exhibit high levels of emotional expressiveness, worry and impulsiveness in their relationships. The anxiety that adults feel prevents the establishment of satisfactory defense exclusion…against separation anxiety. Because of their lack of preparation these individuals will then overreact to the anticipation of separation or the actual separation from their attachment figure….Adults with this attachment style tend to look way too far into things, whether that's a text message or a face-to-face conversation. Their thoughts and actions can lead to a painful cycle of self-fulfilling prophecies and even self-sabotage.” (Wikipedia)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Perhaps this relationship style is even a better characterization of the fearful man who demands idolatry than love than it is of the woman. Yet since attachment theory and emotion-focused therapy were not available for either Fuller or Emerson, one may wonder if this Doctrine of The Soul of which both Emerson and Fuller speak also has the power to transform such a relationship, and the individuals it makes, into what attachment theory calls a more Securely Attached relationship.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Near the end of “Educate Men and Women as Souls, she writes: “one hour of love would teach her more of her proper relations than all your formulas and conventions. Express your views, men, of what you <i>seek</i> in women; thus best do you give them laws. Learn, women, what you should <i>demand</i> of men; thus only can they become themselves. Turn both from the contemplation of what is merely phenomenal in your existence, to your permanent life as souls. Man, do not prescribe how the Divine shall display itself in Woman. Woman, do not expect to see all of God in Man. (4)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Here, she’s speaking as if a transcendent spirit looking at their gendered children. For Fuller, part of the usefulness of the Doctrine of the Soul is, in addition to making the “soul” less of a male privilege, its appeal to a higher authority than a clearly flawed man (and the women they create). By reversing the gender hierarchy in which men were usually the ones demanding, and women were forced to bargain from weakness and poverty (yes, actual economic poverty, in addition to emotional poverty), she also seems, to me, in terms of attachment theory, more clearly a securely-attached individual, exhibiting a “low level of personal distress and high levels of concern for others…. Securely attached adults believe that there are many potential partners that would be responsive to their needs, and if they come across an individual who is not meeting their needs, they will typically lose interest very quickly.” (Wikipedia)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 8pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Attachment theory also says a securely attached adult in a romantic relationship will exhibit “excellent conflict resolution, are mentally flexible, effective communicators, …comfortable with closeness without fearfulness of being enmeshed, quickly forgiving, believing they can positively impact their relationship, and caring for their partner how they want to be cared for.” Judging by Margaret Fuller’s essays these seem to be qualities she is deeply conversant with. Can we say the same of Emerson? Judging by his essay, we could say yes:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">By all the virtues they are united….Their once flaming regard is sobered by time in either breast, and losing in violence what it gains in extent, it becomes a thorough good understanding…..(that allows them to) </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">exchange the passion which once could not lose sight of its object, for a cheerful, disengaged furtherance, whether present or absent, of each other's designs.(18)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">It sounds like </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">both have gotten beyond both the clinginess that characterizes an anxious/preoccupied style, as well as the dismissive/avoidant type who will not comfort another in their feelings of insecurity when overcome by affections. But what to do when conflicts arise? Certainly you can’t talk about a long-term married love without mentioning that sometimes there can be arguments that may make you lose your cool, or as Antony scolds Cleopatra, “You’ll heat my blood!” when it’s possible that may be exactly what she’s trying to do (at least according the male author Shakespeare, whose Romeo Emerson quotes as the kind of youthful love he’s outgrown), conflicts that can become heated arguments if you’re not careful? Emerson seems to get into this in paragraph 17:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“The soul which is in the soul of each, craving a perfect beatitude, detects incongruities, defects and disproportion in the behavior of the other. Hence arise surprise, expostulation and pain. Yet that which drew them to each other was signs of loveliness, signs of virtue; and these virtues are there, however eclipsed. They appear and reappear and continue to attract; but the regard changes, quits the sign and attaches to the substance. This repairs the wounded affection.” (17)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">It’s not exactly clear to me what exactly he means by “sign” and “substance,” but since he later writes that the lovers “represent the world to each other,” is it possible the “sign” is the representative value they had for each other, while the substance is something more like “the real you” in a positive way? Is this practical advice for conflict resolution? I’m not exactly sure how Emerson’s words symbolize a process of mutually healing the wounded affection yet…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Earlier, in commenting on “novels of passion…told with any spark of truth and nature,” he writes: “What fastens attention, in the intercourse of life, like any passage betraying affection between two parties?...We see them exchange a glace, or betray a deep emotion, and we are no longer strangers.” (4) Perhaps, then, if we want to feel Emerson less as a didactic stranger, we have to dig deeper into passages that “betray” (his word) or express<i> his </i>emotions and affections. There can be an intense emotional drama underlying, or signified by three little words: <i>surprise, expostulation, pain.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Near the end of “Love,” Emerson also tries to minister or counsel feelings of over-dependency in the male (and perhaps female) psyche: “There are moments when the affections rule and absorb the man and make his happiness dependent on a person or persons. But in health the mind is presently seen again,--its overarching vault, bright with galaxies of immutable lights, and the <i>warm loves and fears</i> (emphasis added) that swept over us as clouds must lose their finite character and blend with God….we need not fear that we can lose anything by the progress of the soul” (19). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Losing myself in the accumulated effect of his rhetoric does excite me beyond mere critique, and I can see much inspiring and/or useful in Emerson’s sense of a higher love that may seem more like Agape than Eros, but I guess I crave something a little, er, warmer. Hell, even what Edith Wharton, in “The Dilettante,” calls “suspicious warmth” would be refreshing. but I must turn the question on myself and ask why do I cringe when I read lines like:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> “the one beautiful soul is only the door through which he enters the society of all true and pure souls.” (15)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“the lover ascends to the highest beauty, to the love of knowledge of Divinity by steps on the ladder of created souls” (15)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“In the procession of soul from inward outward, it enlarges its circles after” (16)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Ideology critics could call this “the imperialist soul” or “the soul of capital.” Meanwhile, Natalie Wynn, in her 2020 Cringe Culture podcast<a href="applewebdata://F05B1626-2CD1-4090-8787-3B82101D5645#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[7]</span></span></span></a> makes a distinction between the Contemptuous Cringe and the Compassionate Cringe, but though I very much appreciate, and somedays intensely feel, an injunction like Sufi mystic Rumi’s “You must marry your soul,” somehow Emerson’s rewrite of it as “the purification of the intellect and the heart is the <i>real </i>marriage” makes me cringe. Couldn’t we at least make it a threesome? The god of solitude as the marriage counselor, but also the goddess of the relationship as solitude counselor? I become curious about what his wife thought about that. A mere door? A stepping stone? It’s hard not to imagine a little dialogue: “Waldo, do you love me?” “Honey, you know I love everybody.” One may also wonder if Chris Nealon wonders if she told him he fucks like an intellectual, and that maybe that’s what started the argument/conflict that emotionally underlies this essay?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">None of this proves to me that we lose nothing by this process, nor that heaven is a place without warmth (maybe Emerson would have been happier as an asexual agape monk or if he had more of Emily Dickinson’s courage in the solitary life), but even if these rapturous transcendental claims seem excessive, they become more convincing to Zeitgeist word-me if I feel his raptures of the higher love which “knows not sex, not partiality” betraying (in a non-pejorative sense) a need to work out his own shame at overdependence on the need for approval, or at least not the disapproval, of one particular person, a way of dealing with (or trying to arm himself against) the fear of abandonment that can make it worse.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Yet, in his journals he rages against his intellectually unfulfilling bond with a clingy wife, in a “Mezentian” marriage he felt as a dead weight: “Most of the persons whom I see in my own house I see across a gulf, I cannot go to them nor they come to me. Marriage is not ideal but empirical. It is not the plan or prospect of the soul, this fast union of one to one; the soul is alone… It is itself the universe & must realize its progress in ten thousand beloved forms & not in one.” (Popova)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">This statement may confirm some of my skepticisms of the claims he makes in “Love.”<a href="applewebdata://F05B1626-2CD1-4090-8787-3B82101D5645#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[8]</span></span></span></a> It does not seem one spoken by what attachment theory calls the healthy well-adjusted “securely attached individual,” nor even the “anxious preoccupied individual,” but seems to have much more in common with the Dismissive-avoidant type of people who:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">desire a high level of independence, often appearing to avoid attachment altogether. They view themselves as self-sufficient, invulnerable to attachment feelings and not needing close relationships. They tend to suppress their feelings, dealing with conflict by distancing themselves from partners of whom they often have a poor opinion….They have a great amount of distrust in others but at the same time possess a positive model of self, they would prefer to invest in their own ego skills. Because of their distrust they cannot be convinced that other people have the ability to deliver emotional support. They try to create high levels of self-esteem by investing disproportionately in their abilities or accomplishments. These adults maintain their positive views of self, based on their personal achievements and competence rather than searching for and feeling acceptance from others. These adults will explicitly reject or minimize the importance of emotional attachment and passively avoid relationships when they feel as though they are becoming too close. They strive for self-reliance and independence… Dismissive avoidance can also be explained as the result of defensive deactivation of the attachment system to avoid potential rejection, or genuine disregard for interpersonal closeness (Wikipedia). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">It's probably not fair to “shrink” Emerson thus, and whether he’s genuinely disregarding interpersonal closeness or defensively activating the attachment system will probably always be a mystery to us (and to him for that matter), but if we’re looking for an emotional crisis underlying or occasioning the writing of the essay, we can return to the bitter medicine of instruction he spoke of in universalizing terms earlier: “</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Let any man go back to those delicious relations which make the beauty of his life, which have given him sincerest instruction and nourishment, he will shrink and moan.” Interestingly, he uses the word “shrink,” more personally a little later: “I have been told that in some public discourses of mine my reverence for the intellect has made me unjustly cold to the personal relations. But now I almost shrink at the remembrance of such disparaging words.” (5) </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">When I first read that quote, I assumed his implied interlocuters were younger, more sensual (and less soulful) men, yet is it possible he was actually told this by a woman? And what difference does it make? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> +++<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Not only were Emerson and Fuller contemporaries, but respected colleagues who inspired each other in their writing and thought (though Emerson never did come through on his promise to pay her for her work as editor of <i>The Dial</i> and, after her death, published, but <i>redacted</i> passages from, her work). Fuller, 7 years younger than Emerson, wrote that she “first learned what is meant by an inward life” from him, and Richardson (1995) remarked that “Fuller took less from Emerson than either Thoreau or Whitman, and she probably gave him more than either of them.” She pushed him towards an “idealism that is concerned with ideas only as they can be lived […], with the spiritual only when it animates the material.”<a href="applewebdata://F05B1626-2CD1-4090-8787-3B82101D5645#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[9]</span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Yet their relationship goes clearly beyond ideas. When she died, he wrote “I have lost in her my audience… (Fuller) bound in the belt of her sympathy and friendship all whom I know and love…. Her heart, which few knew, was as great as her mind, which all knew.” Looking at his journals, it’s hard to resist a feeling that it was Margaret Fuller who, more than anybody, gave Emerson that “sincerest instruction” that made him “shrink and moan.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In his journal he writes: “</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I would that I could, I know afar off that I cannot, give the lights and shades, the hopes and outlooks that come to me in these strange, cold-warm, attractive-repelling conversations with Margaret, whom I always admire, most revere when I nearest see, and sometimes love, — yet whom I freeze, and who freezes me to silence, when we seem to promise to come nearest.” (Popova)<a href="applewebdata://F05B1626-2CD1-4090-8787-3B82101D5645#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt;">[10]</span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In a letter to her he writes: “But tell me that I am cold or unkind, and in my most flowing state I become a cake of ice. I feel the crystals shoot & drops solidify. It may do for others but it is not for me to bring the relation to speech… Ask me what I think of you & me, — & I am put to confusion.” (Popova)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">According to Emerson, when she calls him cold it makes him colder. When he expressed his desire for a “foe” in his friend, for a large and formidable nature” and expressed his love for her (in rather stiff, formal, muse terms: “O divine mermaid or fisher of men, to whom all gods have given the witch-hazel-wand… I am yours & yours shall be”), Fuller wrote back expressing that she felt “so at home with him” that she couldn’t imagine finding another love as quenching: “I know not how again to wonder and grope, seeking my place in another Soul.” Such beautiful expression of vulnerability is not, however spoken from a “position of weakness and poverty” (as she put it in <i>Women </i>in the 19<sup>th</sup> Century), but she also demands change from Waldo: “the sense of the infinite exhausts and exalts; it cannot therefore possess me wholly.” (Popova)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">More than anyone, she was Emerson’s “Beautiful foe,” but he responded to this with a cold letter in which he tries to reduce the connection they have to that of “brothers” (though he may have felt he was elevating it, or saving her from her pesky “affections”). Here, Emerson sounds very much like Thursdale in Edith Wharton’s later, “The Dilettante,” or Rendell (and by implication, Danyers) in “The Muse’s Tragedy” (1899)<a href="applewebdata://F05B1626-2CD1-4090-8787-3B82101D5645#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt;">[11]</span></span></span></a> who needs to make a clear rigid connection between intellectual soul connection with a “brother” (though not in a Whitmanian way), and his wife, with whom he had an intellectually unfulfilling bond. Perhaps the disconnect between Emerson and Fuller just comes down to different strategies of coping with painful emotional needs. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In relations, some people can soothe and be soothed better by transforming emotions with emotions (or as friend once put it, “You can’t change the feeling, but you can change the feeling about the feeling”), but others need to self-medicate more in solitude, need the emotion called intellect to do this. In this, perhaps Emerson’s essay, “Love,” did for him what he hoped it would do—transform the pain and shame he felt at the beginning of the essay into a calmer (which for Emerson often means enraptured) response, but I find myself shrinking and moaning at the reflection of myself, or my past love relationships, in Emerson here.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Since Emerson’s second wife, Lydia, was clearly jealous of the connection he had with Fuller, it would be unfair to judge Emerson too harshly for running away from the mutual attraction, </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">but, still, reading how their correspondence “betrays” their affection “fastens my attention” more than Emerson’s essay would have by itself. I cannot help but feel that kind of tragic “if only” if judged by Fuller’s ideal that “combines friendship and love,” or say the intellect and the emotions rather than just a logos in service of a pathos-less ethos, and Emerson’s apparent need to separate them with what Chris Nealon might call “the troubadour amour of…eyes on the horizon.” (<i>The </i>Shore 20,, or a “mental recapitulation of the sensuous world like…”an ice hand that could freeze the top of every branch.” (ibid, 14).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Fuller did find a soul mate better suited to her, one who shared more a passion for social justice than Emerson for whom it, like domestic love, was secondary, and maybe this episode did in a long-term way bring him closer to his wife(he was, after all, only in his late 30s when this episode happened). In “Love,” Emerson writes “</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Meantime, as life wears on, it proves a game of permutation and combination of all possible positions of the parties, to employ all the resources of each and acquaint each with the strength and weakness of the other” (17). Maybe these permutations do not have to be seen in stern prescriptive terms of strengths and weaknesses, but rather as the dance of attraction and repulsion, the see saw oscillations of dependence and avoidance (oops, I mean “Self-reliance”) that perhaps can never be “solved once and for all” in any relationship between any two people with moods and needs. </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Despite the biographers, who really knows the complexities of his married relationship, which lasted for decades after Fuller’s tragic early death?</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">For me, however, I feel more <i>soul</i> and more <i>love</i> in both Fuller’s writing, and in Chris Nealon’s <i>The Shore</i> than in Emerson, and though I, too, have only “awkward ways of writing biographically” (Nealon, 78) I, too, especially after getting tangled up in Emerson’s knots, and “alpine terms for matters subterranean” (ibid, 22) aspire to a more graceful carriage and, though asexual cis-het male I be, “want my sexuality to be courage: (78)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">courage like cool water. (20)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">& I feel Dickinson’s “Tooth/That nibbles at the soul—<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><div><br clear="all" /><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div id="ftn1"><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="applewebdata://F05B1626-2CD1-4090-8787-3B82101D5645#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> In case this is confusing, this particular phrase is me writing about Nealon writing about Oppen<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id="ftn2"><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="applewebdata://F05B1626-2CD1-4090-8787-3B82101D5645#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[2]</span></span></span></a> The citations are used in discussing Emerson’s essay are paragraph numbers, not page numbers, since the former is not standardized in the on-line era<o:p></o:p></p></div><div id="ftn3"><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="applewebdata://F05B1626-2CD1-4090-8787-3B82101D5645#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[3]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Harriet Jacob’s (AKA “Linda Brent”) “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,” is perhaps the best description of the horrors of being a woman in the 19<sup>th</sup> Century, both the black slave woman but also the oppressive white slave-mistress to whom Jacobs’ wide empathy even extends, even though both inflicted their dehumanizing cruelty on men and women slaves.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id="ftn4"><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="applewebdata://F05B1626-2CD1-4090-8787-3B82101D5645#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[4]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> On the “essentialism” debate, see Jamie S. Crouse’s assertion, “The transcendentalists, despite radical theological revisions, were surprisingly traditional in their acceptance of essential gender differences of women, even their supposedly superior moral nature” (262). Crouse, Jamie S. “‘If They Have a Moral Power’: Margaret Fuller, Transcendentalism, and the Question of Women’s Moral Nature.” <i>ATQ</i>, vol. 19, no. 4, Dec. 2005, pp. 259–279. <i>EBSCOhost</i>, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=19244176&site=ehost-live.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">For a different perspective, see Christina Zwarg: “Fuller's work consistently adopted a double strategy...The individual, and with it the notion of the identity of each person, proved a useful political subvention of her concern for women and their development. Fuller was willing to take the "risk of essentialism" if it protected women from cultural oblivion. Yet...Fuller lost little time in observing to Emerson...how problematic ‘self-reliance’ could be when gender was brought to bear upon the concept” Zwarg, Christina. "Womanizing Margaret Fuller: Theorizing a Lover's Discourse." <i>Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism</i>, edited by Kathy D. Darrow, vol. 211, Gale, 2009. <i>Gale Literature Resource Center</i>, link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1420090756/LitRC?u=oakl75399&sid=LitRC&xid=01b8045d. Accessed 6 Apr. 2021. Originally published in <i>Cultural Critique</i>, no. 16, Fall 1990, pp. 161-191. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div id="ftn5"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="applewebdata://F05B1626-2CD1-4090-8787-3B82101D5645#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[5]</span></span></span></a> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In her critique of men’s jealousy, possessiveness and control freak tendencies in what today we’d call a “dysfunctional relationship,” this last sentence, “Children of one Father,” may be jarring to 21<sup>st</sup> century secularist ears, but it could be similar to EMT’s sense that “the problem is not viewed as belonging to one partner, but rather to the cyclical reinforcing patters of (negative) interactions between partners” which therapy helps the couple become mutual allies against without blaming each other.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p></div><div id="ftn6"><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="applewebdata://F05B1626-2CD1-4090-8787-3B82101D5645#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[6]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Is it an accident that many of its founding therapist/theorists and practitioners are women?</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id="ftn7"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="applewebdata://F05B1626-2CD1-4090-8787-3B82101D5645#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[7]</span></span></span></a> <a href="https://youtu.be/vRBsaJPkt2Q" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;">https://youtu.be/vRBsaJPkt2Q</span></a><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div id="ftn8"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="applewebdata://F05B1626-2CD1-4090-8787-3B82101D5645#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[8]</span></span></span></a> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">It raises a question of comparing a private journal entry (the domestic sphere of feeling?) with a public discourse (the sphere of thought?). Is it fair to subject a writer to such prurient interests 150 years after their death? Does the private angry rant trump the more detached public attempt at transcendence? Is it fair to put Waldo on the psychoanalyst’s couch as if that’s the best way to humanize the interior life to a 21<sup>st</sup> century reader who doesn’t necessarily believe the doctrine of the immortal soul can help us lead a wiser, wider, more virtuous life? Would it make a difference if the journal was written before or after he put the finishing touches on “Love?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div id="ftn9"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="applewebdata://F05B1626-2CD1-4090-8787-3B82101D5645#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[9]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><a href="http://www.historyisnowmagazine.com/blog/2015/9/12/when-a-poet-tragically-dies-the-story-of-margaret-fuller-and-ralph-waldo-emerson#.YFwqCC-z10s" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">http://www.historyisnowmagazine.com/blog/2015/9/12/when-a-poet-tragically-dies-the-story-of-margaret-fuller-and-ralph-waldo-emerson#.YFwqCC-z10s</span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p></div><div id="ftn10"><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="applewebdata://F05B1626-2CD1-4090-8787-3B82101D5645#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[10]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2019/06/05/ralph-waldo-emerson-margaret-fuller-letters-figuring/" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">https://www.brainpickings.org/2019/06/05/ralph-waldo-emerson-margaret-fuller-letters-figuring/</span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p></div><div id="ftn11"><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="applewebdata://F05B1626-2CD1-4090-8787-3B82101D5645#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[11]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> One need not assert that Wharton based these characters on Emerson in particular, to “shrink” these individual men into a “type” that she too had her heart broken by.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div>Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-69647341570479847962022-04-27T20:47:00.001-07:002022-04-27T20:47:08.056-07:00A Humorless Partial Take on Kevin Hart "My Mom Let Me Cuss" (for Judy Juanita)<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Some say satire (and comedy in general) sucks us in with the sugar of humor, but then, often, hits us with the bitter medicine of a serious issue. The more I look at, read other people’s interpretations of, and think about, Kevin Hart’s routine known as “My Mom Let Me Cuss,” the more complex it becomes, rendering the theme promoted in its title to the margins compared to the human drama that is occurring here; it’s not just about his mom giving him permission to cuss. In analyzing it a little deeper, however, I am aware that I could be stripping it, robbing it, of the very humor that captured my interest in the first place.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In this first-person short story, or piece of flash (non)-fiction, there are 3 main characters---Kevin, the teacher, and his mother; we could add a 4</span><sup style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">choral figure (his fellow classmates). Which of these characters, if any, is the most sympathetic? Kevin starts by establishing his gadfly ethos. We see him acting up at home. We also see his mother’s ethos, as she punishes him for it. He also establishes his ethos outside the home as “class clown” in school, beloved by his fellow students for his charisma and wit, and perhaps an iconoclast who is skeptical of authority in general, or at least of this particular teacher.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">From the teacher’s perspective, his actions are clearly disrespectful, “acting up in class.” We don’t know if the cause of this acting up dates back to the first day of school with this particular teacher; because he acts up at home too, one could assume that Kevin came into his relationship with this teacher with that attitude fully entrenched as a character trait. So it’s possible he was a difficult student from jump, and one can understand why the teacher would want to blame his mother for not successfully beating it out of him. But it’s also possible that the teacher lacked the ability to reach her students, or that her curriculum was full of lies that students are justified in being skeptical about (“Columbus discovered America; Lincoln freed the slaves,” etc), which, contextualized, could help justify Kevin’s actions more.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In a sense both the mother and teacher agree that young Kevin is a trouble maker, yet the teacher seems to make assumptions about the mother based on Kevin’s behavior (or perhaps the color of his skin), and this sows further division and discord. When the teacher uses Kevin’s body to send a message to the mother, is this a justifiable action, both in content (the message itself), and form (the particular method she uses to do this)? In the process, she makes Kevin an unwitting pawn in a battle between teacher and mother, as they both end up blaming each other for his lack of discipline. His mother’s response-in-kind, as it were, not only uses Kevin’s body as a middle man, or pawn in this power struggle, but also his mind and his mouth. We may wonder about her motivation in doing this<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">We may also wonder about the teacher’s lack of courage, or helpless desperation in her inability to discipline Kevin, that leads her to go over his head as it were and confront the mother; you could also say that her very gesture of stapled note reveals both a fear of Kevin and of his mother. In this context, the mother’s response to the teacher can be seen as a sign of solidarity with her son—“I may be harsh on you at home, but I got your back and will defend you in school (as long as you keep your grades up).”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Even if that is one of her motivations for letting him cuss the teacher out (knowing how he loves to cuss), she nonetheless puts Kevin is a very difficult position. As I watch him pacing around his room, trying to rehearse for his big performance in school, aware that he’s playing to 3 different audiences—1) the teacher; 2) his cheering fans, his fellow students; and 3), implicitly, his mother, I feel great sympathy and empathy for young Kevin. He’s put into a difficult situation in between these two matriarchal authorities from above, in addition to his own peer group. It’s a lot to navigate, and difficult to digest how to handle it in one night, as he comically searches for the right tone (the tone in which cuss words are spoken matters as much as the word---take, for instance, the difference between “<i>fuck</i> you” and “fuck <i>you”</i>—the first sounds more dismissive and angry, while the second sounds more hurt and vulnerable, at least to my ears)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">As he meets his friends the next morning, it’s clear he still is uncertain about how he’s going to deliver this message: “I got stuff on my mind.” No, that seems cold and unsocial. Uncertainty meets confidence. Okay, try braggadocio. “It’s going to go down.” Wing it, improvise. Chris Rock says Comedy is, in contrast to recorded music, an art you have to practice in public in front of a live audience. Learn by doing, in a cathartic burst of reckless abandon, or defiant performance relishing the pleasure of uttering forbidden words (that probably wouldn’t be so intrinsically fun if they weren’t forbidden) in so-called civil society: air out the tension (like Martin Luther King’s “boil”) screw <i>code switching! </i>Screw double consciousness. Learn by the big fat mistake. Oops, 76 cuss words! Teacher’s obviously displeased, so is his mother. Again, the two authority figures agree about this more than disagree. Is Kevin doing them a service by bringing them together, against a common target: him!) But, guess what, his fellow students are pleased! <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">What happens next? Will the teacher and the mother confront each other directly and not use him as a pawn? Does it matter? It’s just a bit. Kevin is more permissive to his own daughter than his mother was to him about cussing. If his mother had let him cuss more at home, maybe he wouldn’t have to cuss in class? I am curious if the movement to legitimize ebonics, or what is called black vernacular, makes more allowances for the legitimacy of cuss words as a useful tool in conversational discourse among most races. But it’s still not clear to me if Kevin’s piece is primarily satirizing the teacher, the mother, or his own youthful self, or perhaps all three.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">9-16-21<o:p></o:p></span></p>Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-83476961987703478192022-04-15T12:19:00.003-07:002022-04-27T20:45:11.346-07:00 Emily Dickinson, "I Felt a Funeral in my Brain" & "After Great Pain"<p> <b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">One of My (or Several of Our) Emily Dickinsons</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Both Margaret Fuller and Ralph Waldo Emerson published poetry in addition to their prose. In the case of both writers, readers not only generally preferred their prose, but also considered it more <i>poetic</i> than their poetry. In <i>Women in the 19<sup>th</sup>Century, </i>Fuller expresses some exasperation in feeling forced to speak in what 20<sup>th</sup> century feminists have called the “alienated discourse” in order to have a chance at being taken seriously by the dominant men of the monoculture of the time: “it seems as if Heaven, having so long issued its edict in poetry and religion without securing intelligent obedience, now commanded the world in prose to take a high and rational view.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Two decades after Fuller wrote this, Emily Dickinson, wrote poems 466 (whose first two lines are: “I dwell in possibility--/A fairer House than Prose—“) and 445 (“They shut me up in Prose—”). It sounds like people are asking her to explain herself in that “high and rational view” and she’s not going to have it! Whether she’s lamenting the pain the prose mandate has caused her, or defiantly celebrating the freedom of escape from it, she invites us to see the limits of “prose” as a social institution of communication, whether with other people or the divine, in ways that have analogies with the contrasts she makes between herself (‘the term between”) and the social norms of pubs (“I taste a liquor never brewed-” )<i> </i>or churches (“Some keep the Sabbath going to Church--”).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Although there may be elements of what’s called “transcendentalism” in her work, part of what draws me, and many other 21<sup>st</sup> century readers to it, is that, in contrast, to Walt Whitman, whose <i>Leaves of Grass,</i> was published not long before she wrote, she celebrates the conservative (in the sense of conservation) tendency (the yin) that tends to get drowned out in Whitman’s celebrations of the “procreative urge…always sex” etc. She makes more room for pain! Brenda Hillman calls her “our first molecular biologist of pain.”<a href="applewebdata://568ACD94-29AD-4040-A3F4-56829B395898#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><sup><sup><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[1]</span></sup></sup></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">As one of millions of Americans diagnosed with some form of psychological ‘abnormality” or “neurodivergence” (depression, PTSD, et al), sometimes I wonder if I’d be able to navigate such intense mood swings better if I didn’t necessarily consider them a deficit, or especially pathological (or even to avoid personal responsibility by emphasizing environmental factors). While “Song of Myself,” tries to speak most deeply from the perspective of a “me, myself” more real than “The sickness of one of my folks, or of myself, or ill-doing,… or depressions or exaltations;” Dickinson more imminently works <i>through</i> them, with an understanding that there is no human essence in this world without emotions. In contrast to Emerson, who I find myself wanting to psychoanalyze when reading, I often find Dickinson helpful in psychoanalyzing me in ways that seem to be therapeutic (in part because they can’t be <i>reduced</i> to ‘mere therapy’).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And Mourners to and fro<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Kept treading - treading - till it seemed<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">That Sense was breaking through -<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And when they all were seated,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">A Service, like a Drum -<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Kept beating - beating - till I thought<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">My mind was going numb -<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And then I heard them lift a Box<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And creak across my Soul<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">With those same Boots of Lead, again,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Then Space - began to toll,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">As all the Heavens were a Bell,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And Being, but an Ear,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And I, and Silence, some strange Race,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Wrecked, solitary, here -<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And then a Plank in Reason, broke,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And I dropped down, and down -<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And hit a World, at every plunge,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And Finished knowing - then – <b>(340)<o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">This poem has been helpful for me at an actual funeral, or at the every-day funerals we may feel or find ourselves in (whether mourning someone else, something in ourselves, what we call ourselves, being mourned by someone else, or even by yourself). While Dickinson often uses a more generalized, decontextualized, (deceptively) detached voice in her poems (for instance, “This World Is Not Conclusion”), this poem is a first--person narrative, set in the past, or rather several pasts, and traces a trajectory between speaker and othered “brain” (which isn’t necessarily all in one’s head unless the brain is wider than the sky). This raises questions of “who or what is speaking?” Who or what are the mourners?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> “In Poetry for students, Paul Pinero argues, “The two most popular interpretations of the poem are: it is a poem about the transition from life to death; and it is a poem about the loss of reason, a slipping into a senseless void of insanity.” In one reading, the speaker is a corpse-soul who has outlived her own death (or perhaps visualizing it), and in the other reading, the real situation is “all in the brain” and thus the mourners are the internalized phenomena in a psychological mapping much more dynamic than a post-Freudian diagnostic model. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I believe that both readings are plausible, and maybe not even incompatible, as if part of the point of the metaphoric thinking/feeling enacted here is to bridge these two realms, the so-called literal and the so-called figurative, experience and emotion, sense and reason, invisible and visible, outside and inside--opening up, at the so-called end, to a wider space “between” that can also be “around.” The speaker is clearly suffering due to this funereal feeling, and frankly, when some psychologists diagnose me with anxiety or depression or PSTD (et al.), I want to cry out, “I think Emily Dickinson diagnosed it better: I’m feeling a <i>funeral in my brain</i>! And since her diagnoses resonate with me more, perhaps she suggests a form of treatment…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Lynn Ma points out that there can be many other interpretations than Pinero’s reductive binary. Rather than uncritically accepting the negative connotations of ‘senseless void of insanity” Pinero confers upon the poem, Ma points out that this ‘mental breakdown’ can also, or even <i>really, </i>be “a liberation from the structure of reason…the salvation and relief from one’s reasoning after thinking too much.” Right now, I couldn’t agree with Ma more. After all, often, for Dickinson, “Much Madness is divinest Sense.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And Mourners to and fro<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Kept treading - treading - till it seemed<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">That Sense was breaking through -<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Ma points out that Dickinson’s use of literary devices “work to emphasize her strong emotional feelings,” and claims “the dashes in this poem are stronger than the commas.” This treading feels violent and painful. Since “a funeral is more a formal affair with an order, and it is more evocative of sensible reason than wild irrationality,” as Leo Labadie, quoting Aleksandra Fortuna-Niec, puts it, one may wonder why this has such a turbulent impact on the speaker-soul: certainly that couldn’t be the intention of the funeral ceremony, but what does the last line of this stanza mean?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Would the seeming breaking through of sense be a good feeling or a bad feeling? Since the word “Sense” can be read in so many senses, it’s hard to read the connotations here. It feels more alive, and less harsh, compared to the treading. Labadie ruminates on the suggestiveness of “breaking through:” “The breaking of sense here could mean common sense and sanity are breaking through. It could also suggest we are making progress (&) coming into view or a collapse and fall through a certain thing, for example, the floorboards.” Perhaps on rereading, this last of the first stanza foreshadows the more dramatic final stanza, and, in this sense, it builds suspense. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And when they all were seated,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">A Service, like a Drum -<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Kept beating - beating - till I thought<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">My mind was going numb –<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The second stanza seems largely apposite to the first stanza in both feeling, theme, and poetic structure—though a tone of rising action amplifies this: as treading becomes beating. Though she’s using the term to refer to music, it feels more violent, less like <i>beating hearts</i> and more like <i>pounding </i>thoughts (high-blood pressure?) as the Mourners now become de-personified into a Service, the formal ceremony with its feelings of cold-duty rather than, say, the festivity of a New Orleans brass band playing “When The Saints Go Marching In.” Is it really doing a “service” to this “corpse-soul” speaker to mourn her thus? This “service” too may recall the sermon that goes on far too long that happens in the indoor churches she abjures in “Some keep the Sabbath” for an outdoor direct connection with divinity.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The parallels of these stanzas are also felt in the contrast between the two phrases (lines) that conclude these stanzas. The first (“Sense was breaking through—”) is more a physical reaction to this funeral, while the second (“My Mind was going numb—") is more a mental, abstract reaction, as if the mind is the opposite of sense. There’s also a contrast between walking and sitting. At least when these mourners were treading there seemed the possibility of breaking through to sense (or call it the part of the body that isn’t the brain), but now that they’re sitting, their brains are more violent, as if the change in position is responsible for this---the hunched, scrunched body of sitting. In the song, “Stand!” Sly Stone sings: “you’ve been sitting for far too long/ there’s a permanent crease in your right and wrong.” And it feels something like that is happening to these mourners. Also, since the word “knowing” becomes so important in the poem’s final line, we may note that neither the seeming of the first stanza nor the thinking of the second stanza denote any form of “knowing” or certainty here…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And then I heard them lift a Box<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And creak across my Soul<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">With those same Boots of Lead, again,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Then Space - began to toll,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">As all the Heavens were a Bell,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And Being, but an Ear,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And I, and Silence, some strange Race,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Wrecked, solitary, here -<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">It is probably these stanzas that lend the most credence to the emphasis of the funeral vehicle over the suffering tenor (if we take the relationship between tenor and vehicle bi-directionally). The violence of the “they” is emphasized. The abrupt tolling here (as if the tolling of the bell at a funeral is the same as paying the toll to the ferryman at death?) leads to a more detailed (or even surreal)<a href="applewebdata://568ACD94-29AD-4040-A3F4-56829B395898#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><sup><sup><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[2]</span></sup></sup></a> description of how the speaker feels. Her use of the simile “As” as the transition between stanzas is agonizing. My Mom had an epiphany before her death that she wasn’t afraid of death as much as <i>panicking before death</i>, and this moment of intense trauma, this alienation from this funeral ritual, feels like a panic attack to me; the only sense the speaker feels is the passive receptive ear at the mercy of all this noise. Some pathologize it as “hearing voices.” <i>Ah, these mourners! They think they’re speaking for me, ceremoniously honoring me, with their repressed sarcophagus nerves, crowding me out! </i>If that’s what Heaven is, do I really want to be there?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">This horror of absolute contextless of this “race” (which reminds me of “A Species stands apart” in “This World is Not Conclusion”) could be a personification of how an immortal soul must feel being confined by the funeral ritual, which now is implied as quite literally <i>soulless</i>. But the “As” also suggests perhaps a little room for silent space to push against the tolling Bell space, and leaves a little mystery, or call it possibility that, maybe I’m not really “wrecked, solitary, here.” And by associating herself with “Silence,” by identifying with it, and calling it a Race, she’s also making it clear that <i>this isn’t just about </i>me. I may feel alone in this funeral moment, but I am not alone in feeling alone. And although “Being” is “but an Ear,” this could be sense breaking through and getting us out of the brain of mere formal, funereal thinking and seeming which certainly was not a very or peaceful or loving way to die, or live amongst mourners.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Ma writes that up until this point, “all senses were happening in her brain, and that is only part of her body.” The “I” however is outside the brain and feeling its effect. The last stanza, in contrast with the previous, lends more credence to the emphasis on the emotional tenor over the funereal vehicle. Here, for the first time we get the first mention of a word that I’m tempted to call the key to the poem, “Reason”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And then a Plank in Reason, broke,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And I dropped down, and down -<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And hit a World, at every plunge,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And Finished knowing - then –<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">One critic reads this poem through a Platonic lens, claiming that Dickinson, like Plato, concludes that “human perception cannot derive knowledge, and real knowledge comes from philosophical reason,” but for Dickinson such reasoning can’t bring true knowledge either, or perhaps she’s actually inverting Plato, insofar as the perceiving sense of touch is felt (the double meaning of the word “feeling”) in this last stanza, a more embodied form of feeling you don’t have to call knowing…(“Besides Plato would’ve banished Dickinson from her Republic, and surely, in her soul’s process of selecting her own society, Dickinson would have been more than happy to shut the door on dear old Plato).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The “Plank in Reason” implies that reason is a room (just like Caedmon’s Hymn celebrated heaven as a roof) and that this<i></i>funeral, which the poem otherwise leaves contextless, was <i>indoors</i> and, therefore in walls. The first 4 stanzas weren’t just set in one’s brain, but specifically in “reason,” the rational faculty, which has shown itself to be violent in its coldness. The word “Reason” now retroactively refers to what caused the suffering and alienation earlier in the poem; the funeral was <i>the regime of reason </i>(whether felt in an individual mind, or in a culture) under which feeling is alienated. In this context, this break could be felt as a “descent” (or more sensuously “plunge”) into the senses, the senses that are finally breaking through, into the parts of the body that are not the brain. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Leo Labadie writes, “helped by silence and solitude, a plank in the speaker’s reason broke.” Though such “liberation” is not without pain, and may be called sublime in a mixture of pleasure and terror, there is the sense that yielding to this out-of-control free-fall of pain is, at the very least, not as bad as the funeral. This corpse soul is more alive than the funeral that was trying to kill the dead. Death is a liberation from a funeral that what we call life, too often, is. Ma writes, “If there is death in life then there is life in death. I think that’s why she talks about death in the past tense.” Ma’s statement gets to a conundrum at the heart of language as a meaning-making function, by questioning the singularity of death, and perhaps influences Sylvia Plath’s ability to say that she, too, died many times. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Are we being unfair to death, to reduce it to a singular moment, at the end? And what does that do to what we call life? Is it really just “poetic license” or a pathetic fallacy when people speak casually of the deaths in daily life. We could call them ‘little deaths’ in comparison to “the big one,” but there could be a sense a prophetic futurity here based on the deepest possible experience of <i>pain</i> in the present, as if we have to pass through <i>intense</i> pain to become liberated from that which caused it, that which was allegedly designed to help “ease” us into, whether that be a social funeral, or a private funeral for “knowing” and “reason.” Sometimes being “driven out of your mind” is a good thing! This stanza feels so much more the liberation of which Ma writes than the “senseless void of insanity” of which Pinero writes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Just because these “mourners” are in your brain, however, doesn’t mean they aren’t empirically there socially too. This could be compared to “judgment day” poems, but not the Judgment from G-d as much as but human, all too human (or rational, all too rational) mourners (if anything, a believer could read G-d <i>as the speaker</i>). I am reminded of Nicanor Parra’s later “<i>funerales no, muerte si.”</i> On one level, you could say Dickinson is making a didactic argument that we, as a society, need to change our funeral rituals that disrespect the dead or potentially any social ritual. After being subjected to a sense of the sick gossipy small-town social milieu that Dickinson had to deal with, as seen in the movie, <i>Wild Nights with Emily Dickinson (2018), </i>it’s hard not imagine that Dickinson’s own funeral was attended by some cold mourners such as those portrayed in the “brain” of this poem, trying to act formally and hold in their unspoken unhappy gnawing resentments, like the mourners in “The last Night that She lived-“ who both blame and are jealous of the recently deceased.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">At the end, not only does reason disappear, but so do the mourners. Does the word “hit” in “And hit a World, at every plunge,” suggest a violence? It could sound painful, like trying to punch a rock will inevitably hurt you more than you hurt it. But I don’t feel it violently, because of association with “plunge” which feels, to me at least, more fun like a water slide or amusement park ride where the floor drops out. When a dearly beloved friend of mine who touched many people’s hearts and souls died recently, so many different people felt him as presence from beyond the grave, and I wondered if that means he too is finding, or embracing, and loving, “a world at every plunge” and it certainly seems to me preferable to the ready-made static images of heaven and hell.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Yet I do not want to discount a violent reading either in this catharsis of the last stanza. Throughout the poem the “I” had been a victim of <i>their</i> assault, but here she could be seen as actively gaining a form of agency by hitting back, or you could call it somatically shaking out all the negative energy she had been forced to <i>consume</i>, to passively be subjected to, object of, in the Service of Reason. Dickinson does not shy away from sometimes expressing herself assertively using the language of violence (dancing like “a little Bomb,” for instancing, or the thrill of getting to shoot on behalf of a “Master”). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And although prose says Dickinson died and was as subject to editors and critics and mythmakers (those vultures who erased her relationship with Susan, for instance! <i>treading, treading, beating—beating…</i>) as much as Jesus was (insert red angry face emoticon here), it feels (over 130 years later) that her soul, like sense in this poem, has been, for many worlds (I mean people), been able to <i>break</i> <i>though…</i>to undo paranoia, rid us of over-attachment to the superficial social (sometimes social media feels like a funeral in my brain!) and reason’s fear of dying. In this light, perhaps the poem could just as easily be called<i> “I escaped a funeral in my brain!” </i>Whose funeral? “They thought it was mine, but it was really reason’s and knowing’s and mourning’s….<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“Finished knowing,” however, is no more of a conclusion than the phrase, “finished finishing” would be. Dickinson’s unfinishing finish emphasizes feeling, even if it’s ‘merely’ seeming without having to confer upon it the honorific title, “knowing.” The dashes around “—then—” can be hesitant pauses, and/or represent acts of unknowing. Because there are no recordings of Dickinson reading aloud, I can’t pinpoint the tone of the word “then.” Ma reads it as if she’s saying “to be continued…” I too definitely feel the “then” as purposely period-less, to create suspense, as if to say, “and then…you’ll never guess what?” Thus any sense of conclusion, especially one a funeral may presume to give, refuses to click shut like that box they lift.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I’m reminded of the argument about song lyrics not being “real poetry” because they can lean on the extra-linguistic crutches of the sensuousness of music unavailable to poetry, so that, once heard, you can’t really sufficiently separate the meanings from the experience. Yet one of the reason Dickinson’s so musical (aside from use of ballad stanzas) is sometimes these dashes dance with the meanings of the words, as the musical instruments (including even the sound of the voice) dance with the meanings, in heaves or breaths, like inhaling and exhaling. It’s almost like “music” and “silence” are uniting against meaning (to enhance it) here. If you’re into winning arguments, you can say silence does get the last wordless word! But then, a blank, a dash (like the dashes---between—the—sound of—a Fly”—oops, wrong poem…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Recently, Jorie Graham said that Dickinson’s dashes are like the other speech greater than hers, the tongue of the interrupter to whom she must give way over and over, but the interrupter who will not itself speak.”<a href="applewebdata://568ACD94-29AD-4040-A3F4-56829B395898#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><sup><sup><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[3]</span></sup></sup></a><b> </b>These “diacritical marks<a href="applewebdata://568ACD94-29AD-4040-A3F4-56829B395898#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><sup><sup><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[4]</span></sup></sup></a>” could also be taken as a kind of meditative stillness that can be reached when words tire themselves out into a state of mystical inexpressible connection, but since it’s certainly no once and for all “happy ending,” there’s this more ominous suggestion that we may very well be feeling this funeral again. This final “dash” could also be a <i>Da Capo</i> movement:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And Finished knowing - then –<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">This process, if not conclusion, may very well repeat itself, not necessarily as a Sisyphusian eternal recurrence, with no space in between (the dash could be a very long interval, and could last longer than the poem itself), but more like having to take a daily walk (if that doesn’t sound too ableist). This poem could also be read on a meta-level as about the reading (and listening) and writing process, and the funeral representing an alienating rational book that scorns emotions and feelings, a paralyzing primer that shuts you up in rational conundrums, so much you have to put the damn thing down and let all the word energies it pent up in you free, in this sense the speaker could be the soul of possibility freeing herself from being shut up in prose, especially the kind these cis-het white men were writing, and demanding she conform to. For some people the feeling that there can be “no easy once and for closure” can also be better than the alienating demand for it. Then we, as the Iris Dement song put it, can let the mystery be….<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> +++<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Many readers and critics have shown similarities between “After great pain, a formal feeling comes – (372)”<b> </b>and “I Felt a Funeral.” Beyond the similar alliterative “f” in the first line, the nerves sitting ceremoniously, like Tombs, could echo the sitting mourners at the Service, and the “Hour of Lead” could remind one of the “Boots of Lead.” Just as the funeral was associated with reason in the earlier poem, here the formal feeling is associated with “Ought---,” how we should feel, rather than how we do feel. Finally, the hitting “a World at every plunge,” could flesh out, more dramatically and viscerally, the “letting go—” with which this poem ends.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">But the differences between them are at least as significant. While “Funeral” was a more expansive first-person lyric narrative (or narrative lyric) clearly speaking from a feeling of <i>great pain</i>, “Formal Feeling” is spoken in a detached generalizing tone not only removed from pain, but from feeling itself, with no “I” to feel it (and not even a mention of “persons” until the penultimate line), as if <i>from</i> the formal feeling. We also witness much more lyric compression; insofar as there’s drama in this poem, it’s often between words, but that drama can open up too (especially for a poet who can find worlds in the grains of sand at every plunge, or who occupies herself “spreading wide my narrow Hands/To gather Paradise--” as “I dwell in Possibility – (466)” puts it):<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> After great pain, a formal feeling comes –<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The Feet, mechanical, go round –<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">A Wooden way<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Regardless grown,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">A Quartz contentment, like a stone –<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">This is the Hour of Lead –<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Remembered, if outlived,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">++++++++<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">A formal feeling comes. It is apparently not something we choose or will. Does this formal feeling, then, come to rescue or recuse us from the pain, like a calm after a storm? One wonders if the first line would appeal to readers such as Thomas Higginson who took Wordsworth’s “poetry is a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquility,” as a kind of dictum or rule for the revision process of a proper poem (and apparently told Dickinson this as he rejected her poems). Yet, while Wordsworth’s “feelings” could be either intense pain, or intense giddy over-excitement, there is no giddiness here, and as the poem goes on to describe this formal feeling, it certainly doesn’t seem very calm or tranquil. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">So what kind of “formal feeling” is it? As we move from the Nerves to the “Stiff Heart,” (which Sharon Cameron<a href="applewebdata://568ACD94-29AD-4040-A3F4-56829B395898#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><sup><sup><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[5]</span></sup></sup></a> believes could be punning on the sense of ‘stiff’ as corpse, or one may think of “stiff heart syndrome”—in which the heart unnaturally begins to beat like a metronome, with which Milford Graves was diagnosed, and was able to treat by free-form jazz drumming), which is personified as speaking,<a href="applewebdata://568ACD94-29AD-4040-A3F4-56829B395898#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><sup><sup><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[6]</span></sup></sup></a> like a diagnostic mind searching for causes (trauma, or depression, for instance, or even anosognosia, the inability to perceive one’s condition). Since Christian metaphysics in the 19<sup>th</sup> century served much of the same function that clinical psychology serves in today’s more secular America, in Dickinson this diagnostic “stiff heart” (there’s no mind in this poem either) takes the form, uses the diction, of Christianity, in an attempt to locate what had happened with and/or to the great pain:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Presumably the “He” is Christ, who some say bore the great pain of all human suffering in His passion, and perhaps it was he who rescued or recused her from the great pain (although this poem has no “rainbow sign” of salvation), but perhaps we could also read “bore” as either “he bore through me, and, damn, it hurt” (or even more sardonically, “did he cause the boredom I feel?” since this formal feeling could be called a kind of boredom).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Suzanne Juhasz writes: “the heart can no longer tell how much time has elapsed between its present condition and when the great pain occurred: ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before?’” Sharon Cameron writes: “the question the speaker puts to herself is framed by incredulity and designates the subject as someone else,.. the time that precedes the present becomes mere undifferentiated space…” But the stiff heart’s questions proliferate. Was Jesus’s attitude towards suffering a ceremonious stoic detachment, or a cry of agony? What if it wasn’t Christ’s pain I felt, what if it was merely mine? Does it make a difference whose it was? Is it a feeling, then, of the weight of the world on my shoulders? Wait, do I even have shoulders? (No! Just ceremonial nerves, a stiff heart, and mechanical feet, and there isn’t even an “I” to feel them). Is this the over-analytical mind absolutely devoid of feeling or perception? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">On a formal level, Brooks and Warren point out that the questions in these lines are “abrupt and elliptical as if uttered in a moment of pain.” Even in this “formal feeling,” pain occurs, between the lines as it were, and perhaps similarly to the way “sense was breaking through” in the first stanza of “Funeral” foreshadows the last stanza, this unspoken, but felt, pain may anticipate the “Formal Feeling’s” final stanza. Kamilla Denman elaborates: “The comma following the word, “He,” is the first breakdown of syntax…The disruptive comma also creates a temporal dislocation that permeates the poem: the present thought is not completed (the object of “bore” is lacking).” These asked questions are not answered, perhaps because they are unanswerable…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> +++<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The second stanza is a description, as well as an enactment, of how this “formal feeling” manifests itself in the present, in feet. While the first stanza’s nerves and heart were understood affectively (what some call “interiority”), here the formal feeling turns to a visible physical behavior. While Funeral moved from “treading” to sitting, here we move from sitting to, perhaps, pacing around, yet even making their rounds seems perfunctory, as a “Wooden way” ossifies into stone:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The Feet, mechanical, go round –<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">A Wooden way<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Regardless grown,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">A Quartz contentment, like a stone –<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Do we picture a speaker pacing around after getting literally sick of too much sitting? Cameron says it’s a “body that lost its spirit, a vacancy of will…movement without meaning.” On an ethical level, the word “Ought,” emphasized by the capital, and its place at the ending of a line, is particularly striking. I agree with Juhasz that “Ought is the path taken by the mind—that of duty—a formal gesture.” It seems as if these feet are so preoccupied by how they’re supposed to feel (according perhaps to a social Norm who wants her “still” and shuts her up in prose) that they forgot <i>how</i> to feel. It seem this feeling could describe a wide range of social situations in today’s civilized society, from a sense it of people’s feet twitching as they ceremoniously sit at a poetry reading (or the ritual, of writing, at home, in solitude) to the feelings of absolute numbness many contemporary Chinese factory slave-shop worker-poets testify to (poets such as the suicided Xu Lizhi with powerful poignancy the pain that comes <i>during, and after</i>, the Oughts of an overly formal setting)…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Does she mean “Regardless grown,” as unheeding, or as an inability to perceive, to wonder, to feel pain or awe? If so, does this feeling (or no feeling) get us at least out of, or beyond, the way of “Ought?” <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">What is this “Quartz contentment?” Suzanne Juhasz notes how “Contentment follows from regardless and ought” as if to imply it’s a philosophically stoic contentment, back in the days when “complacency” was used with more positive connotations. Brooks and Warren write “The contentment arising after the shock of great pain is contentment because of their inability to respond any longer, rather than the ability to respond satisfactorily and agreeably” Yet Dickinson doesn’t seem to be judging it as unfeeling here; she’s not necessarily pathologizing it. Perhaps this could be the healing powers of <i>namaste</i> stillness, or more like Wallace Stevens’s “Mind of Winter.” Juhasz calls it, “the ultimate quiet, the stasis that resembles death, as in:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“perfect —paralyzing Bliss—<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Contented as Despair—” (“One Blessing had I than the rest”)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">But though I’ve definitely felt that feeling, the word “ought” is ominous (like what EFT Therapists would call an “instrumental response”)? Maybe, for instance, a speaker is trying to conform to someone else’s demand more for “recollection in tranquility,” or at least trying it on for sighs, as if to ask: is this what Higginson means by tranquility? Can it help? Or at least not hurt? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">On a formal level, I find it difficult <i>not</i> to read the word “feet” in this second stanza self-referentially, as referring to metrical feet. In this stanza, she seems to be very consciously deviating from her use of the stricter ballad-stanzas and fourteeners. Kamilla Denman writes “the temporal disruption of the speaker’s psyche extends to the syntax and meter, with incomplete sentences and sudden shifts from pentameter to tetrameter to trimester and back.” The 5 lines’ metrical shifts, create a new symmetrical syllabic stanzaic form:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Tetrameter <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Dimeter<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Trimeter<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Dimeter<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Tetrameter<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">For Thomas H. Johnson, this gives the effect of “hastened rhythms.” I start wondering if possibly the stanza had been written originally as:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The Feet, mechanical, go round –<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">A Wooden way Of Ground, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">or Air, or Ought –Regardless grown,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">A Quartz contentment, like a stone –<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In this version, not only do we have “perfect” end-rhymes throughout, but also the first three lines would fully scan to the tune of “Amazing Grace,” and the fourth one would have had not she added “A Quartz.” But she purposely departs from this, by relining it (and added the word quartz) to show a detachment from this “formal feeling”—as if a revision process could be “I was in great pain and couldn’t even write from it, but now I’m so numb all I can do is analyze it in a stiff, unfeeling, rough draft-- but now (later) that I’m reading it, it seems too alienated from feeling---so how bring feeling back into it, to make it “breathe”? Perhaps, I do an injustice to claim this was a conscious manipulated decision, in revising to create an effect when it could very well be improvisations that always left room for operating from an emotional blindspot…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">This returns me to the question of who or what is speaking the poem. Up to this point, it has seemed to be speaking not just of, but from, the formal feeling, but the third and final stanza suggests that she is not necessarily feeling it, but speaking <i>from elsewhere..<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">This is the Hour of Lead –<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Remembered, if outlived,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Sharon Cameron points out that the first line, as summary, is “divorced from the experience because encompassing it.” Indexically speaking, what is “this” in the first line? Since this line echoes the formal feeling of the first line, presumably the Hour of Lead is the formal feeling rather than the great pain. The second line, too, suggests that this poem (or at least this stanza) is not only about “pain and its aftermath,” but spoken as if from the aftermath of the aftermath, as if the process of naming an intense feeling (even if it’s the numbness s of a formal feeling, or what Charles Anderson called “numb rigidness, existing outside time and space”) can distance ourselves from it, just as it had detached itself from a spontaneous overflow of pain.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">This is also the first time there’s a hint of a human world, subjects who feel. What do we make of the analogical transition between the second and third line? In Cameron’s tracing of sequence (or progression) of the image patterns of this poem, she writes about the transformation that occurs between the first line and the 3<sup>rd</sup> line: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">`“…the images to this point have been ones of progressive hardening. The image with which the poem concludes, however, is more complex because of its susceptibility to transformation, its capacity to exist as ice, snow, and finally as the melting that reduces these crystals to water. The poem's last line is an undoing of the spell of stasis. Because it is not another, different expression of hardness but implies a definite progression away from it by retracing the steps that comprise its history…”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">A meaning of the first three lines of this stanza is, on one level, driven by a simile that perhaps means—to—show-- an analogy between purely physical pain and the feeling happening here. Remembering the Formal Feeling of the Hour of Lead yields to recollecting the snow which, by comparison, seems to be an image (or even cause) of the pain. Perhaps this metaphor can bring the “merely physical” and the “mental/emotional (spiritual)” together, and, through the mystery of memory, be both great pain and formal feeling, perhaps a state that never happens in “a single moment” but rather in a dwelling like possibility…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Part of me wants to interpret it thus: “Ever take a walk in the freezing cold snow, and become so numb you can’t even feel how cold it is (I mean “cold you are”) until you’re in a warmer environment, even by the fire perhaps, and as your nerves, and feelings come back, you’re shivering and shaking out the cold that you had gotten into (and got in you)? Well, it’s that way with emotions and mood swings (specifically pain and formal feelings, and their relation to memory) too…Ever been so hardened and numb that you don’t even realize you’re hardened and numb until you start thawing?” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Helms writes that the dashes in the last line approximate the experience of “freezing by slowing down the tempo,” but couldn’t the “letting go” denote a process of thawing, just as snow itself can be seen as a thawing compared to lead. It’s possible to read the first stanza as “the chill,” the second stanza as the “Stupor,” and the final stanza as the “letting go.” We may also note it’s the first time that persons (rather than body parts) emerge, or consider the contrast between remembering and recollection (to me, recollecting seems as stronger word, as it could imply a collecting or gathering of it into you), and the many possible ways the comma between “persons” and “recollect” can be read…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Yet the closer and closer I look at this last stanza, the weirder and weirder it gets. Kamilla Denman writes that “phrases…that initially seem to form complete sentences … unravel in subsequent lines that confuse the original meaning.” Alan Helms writes “were the poem conventionally punctuated, the essence of the experience it describes will be lost.” Sharon Cameron writes: “Pain was the shot that inflicted temporary paralysis, a remedy that worked until the poems took over.” I feel you Kamilla, Alan, and Sharon. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">As the poem takes over, any attempt to analyze its conundrums feels inadequate with all the grammatical and punctuation pyrotechnics disrupting the interpretive faculty, as I (or, in a classroom, we) find ourselves going down barren conundrums of uncompleted thoughts, and disruptive disjunctions, as if we’re enacting the pain that had been repressed, or suspended in the formal feeling. We could say it’s a poem about<b> </b>the volatility and/or transience of moods, as we find pain in the formal feeling, and the formal feeling in pain, as if to induce “Stupor” (people in a stupor often only respond to intense stimuli such as pain).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Is she trying to get us to feel pain by showing the pain of trying to escape the pain, the futility of stony shoulds of detachment, as if this enactment is purposely designed to thwart a Higginsonian mind! As Denman puts it, Dickinson here <i>“is not content to recollect emotion in tranquility,” </i>nor to describe it in eloquent, complete sentences” (emphasis added). Is the point to overdose us on a feeling so maddeningly formal (“the madness of discourse”), to give Higginson and those who demand “subdued emotions,” a taste of their own medicine; the pain you could no longer bear consciousness of, or ran away from (insofar as you had any control in the matter), now seems refreshing by comparison? Perhaps it’s a ritual of trying to write oneself back into pain, to <i>feel</i> alive again. In this sense, we can retroactively read the first line as “A Formal Feeling comes after a great pain,” like it’s chasing after it—but that implies it’s a need (an “Adult Delight in Pain”)<a href="applewebdata://568ACD94-29AD-4040-A3F4-56829B395898#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><sup><sup><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[7]</span></sup></sup></a>, and there’s no needs in this “merely descriptive’” poem.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Brooks and Warren claim the poem reveals “the fight of the mind against letting go… a defense of the mind,” or what Cameron calls a “spell of stasis” which the last stanza undoes. Does the process of writing this poem, strengthen the speaker, or reader, for the painful situation they know they must return to keep living? Notably, there is no ethical judgment of either the great pain or the formal feeling in this poem. She avoids pathologizing the process, not calling it a good or bad thing. It’s just something that happens, whether daily, weekly, or seasonally. Nor is necessarily a moral argument: “you must feel pain or you’re a stiff!” If her attitude to the reader is “you<i> must </i>feel this way sometimes,” it’s not a demand as much as a question (or a deep knowledge into human nature, or at least abnormal people like me, if you must). Neither is it ameliorative, especially in any once and for all sense. All I can say with any authority is that reading her makes me feel <i>someone</i> understands<i> (even when health-care professions don’t</i>…), and there may not be a remedy, but there may be <i>remedies</i>, like daily <i>namaste</i> wordless meditation rituals are for some (others, by contrast, can get to that meditative stillness by indulging in the formal feeling of writing…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The vertigo of the final stanza does have similarities, albeit in a more compressed way, with the drama of the last stanza of “Funeral,” (which could flesh out, what “the letting go,” may feel like). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Perhaps she has written her way out of the formal feeling as the last stanza of “I Felt a Funeral” wrote itself out of the “funeral,” wrote herself into silence, maybe even….<i>tranquility?</i> Where are we at the end? Maybe back in pain, or maybe neither, maybe both pain and a formal feeling. After all they are just words to describe something beyond words, as the poem gloriously defeats itself so we may feel a pain more real than what we call pain, the pain of wordlessness as felt by a formal mourning ceremony…Or perhaps, even better, “—” as if this poem is taking place prior to the linguistic distinction between immanence and transcendence (similar to the way another poem overdoses on “playing glaciers” to appreciate the fire you feared more). In both poems, it seems,<b> </b>at the end, the sovereign soul has yield to a more fluid, and porous soul, one that can stand ajar…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Reading these two poems (as well as other Dickinson poems), I am reminded of a passage in a more didactic Rumi poem about the fear of death (or maybe the fear of “great pain”) that moved, and inspired me, translated as “Craftsmanship and Emptiness.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Workers rush towards some hint<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">of emptiness, which they then<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">start to fill. Their hope, though,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">is for emptiness, so don’t thin<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">you must avoid it. It contains<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">what you need! [...]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">This invisible ocean has given you such abundance,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">but still you call it “death,”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">that which provides you sustenance and work.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">God has allowed some magical reversal to occur,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">so that you see the scorpion pit<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">as an object of desire,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">and all the beautiful expanse around it<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">as dangerous and swarming with snakes.” (106)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">One could do worse than to read Dickinson’s more subtle, nuanced poetry, in this light…<o:p></o:p></span></p><div><br clear="all" /><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div id="ftn1"><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="applewebdata://568ACD94-29AD-4040-A3F4-56829B395898#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[1]</span></b></span></span></i></span></a><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Editor’s Preface, <i>The Pocket Emily Dickinson (Shambhala Pocket Classics, 1995)<o:p></o:p></i></span></p></div><div id="ftn2"><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="applewebdata://568ACD94-29AD-4040-A3F4-56829B395898#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[2]</span></span></span></a> As convulsively agonizing as the chance meeting of as the loud bells of heaven and lead-boot drumsticks in the wreck of a solitary soul reduced to an ear…<o:p></o:p></p></div><div id="ftn3"><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="applewebdata://568ACD94-29AD-4040-A3F4-56829B395898#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[3]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Between The Covers with David Naimon, https://tinhouse.com/podcast/jorie-graham-runaway/<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id="ftn4"><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="applewebdata://568ACD94-29AD-4040-A3F4-56829B395898#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[4]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Patrick Rosal, “The Art of the Mistake: Some Notes on Breaking as Making,” <i>The Breakbeat Poets (ed, Kevin Coval, Quaraysh Ali Lansana & Nate Marshall)</i>: Haymarket Books (2015)</span><o:p></o:p></p></div><div id="ftn5"><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="applewebdata://568ACD94-29AD-4040-A3F4-56829B395898#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[5]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> All the quotes from Academic critics are taken from this document: </span><a href="https://www.modernamericanpoetry.org/poem/341-after-great-pain-formal-feeling-comes" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">https://www.modernamericanpoetry.org/poem/341-after-great-pain-formal-feeling-comes</span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id="ftn6"><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="applewebdata://568ACD94-29AD-4040-A3F4-56829B395898#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[6]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Charles Anderson writes, “as befits one who has lost all sense of identity, the various parts of the body are personified as autonomous entities,” disconnected from each other…</span><o:p></o:p></p></div><div id="ftn7"><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="applewebdata://568ACD94-29AD-4040-A3F4-56829B395898#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[7]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> As she puts in the later poem, “Wonder—is not precisely knowing” (1874)<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div>Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-78861602835255813352022-01-02T18:10:00.001-08:002022-01-02T18:10:36.048-08:00Synchronicity: The Oracle of Sun Medicine, Tureeda Mikell (Nomadic Press, 2020)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdVhiubDwjBAYezRvccwBhoEBmkyHZDlnRSoUxtC9dorcBEqxx4xk8fqe_B9hIJfDiswe-sW28kqy0vHk-TNqMjCHKvsMgb0QoDtEskr52MAZ7D8Q4n_S1mBx58JD08uJjP8zVpq17y669/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="684" data-original-width="500" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdVhiubDwjBAYezRvccwBhoEBmkyHZDlnRSoUxtC9dorcBEqxx4xk8fqe_B9hIJfDiswe-sW28kqy0vHk-TNqMjCHKvsMgb0QoDtEskr52MAZ7D8Q4n_S1mBx58JD08uJjP8zVpq17y669/" width="175" /></a></div><br /> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">At my job, I’m usually studying for exams, prepping, commenting in subject-object consciousness, of grammar as social relations, feeling separated from the body, but it has often been said, “the teacher will come when the student’s ready” and sometimes a single line can have a force that comes like slow medicine. “To disengage one subject from life’s circle would paralyze the rest.” (155). This wisdom in this line, however, becomes even more uncanny when I consider the context in which these lines came to Tureeda Mikell:</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“If I hadn’t experienced migraines while studying for three exams,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">looking for subject-connectedness in a circle, reading a book<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">given to me, titled Muntu, and find a quote that read, “For the<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">African, to disengage one subject from life’s circle would paralyze<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">the rest,” and have the migraines disappear shortly thereafter,” (155)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">This is just one of the ways in which Tureeda Mikell, in her debut collection, <i>Synchronicity </i>(2020), is able to show the healing powers of certain words, and also how sharing some words can make people feel less alone or less crazy, especially against cultural normative institutions that pathologize nature. Yet, as a healer, she also knows how deep these cultural institutions have their claws in us, even if we think we’ve escaped them once and for all, as if a pill can purge these demons.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Mikell’s most salient critiques in the lyrical discursive poems (which, at times straggle, and other times, transcend, the old ‘page’ vs. ‘stage’ distinction) are against normative institutions more than individuals, a spiritual realpolitik. As a word warrior who uses “wordplay as a weapon,” as Judy Juanita writes, Mikell’s struggle is often on the level of ideas and language and cosmologies, the metaphysical foundations of often uninterrogated institutions, including The Big Food Industry/FDA/HMO pipeline, the church, the school, and, the very ‘governing principle’ of the English language itself, to name but a few manifestations of the diseased culture most of us are born into.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">To see, to feel, evil as sickness, as Mikell does, shows tremendous empathy for victims under the systemic linguistic (manifestations of) regime that has done a number on so many of us. By “number on us” I mean casts a spell, even if it’s a “secular” spell (commercial, electronic, etc). Mikell, in this book, uses by any means necessary to expose this spell to undo it to make room for deeper, more embodied, ones, “Shattering myth with older myth,” as Juanita writes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Many of the poems involve a hilarious and savage critique of Imperial Christianity that take up where Amiri Baraka’s poems like “When We’ll Worship Jesus,” “Dope” and “Allah Mean Everything” left off, utilizing silly soulful puns and jokes so ridiculous they can make you cringe with awareness, for instance:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“Why did the son of the sun worship with warship,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Prey on those who pray for peace,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Set sail for sale of piece with pair-of-dice for paradise.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> <i> (“Spell’s Labyrinths: Double Talk” 7)<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Rhyme and reason come together---Mikell’s no snob against nursery rhymes--but on a level of drabber discursive prose the wisdom here would take paragraphs to unpack. In lengthy pieces such as <i>“Worship Warship</i>” and <i>“Questions for SS,”</i> she lyricizes rhetorical and oratorical devices as she interrogates the churchmen who mouth such sanctimonious pieties as ‘God is Love,’ by syncretically juxtaposing the patriarchal church definition of love with both Aretha Franklin and Tina Turner’s anthems against the hypocrisy of the male use of the word:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">What did you say, Churchman?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> God is love?!!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">What love got to do with it?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Where the <i>respect</i> what we’d like to know!” (37)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> “Questions for SS”</span></i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> is an elaborate metaphysical/linguistic history of the character of “God” as revealed in the bible, or at least the men who acted and still act in his name on the back of the dollar. In her psychoanalysis, she convincingly characterizes this “god” as a bipolar narcissist and depressive megalomaniac, and asks such questions as:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“Did you consider God a good model for your parents?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“Did God sound like a loving god, or a bully?” (96)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“Did you feel an emotional disconnect from your soul?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Did you learn psych means soul/light in Latin?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Did SS break you from feeling your soul light?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Did your body feel less alive?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Did life become bleary or unclear?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Were you afraid to trust your insight?” (97)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Yes, I say! As one “razed Catholic,” I feel this is a better and more embodied diagnosis of much American pathology than Freudian psychology’s emphasis on the “family romance.” This portrait of “God” also shares much in common with her dramatic monologue spoken in the voice of the corporate lobbyists and advertisers who propagate America’s unhealthy addictions to food and drugs (whether legal or not) in <i>“Devil’s Advocate.”</i> Such Devils (such as Richard Berman of the Center for Consumer Freedom, dubbed Dr. Evil by Rachel Maddow, or the other “profits over people” engineers with their Ph.Ds in the manipulative psychic warfare known as “consumer psychology”) may be very similar to that biblical junk food devil Jesus tried to resist in his 40 day cleanse fast. Yet, even in this dark poem, Mikell hints at an alternative in the “spiritual psychics who say/ our soul sends and receives/ with electro-chemical impulses/ that sense with intuitive release.” (67)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Such intuitive releases abound throughout <i>Synchronicity</i> beyond the hell these God-devils make of the world, beyond beyond in the betweening, twining, twinning, the emptiness, or say the soul-sol, the serious fun of Isis trapped in a Greco-Roman dog-eat-dog star world. One way to access this, as the book’s subtitle announces, is through, “sun medicine.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Not only is the sun medicinal on the most physical and visceral level, but also on the metaphysical level, as Mikell finds life in a heliocentric tradition that first arrived, in English poetry at least, on these shores in Phillis Wheatley’s vastly underrated, “Thoughts on the Works of Providence” in the early 1770s. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">For Mikell, beyond its colloquial reference to a beach bum, just trying to find a cheaper tanning salon, there is a political dimension to sun worshipping. “Sun medicine is an antidote against oppression. It is an act of resistance!” In <i>“My Sun,”</i> she offers prayer and devotion:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“I will speak for you<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Though scriptures mask<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Your testimony from eyes”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">These oppressive scriptures:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“Tell us<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The rise of sun’s daily light cannot compare<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">To god’s son who died for our own sins and rose<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">From the dead who will return?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In a world with “too many religious saviors,/too many competitive death plans,” all the miracles attributed to a once-and-for-all Jesus (“Walk upon waters”) are but etiolated versions of what we feel, directly in the activity of sunlight. And also, recalling Dickinson (“Some Keep The Sabbath”), “I need not wait for your return.” (2) In her celebration of the non-denominational sun, Mikell takes her place in the long-line of wise healer women, a tradition that predates the specialization called “poetry” or “religion.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">For her, beyond the Christian cartoon, “synchronistic occurrences stun the mind with recognition of a greater<i> collective</i> at work” (emphasis added). According to Jung, synchronicity is an “acausal connecting (togetherness) principle,” perhaps like the “unified vitality affect,” community music therapists say happens in a group improvising music and dance.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The book’s final poem, <i>“If I Hadn’t,”</i> is a list of synchronistic experiences she’s had through her life that not only allow her to recognize a greater collective at work, but also have shaped her character. Sometimes the juxtapositions between stanzas show how the same feeling can be experienced in different languages, vocabularies, disciplines, for instance:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“If I hadn’t called and talked to a Zen Buddhist priest for 2<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Hours, who assured me I was not going mad or crazy, nor had I<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Committed a sin, but was merely entering my enlightenment,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">If I hadn’t commissioned my astrology chart to be calculated 5 times,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Aligning on earth as it is in heaven, as an active noun verb agreement system,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">If I hadn’t recognized, while studying organic and inorganic chemistry,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">That iron is not only a common element found in the body but throughout<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The universe, causing life to be pulled or repelled in some way” (156)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">By the time I get to the end of the third stanza, I get a visceral feeling of magnet(ism). In these stanzaic juxtapositions, Mikell enacts the quote she takes from “The Archeology of knowledge;” by ascribing to the ‘institutional site from which doctors make their discourse,” whether it be organic chemistry (a “hard science”) or Buddhism and astrology (“soft sciences”), she enhances all three and <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">her open-minded syncretic curiosity that lead through our society’s rigid specializations sees the beauty and wonder of other people in whatever terminology. And such doctors can be found anywhere, including “those who the world has discarded” (156).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Some of the poems focus on how the language norm has either caused, or been used to justify, a disenfranchisement of people for possessing, or being possessed by, one form of “mental illness,” or many. In a spirit akin to Emily Dickinson’s “Much Madness is Divinest Sense,” and Martin Luther King’s call to form a National Association for the Advancement of the Maladjusted, Mikell quotes Elanor Longden: “Inner voices are a sane reaction to insane circumstances, not abhorrent forms of schizophrenia to be endured, but complex meaningful experiences to be explored.”<a href="applewebdata://EAE0D904-8393-4BFF-96D2-772AE9B3FE08#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[1]</span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Beautifully empathetic poems like <i>‘Look At Her”</i> and <i>“Take Me Home Mama”</i> show how western medicine, even if it <i>were</i>universal enough to be affordable, often makes the problems or diseases worse, especially for poor black girls:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“Doctor’s education lacking<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Neural ethnic mediation<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Does what he knows best<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Prescribes medication<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Yet,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Forgets to mention drug<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Side effect could<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Make her see things<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">That were not there” (40)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">This elegiac tragic poem gets worse from here. And against the mental hospital in which “Doctors make the conclusion/patients suffered delusion,” Mikell, in <i>“Eyes So Bright: Blues,”</i> is able to celebrate a man so diagnosed beyond mere pity:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“But I felt in my heart<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">If he were in the land origin of his art,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">He’d be a priest seer.” (42)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Access to health care, life care, accessible healthy food is a political issue, as the Black Panthers knew and know. I heard a documentary about Ruth Beckford, the Oakland Dancer and Dance instructor who co-founded the Black Panther free Breakfast programs. It reminded us that the reason J. Edgar Hoover considered them such a threat to “national security” was largely because of their survival programs and not, contrary to popular belief, because of their guns. In a similar vein, Tureeda writes in <i>“Life Light Remembered,”</i> her reminiscences on the Black Panthers who “gave better care than Kaiser dared.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In 1994, 23 years after volunteering<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">At the George Jackson free health clinic,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The Tribune calls, asks:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">How many guns did you have at the<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Black Panther Clinic<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I would have told them of certain grains<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">To regain genetic memory…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">To reverse heroin dependence<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Reverse curse of opioid addiction<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Purposely placed in our neighborhoods<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">To weaken black power base…” (74—75)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">That she ends this poem by quoting, by chanting, Gil Scott Heron’s ‘The Revolution Will Not be televised’ highlights her contempt for this journalist’s sensationalistic commodity questions to propagate a misrepresentation of the Black Panthers to help J. Edgar Hoover destroy them, because black community education and self-determined healthcare was at least as threatening to the U.S power structure as a few black men with unloaded guns. You can televise the guns, if it bleeds it leads, but health care makes boring TV…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“It’s On,”</span></i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> another poem about the intersection between healthcare and politics, could be a seen as a sequel to <i>“Life Light Remembered”</i> in recounting her racial reawakening not long after Clinton signed the “Crime Bill.” I picture the speaker had been an activist at the intersection of health-care and politics, but then as she got older, realized self-care was more important, in part because of stress the racial battles she had fought when younger. Yet now, when a regal elder confronts her with white supremacists at least as bad as those she fought in her youth, she scoffs disrespectfully at the elder. Listening to herself respond dismissively, “we’ve come a long way, haven’t we?” triggers a deeper racialized trauma inhabiting her body. This intensely dramatic, play-by-play account of being confronted with voices of urgency wake her from sleep about the news to blindly reach for a tape she hadn’t remembered recording called “NeoNazis on the rise,” as if to reawake her genetic memory to the collective voices of suffering of which she is part.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“I’m a synchronistic story junkie,” Mikell writes in another poem. (117) <i>‘It’s On”</i> is one example of a synchronistic story, and so is <i>“Five-To-Six Hundred Years Old.”</i> In this poem, a spirit tells the first-person speaker: “What troubles you today has a past/five to six-hundred years old.” (64) Such a lesson strikes me as wise when applied to many situations in life these days, in breaking the spell of over-inflated self-worries that can get us down, but this historical emphasis can also undo the tyranny the contemporary ‘present.’ But beyond its more universal applications, what makes this poem so powerful is its subtle critique of racism and sexism on an experiential level even if it doesn’t announce itself as about race. Although the word race, or white or black people is never mentioned in this poem, one couplet that occurs near the beginning of the poem: “Perhaps it’s my African dress/ Gele’ head wrap?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Occurring as this line does, shortly after a mention of “avoid eye contact,” it’s hard not to picture a black woman in a white crowd (or neighborhood). But on further investigation, this line may not be so much about race as about culture. At this point in the poem, she’s visited by a spirit that tells her to go to Chinatown, ostensibly only for the food, but this could also be a proactive alternative way of acting on an impulse to “get out of this white neighborhood,” if I may translate it more negatively: two ways of looking at the same action. In Chinatown, the merchant sells her food healthier than that she’d buy in the funeral that is a white supermarket. Equally importantly, this merchant bows reverentially to give her the food of respect (perhaps even more, <i>because</i> of her African clothing?) in contrast to the suspicious glances of the (not racially specified) whites.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In the 21<sup>st</sup> century, 500 to 600 years ago would make up the bulk of the 15<sup>th</sup> century, the century that Portugal and Spain, for instance, helped get Europe out of the so-called “Dark ages,” by inaugurating the transatlantic slave trade with its forced immigration of black people, and its genocide of indigenous people in the new world. Those who survived the first onslaught now found themselves in a culture that did not respect their traditions, beliefs and manner of dress. The race of the gypsy of not specified, and maybe that’s part of Tureeda’s point.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In selectively quoting several excerpts, I underemphasize many deeper aspects of this multi-faceted collection, but whether she foregrounds religion, economy, health, or education, or astrology, Mikell relentlessly works on reconnecting the circle to a subject that had disengaged itself from it, a subject perhaps like a disembodied god, some trust and some anti-trust (the space between profits and prophets). In making room for anger, humor, sorrow, confession, confusion, curiosity, and tenderness, Synchronicity can help provide a foundation for a new more empathetic and equitable society.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Synchronicities need not always be fortuitous in this collection (“the difference between a psychic and a sick psychic” 157), but when they are, there’s a syncretic symbiosis or a synergy exceeding the sum of its parts that one can feel in one’s body and psyche beyond the book’s covers.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In his foreword to the book, James P. Garrett writes, “We experience magic as she pulls us into the examination of critique of the meaning and mis-meaning of words and become a witness to the ways that she squeezes out and nourishes with her own juices the tiny bits of wonder they contain.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Slowly, I feel this book is imbibing me “with the courage to stand in the light of the sun and receive your oracle,” even in a cold, “winter in America.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Chris Stroffolino<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><div><br clear="all" /><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div id="ftn1"><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="applewebdata://EAE0D904-8393-4BFF-96D2-772AE9B3FE08#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[1]</span></span></span></a> <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/eleanor_longden_the_voices_in_my_head?language=en" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.ted.com/talks/eleanor_longden_the_voices_in_my_head?language=en</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div>Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-47155621312450644172021-10-19T19:20:00.001-07:002021-10-19T19:50:16.587-07:00Today's Episode in the Continuing Saga: The Forced On-line-ification of the World<p> In this instance, "we're still trying to ask you nicely, oh, and, by the way, screw the post-office and postal workers"</p><p>++++++++++++++++++++++++<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p>IMPORTANT INFORMATION Bank of America logo</p><p>The United States Postal Service began changing first-class mail delivery time frames in October</p><p>This change may result in mailed statements, new or replacement cards and payments you mail taking longer to arrive.</p><p>For fast and easy access to your account information and to schedule payments 24/7 for your Bank of America credit card and loan accounts, use our Mobile Banking app1 and Online Banking digital solutions.</p><p>Make payments quickly and easily using Mobile and Online Banking. You'll get immediate confirmation that your payment has been scheduled.</p><p>Go paperless to securely view your statements online or from our mobile app.</p><p>Get Payment Reminders when you set up payment due alerts</p><p>Help reduce the risk of lost, stolen or delayed mail</p><p>Receive email notifications when new statements are ready</p><p>Request a digital card for debit through our Mobile Banking app to use with your digital wallet, if waiting for a new or replacement card.</p><p>If you haven't already, enroll today to get started.</p><p>Download the Bank of America Mobile Banking app</p><p> Enroll or sign in to Online Banking</p><p>Watch our guided demos if you need help getting started.</p><p>Legal disclosures and information</p><p>1</p><p>Mobile Banking requires that you download the Mobile Banking app and is only available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply. </p>Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-13168874860165719012021-06-05T20:29:00.006-07:002021-06-06T07:59:37.474-07:00Using Selections from Ming Di’s NEW POETRY FROM CHINA:1917-2017 (Black Square, 2018) as a Classroom Text for M, & XQ<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In my Spring 2020 English 1B course (a required course for non-majors that is supposed to introduce students to the art of writing critical essays about 3 different genres of literature; short stories, plays, and poetry), I noticed a change in demographics for the first time in 12 years. While previously, most of the students were either Black or Latino/Latina, this was the first semester my class was mostly Chinese and Chinese-American. I realized I had to change my syllabus, and quick. After class, one student who I’ll call M (for I fear the specter of persecution he faces in China for his outspoken interests and views, as well as by MAGA Americans who were ramping up violence against Chinese, and Asians in general, who they were blaming for the “Kung Flu” as well as for “taking our jobs”), met with me one and one and told me he reads a lot of contemporary Chinese poetry.</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><style class="WebKit-mso-list-quirks-style">
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</style><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I told him I am extremely ignorant; I read a few Misty Poets in translation back in the 1980s/1990s and am aware of Xu Lizhi. He was impressed that I knew Xu Lizhi and mentioned that the Chinese authorities consider his work dangerous and don’t encourage reading him, but that he does. I decided to, in addition to the “Break Beat Poets,” include Ming Di’s recently published </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">New Poetry from China </i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">anthology (Black Square Editions, 2018), and I’m really glad I did, because it became a vehicle to learn from my students about a subject I know almost nothing about. Not surprisingly, it was the contemporary poets, many much younger than I, who resonated most with the other students as well, especially political dissidents jailed or killed, and the importance of “worker poetry.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Ming Di’s anthology was/is an eye-opener to me, as she engages in a clearly daunting task. How does one create an anthology of under 250 pages to introduce English speaking Americans to a diverse range of poets spanning a century (1917-2017) from a country with a population of over a billion, while also translating the majority of them? Though she keeps her commentary minimal, she frames the book with a discussion of the origins of the New Poetry in 1917.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Hu Shi (1891-1962)</span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> is generally acknowledged and acclaimed as “one of the most influential figures in the May Fourth New Cultural Movement, which demanded democracy and freedom,” and for his seminal essay “On New Poetry” (1919), which argues for the use of the contemporary vernacular in poetry (similar perhaps to William Carlos Williams here). Di argues that Hu Shi’s long-debate in verse from his diary dated July 22, 1916, “Reply To Old Mei—A Poem in Plain Speech,” should be considered his first attempt at New Poetry,” even though Hu Shi himself came to believe it failed (25):<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“By today’s standards, it may seem as hybrid writing with some poetry and some prose (as poetry can only be lyrical and/or narrative but not a debate or an argument, which belongs to the essays, according to the old definition). He even puts footnotes into the poem by using parenthesis, which looks exciting today.” (236)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Di is considered controversial for this 21<sup>st</sup> reassessment of Hu Shi; Chen Ju, for instance, scoffed and referred to this poem as doggerel. Di also introduced me to the work of <b>Chen Hengzhe (1890-1962)</b>, the first woman scholar, professor and writer in modern Chinese history (238). Because her two translations of Chen are short, I will include them here:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Moon<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Thru’ a thin cloud a new moon climbs<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">then fades out, a cold falling leaf;<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">but its radiant face reflected in the creek<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">stays in the clear water and won’t leave<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Wind<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">At night I hear the rain on my window.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I get up and see the moonlight, a waterfall.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Leaves fly around, soaring, and batter<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The pine trees. The young cones fall.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Hu Shi praised these poems, but although they are written in the ‘new language,’ unlike “Reply to Old Mei,” they are still constrained by how many words should be in each line and how many lines in each stanza, the regulared 5-word quatrains of the High Tang Dynasty (618-907). Later poems such as “People Say I’m Crazy” (1918, not included in this anthology), a dramatic monolgue with irregular lines, no rhymes, about an elderly patient rambling in a hospital” could be considered New Poetry.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Regardless of whether Ming Di’s anthology is considered “representative” (she herself writes, “omissions are not accidents,”), it has achieved a more profound goal which is giving Americans like me, hitherto mostly ignorant of Chinese contemporary poetry, a sample of amazing poems and suggestions for writers to search for book length English translations of (if any such yet exist).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Some of the selections that most resonated with me and/or my “students” were:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;">1.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></b><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Duo Duo (1951),</span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> one of the founding Misty Poets along with Bei Dao, who lived in exile for 15 years, from 1989 (after Tiananmen) to 2004.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;">2.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Gen Zi (1951)</span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">, whose “March and Doomsday” (an intense excerpt of which appears in the anthology) and lead him to be censored, in part because of its relentless attack on the promises of “Spring” (which Mao demanded). He became an opera singer when his poetry was censored.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;">3.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Sun Wenbo (1956),</span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> born in Sichuan, one of my student’s hometown, a non-academic proponent of narrative writing. His poem “Nothing to Do With Crows,” is one of the best poems I’ve read of a man in his 50s looking back on the promises that writing seemed to hold as a youth, among other things.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;">4.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></b><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The poems & the tragic story of the revolutionary couple,<b> Liu Xiabo</b> and <b>Liu Xia </b>also resonated strongly with some students. Many already knew their story, and they showed a video about her.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;">5.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Wang Jiaxin (1957)<i> </i></span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">is one of the Third Generation poets who began writing in the 1980s. He was a promoter of the Intellectual side of the Intellectual/Plain Speech divide. His poem “Diary”—with its pro-winter celebration of nature against civilization—could be interestingly compared to Gen Zi’s “March and Doomsday.”<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;">6.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Liao Yiwu (1958) </span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">who was imprisoned as a result of a long poem “Massacre” he wrote in June, 1989. He lives in exile in Berlin. His prose poem “Rhetoric” is a challenge to the reader.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;">7.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Luo Yihe (1961-1989)</span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">, he joined the hunger strike at Tiananmen, and was killed. He discovered <b>Hai Zi</b> who also committed suicide in 1989 (One of my students wrote a great paper on his “From Which Shoe Will I Wake Up Tomorrow”).<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;">8.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Yong Xiabin (1963) </span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">He did a hybrid book of abstract photos and poetry called “Palimpsest and Trace: Post-Photographism” that sounds interesting to my “avant” side. His “The Clay Pot in Tennessee” included is a hilarious send-up of Wallace Stevens and the xenophobic American fear of China’s “threat.”<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;">9.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Mo Mo (1964)</span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">, a cofounder of the poetry school <i>Sa Jiao</i>, which means behaving like a spoiled child or a man moaning like a woman. He says it means “gentle resistance.” A whimper, not a bang. Was jailed in 1986 for his long poem “Growing up in China.” Such a description definitely whets my appetite to learn more about this contemporary.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;">10.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Lu Yue (1963)</span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">, a feminist writer, and the first woman I’m including on this list. A student read her “Poetry Doesn’t Know That It’s Dead” as a playful teasing of the patriarchy.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;">11.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Song Wei(1964)</span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">, whose “Poem of the Body” is a great example of the Holistic Poetry Group, and “Small Notes in My Old Age” (by which he means his 50s) could be interestingly compared to Sun Wenbo’s “Nothing To Do With Crows” for that retrospective glance I don’t expect to resonate with my younger students as much as me.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;">12.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Xiao Xiao (1964)</span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Women become more prominent as this anthology moves towards the present. “Speaker to my Soul” is a gentle, tender lyric of self help that can be very refreshing in certain moods.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-top: 12pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;">13.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Zhang Zihao (1965)</span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">. His “Carpenter’s Unique Desire” could perhaps be usefully compared thematically with the poem by <b>Qin Xiaoyu (1974)<i> </i></b>called “The Rock Artist” (is nature an artist? Or can art bring us closer to nature, in reverence?). Qin invited <b>Xu Lizhi<i> </i></b>to be included in a documentary of migrant worker’s poetry (<i>more on that later).</i><b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-top: 12pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;">14.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></b><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">To these “American ears,” “Sunday” by <b>Shu Cai (1965)</b> seems influenced by Emily Dickinson’s “Some Keep The Sabbath,” or at least would be an interesting comparison topic. Cai was also a “Third Road poet.”<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-top: 12pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;">15.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">An Qi (1969)</span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">, a feminist Third Road (& Middle Generation) poet who graduated teacher’s college in 1988; the poem “Me” (2008) may be a psychological meta-political account of this experience with the Chinese bureaucracy, a wry, retrospective glance?<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-top: 12pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;">16.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Jiang Tao (1970). “</span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">A Homebound Guy” is also meta-political in its satire of contemporary society<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-top: 12pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;">17.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Ni Zhijuan (1970)</span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">, is a lyrical, “imagist” (in American terms) that one has to read on its own, out of context of the anthology (otherwise, it could get lost in the shuffle of the maximalism elsewhere). It does seem that quite a few of the women in this anthology are the most adept practitioners of this kind of imagism (perhaps it’s the legacy of Chen Henghzhe?)<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-top: 12pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;">18.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Mu Cao (1974)<i> </i></span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">is one of the very few gay writers in contemporary China<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-top: 12pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;">19.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Shen Haobo (1976) </span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“wrote a critical essay as a college student that started a huge debate in 1999, known as the Panfeng debate, between spoken language poets and the intellectual writing group.” Ming Di doesn’t specify what his argument was, but adds that he has been a major advocate and representative of the Lower Body Poetry since 2000 even though his recent writing seems to have shifted from body to mind.”<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-top: 12pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;">20.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Yu Xiuhua</span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> <b>(1976)</b> Two of the women students wrote about “Crossing Half of China To Sleep With You,” as a celebration of feminine desire. Yu has cerebral poetry and is very popular. Students showed a documentary about her.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-top: 12pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;">21.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Xiao Shui (1980). </span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">His poignant “Food is Running Out” deals with the relationship between spiritual and physical hunger in a global “distribution” crisis in which some have too much while others not enough.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-top: 12pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;">22.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Kawa Niangi (1989-2015)</span></b><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">was a Tibetan environmental activist (thus a double threat to the government) who drowned in Qinghai Lake on June 26, 2015, at age 26, while trying to dismantle an illegal fishing net for Huang fish---they are a key element in keeping the ecological balance in the Qinghi Tibetan region. Here’s the first two stanzas of his poem, “The Final Judgment” which expresses the alienation from the world of accelerated economic development:<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I’m waiting for doomsday, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">for things to become nothing. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">When a big bang bangs in outer space<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">we’ll all be back the beginning, everything quiet<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">At the very end of time, I’ll start<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">all over again, bringing with me food,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">hope, and light, and bringing with me<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-size: medium; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">a healthy body and good spirit.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="font-size: medium; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Near the end of her anthology, Ming Di also includes two migrant worker poets who especially resonated with my students, <b>Xiaqiong Zheng (1980) </b>and <b>Xu Lizhi 1990-2014). <o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">+++++++<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“Made in China”</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><b><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In 2008, in a Walgreen’s, I saw these 2 feet tall Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama plastic cartoonish action figures (I think if you pressed a button or something they’d move their jaws or their feet as James Brown played). I picked one up, and, sure enough, on the buttocks of these figures (where you put the batteries), I saw “Made in China.” I asked my girlfriend, “what do you think goes on in the mind of the factory workers in China when they’re making this? What do these workers in a totalitarian state think of American democracy when they’re forced to make this crap?” We could only speculate.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In China today, according to a paper by M, there are over 250 million migrant workers and 80 million industrial workers, …”yet (Chinese) society hardly hears the voices of the vast, marginalized industrial workers’ voices.” This process started in the 1980s, as the industrial workers in state-owned enterprises were phased out (resulting in a huge unemployment crisis), and replaced with migrant workers in sweatshops. One of these workers was the <b>Xiaoqiong Zheng (1980</b>), who became the pioneer of the New Chinese Worker Poetry. In her early poem, “Industrial Zone,” she writes:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">So many lamps are glaring, so many people passing by<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Place yourself inside the bright factories, memories, machines<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The speechless moonlight, lamplights, like me<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Are so tiny, fragments of spare parts, filaments<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Using their vulnerable bodies to warm the factory’s hustle and noise<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And all the tears, joy, pain we ever had<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Those noble or humble ideas, spirits are<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Illuminated, stored up by moonlight, and taken so far<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">To fade away as unnoticed rays of light<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">When she writes “Place yourself,” I feel she’s responding to my question, not just about what workers think, but also what they feel, as their very souls are “stored up” in the products of their labor, and “taken so far” (whether to Beijing or Walgreens in San Francisco) to fade unnoticed in a market of conspicuous consumption and planned obsolescence; workers are treated like, and become, the “fragments of spare parts” they have to work with.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In the context of Chinese poetry since 1917, M considers Zheng’s poetry a breakthrough: “she had broken the worker-intellectual opposition existing in China for the past 100 years…for the first time, the poetry of workers begins to focus on individual experience instead of political slogans of imagined communities; workers are no longer just part of a broader community,” (as in poems, often written by intellectuals who were not workers themselves in the “upper-level guidance” of the Maoist era, “the 27 years of political poetry” from 1949-1976), but “independent individuals who have their own tears, joy, and pain.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">M also points out how Zheng focuses on gender discrimination and how female migrant workers are the most vulnerable of this marginalized group. “China’s patriarchal family severely restricts the life path of every woman, especially in education, family labor division, employment and marriage choices. Most are young unmarried women. After the age of 25, if they do not get married, they are generally considered worthless, and the golden period of their lives (18-25 years old) is requisitioned and plundered in sweatshops to promote the development of cities and industries.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">After Zheng’s success, M notes that “Working Poems” was officially supported in the early 21<sup>st</sup> century, “including being launched as a ‘brand’ in Guangdong.” As a result, many working poets ‘consciously or unconsciously assimilated to the official and folk organizations to become a professional poet….However, Lizhi Xu was not one of them.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">+++++++</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBelDbpodiCbjzaj8JB29s6YaN2Usc753KymAus_CYvGCrw3rSGZFS9-zya4sNgPFD3I650HiBDxqk1uyZS7qgx9ILvMuMNTJO6BNoREL6Y8CPfFQGT_Uz9-Z7hr8yi0KkFVRshOd2uu8q/s460/Screenshot+%2528245%2529.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="460" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBelDbpodiCbjzaj8JB29s6YaN2Usc753KymAus_CYvGCrw3rSGZFS9-zya4sNgPFD3I650HiBDxqk1uyZS7qgx9ILvMuMNTJO6BNoREL6Y8CPfFQGT_Uz9-Z7hr8yi0KkFVRshOd2uu8q/s320/Screenshot+%2528245%2529.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I first discovered <b>Xu Lizhi (1990-2014) </b>through activist, rather than poetry, channels. On October 5, 2011, at the height of the Occupy Wall Street Movement, Apple founder Steve Jobs died tragically young of pancreatic cancer. While many were expressing thoughts & prayers, I discovered (on my Apple laptop) the tragic conditions in the Foxconn factory that makes computer parts in Shenzen, China. At least 14 workers had committed suicide in 2010. As a result, Foxconn installed nets to prevent them from committing suicide. A few months later Xu Lizhi wrote a poem in tribute to the interior life of these human resources, the struggles and strength of these workers, forbidden even a dignified death, “The Last Graveyard.” Here’s the first 6<sup>th</sup> lines”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Even the machine is nodding off<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Sealed workshops store deceased iron<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Wages concealed behind curtains<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Like the love that young workers bury at the bottom of the their hearts<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">With no time for expression, emotion crumbles into dust<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">They have stomachs forged of iron…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The metaphorical relation of “buried love” to concealed wages gets to the heart(lessness) of global capitalism in a way that would take a contemporary “cultural-Marxist theorist” paragraphs of logos.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">This last line, if taken out of context could appear in a Maoist sloganist poem celebrating workers’ as abstractions of super-human strength (in America they speak of Superman’s Nerves of Steel,” Ford Tough); the next 2 lines, however, flesh out the metaphor:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Full of thick acid, sulfuric and nitric<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Industry captures their tears before they have a chance to fall…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Tears, bodies. Personification of dehumanization: I can’t go on about devices like personification. This is no mere metaphor. Does the first line make you want to vomit? Does the second line make you want to cry? How raw do we want our materials? Easily replaced parts. Tears, bodies, screws…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">A screw fell to the ground<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In this dark night of overtime<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Plunging vertically, lightly clinking<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">It won’t attract anyone’s attention<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Just like last time<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">When someone plunged to the ground<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> (“A Screw Fell to the Ground” 1/9/14)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In a world of hostile external forces and <i>Holistic Unhealth </i> that infects body, mind and spirit, Xu tries to find a way to somehow release these toxins (which become their ‘wages’) to make some room for love or life force. He still has a sliver of contemplative consciousness left to be able to see “They’ve trained me to become docile,” to “grind away my corners, grind away my words.” In another poem, Grabbing the pen becomes a desperate clutch to <i>breathe</i>:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Flowing through my veins, finally reaching the tip of my pen<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Taking root in paper<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">These words can only be read by the hearts of migrant workers<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">He also brutally literalizes the metaphor of “poetry workshop” in “Workshop, My Youth Was Stranded Here” (“Beside the assembly line, tens of thousands of workers line up like words on a page/ ‘Faster, hurry up!’). One commentator refers to his work as “cold and pensive, directly facing a life of misery,” but if you want something “lighter,” something that promises the strength of filial, ancestral lineage as if family values can flourish in, or push back against, such working conditions, you might appreciate “A Kind of Prophecy:”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Village elders say<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I resemble my grandfather in my youth<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I didn’t recognize it<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">But listening to them time and again<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Won me over<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">My grandfather and I share<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Facial expressions<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Temperaments, hobbies<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Almost as if we came from the same womb<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">They nicknamed him “bamboo pole”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">And me, “clothes hanger”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">He often swallowed his feelings<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I’m often obsequious<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">He liked guessing riddles<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I like premonitions<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In the autumn of 1943, the Japanese devils invaded<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">and burned my grandfather alive<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">at the age of 23.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">This year i turn 23<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">We could talk about the “missing capitals” in the last 3 lines, the dramatic pacing, the way the device of parallelism becomes a premonition, the historical analysis: is what the Japanese did to him, any worse than what Foxconn does to us?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Or perhaps we could find some solace in domestic life:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">A space of ten square meters<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Cramped and damp, no sunlight all year<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Here I eat, sleep, shit, and think<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Cough, get headaches, grow old, get sick but still fail to die<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Under the dull yellow light again I stare blankly, chuckling like an idiot<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I pace back and forth, singing softly, reading, writing poems.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Every time I open the window or the wicker gate<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I seem like a dead man<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Slowly pushing open the lid of a coffin.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> (“Rented Room,” 2 December 2013)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">It sounds like he lives in a bathroom, is forced to eat where he shits. Such living conditions are also common among migrant workers in San Francisco, for instance Luis Gongora Pat, a Mayan who came from the Yucatan to work long hours as a dishwasher at Mel’s Diner for almost a decade before he lost his job for not speaking English or Spanish, became homeless and was murdered by the police. I could also think of the situation Harriet Jacobs lived in for 7 years under the regime of American chattel slavery. Prisoner, homeless, chattel slave, “free market” slave. Death could seem liberation….<a href="applewebdata://6CB80C9A-0E1E-4A76-941A-B0CF5D2A709F#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[1]</span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">+++++++++<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">One of the poems included in this selection was “I Swallowed a Moon Made of Iron.” I was happy to see that Ming Di also included this poem, with a different translation. Here’s the two English translations side by side:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I swallowed a moon made of iron </span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> <i>I’m swallowing an iron moon,<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">They refer to it as a nail </span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> <i>a screw they call it.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I swallowed this industrial sewage, these unemployment documents<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> I’m swallowing industrial wastewater, unemployment, orders.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Youth stooped at machines die before their time</span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> People die young, who are shorter than the machines <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I swallowed the hustle and the destitution</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> <i>I’m swallowing migration, displacement<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Swallowed pedestrian bridges, life covered in rust </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">skywalks and rusty life</span></i><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">.</span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I can’t swallow anymore </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> I can’t swallow anymore.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">All that I’ve swallowed is now gushing out of my throat<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><i>All that I’ve swallowed rush out/ of my throat<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Unfurling on the land of my ancestors </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> spreading like a shameful poem<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Into a disgraceful poem </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">on my fatherland.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></i><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">(Nao project) (Ming Di)</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Since I don’t know Chinese, but have so many students who do, I thought a comparison contrast of the two translations would be a great paper topic prompt option, and, thankfully, one student took me up on the offer: ZQ writes that Xu “created a satire that even the moon, which is supposed to symbolize heartwarming reunions with family, becomes very cold and heavy and makes him more lonely.” Of the many subtle differences in these translations, ZQ focused on what he refers to as the “passive tense” (the Nao project one in bold above) past tense version and the “active tense” (present tense) Ming Di version.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">ZQ generally believes the “passive tense” translation “does a better job in word choice and maintains the structure of the original poem.” He believes that to translate the first line as “I’m swallowing an iron moon” makes it sound “like Xu Lizhi is willing to do it,” while the passive tense version makes it sound like he’s “being forced to.” He also prefers the Nao Project’s version for the 4<sup>th</sup> line: “’Youth stooped at machines die before their time’ is indirect and contained mixed ideas… Xu Lizhi did not directly use the word “people.” Youth can be defined as young people or a period of time at a young age…when he refers to “youth” as time, it tells that Xu Lizhi and his coworkers are scarifying their <i>youth</i> in exchange for low reward.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">ZQ also believes the “active tense translation” of the final couplet is more “straightforward, but alters the structure of the original poem and does not express Xu Lizhi’s message.” To back his claim, he claims Xu Lizhi is clearly appealing to the ancient tradition in which it was an honor to be a poet, and making a contrast with how being a poet “becomes worthless. The word “fatherland” in the active translation did not deliver the satire behind this poem because it only tells its origin. On the other side, ‘the land of my ancestors’ delivers the satire of Xu Lizhi on this disgraceful cold and heartless society of China.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">ZQ certainly deserves an A for making a very convincing case to why he prefers one translation to another to my ears, but I don’t ultimately know all the nuances of the process of intention, nor would I presume to claim other interpretations aren’t equally valid. For instance, “unemployment, orders” sounds stronger, more forceful, than the translation ZQ prefers which merely says “unemployment documents.” But perhaps my biggest take away from reading ZQ’s brilliant paper is the clear reverence for both Xu Lizhi’s craft as well as his passionate moral argument, and manifests much more ease and agility with the kind of ‘close reading’ attention poetry either demands or invites….<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">++++++++++<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">According to a biographic summary from The Nao project, Xu left his home in Jieyang, Guangdong (whose local economy was destroyed, and countryside polluted), a place so isolated he couldn’t even order books (his main source of pleasure and meaning in life) on line because they wouldn’t deliver, to work at Foxconn in 2010. He also wrote essays, film reviews, and news commentaries (which I have not yet read). They also mention that, even though he was getting attention for his writing, he had applied for a position as librarian at Foxconn’s internal library for employees,” but had been turned down. They neglect to mention, however, something M taught me in his paper: The stand Xu Lizhi’s took for the workers in his refusal to sell them out:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“When poet-critic Xiaoyu Qin contacted him and listed him as one of the ten poets in the documentary <i>Verse of US,</i> Xu refused. He basically broke off contact with poets. The experience of Lizhi Xu indicates the dilemma of many worker poets in China in some aspects. Writing poems welcomed by the authorities or the intellectuals is almost the only way for them to get rid of the exploitation in factories and plants. However, for some poets, that means giving up their identity and poetry life. Even after the poetry of the workers walked into the public eye with support of the intellectuals and authority, it only means that individuals in the working class were able to break away from their class. When the workers are no longer concerned about workers, they are no longer workers poetry.”<a href="applewebdata://6CB80C9A-0E1E-4A76-941A-B0CF5D2A709F#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[2]</span></span></span></a> Xu, by contrast, “transforms his personal pain into eternal perseverance”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">According to an acquaintance of Xu’s called Zheng (pseudonym) in the Shenzen Evening News, Xu’s suicide resulted from both “internal and external factors: not only the disappointments he had undergone, but even more so the solitary poetic spirit in his bones,” a translator’s note quarrels with the reliability of this acquaintance’s explanation; it “neglects the profound hatred of life on the assembly line reflected so clearly in many of his poems…and why so many other workers---at Foxconn and elsewhere---have chosen to commit suicide---even those who were not poets.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">M ends his essay, with a sentence from Xu’s “Quatrain” which shows the power of solidarity that his spirit has given his fellow workers: “Someone has to pick up the screws on the ground/ This abandoned life will not rust.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">+++++++++++<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">M has taught me so much, not only about the contemporary Chinese poetry landscape, but also about the wider cultural-economic-environmental landscape, airscape, waterscape. I asked him about why he thinks first person poems of individual experience have more galvanizing collective revolutionary force than the more abstract poetry of slogans. He wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“In China, the reason we value individual experience is that for so many years, since the Mao era, people recite those slogans everyday….Personally, I feel, in an ideal situation, there should probably be a balance between slogans and individual experience. The overwhelming victory of either side may represent a severe problem with society. When slogan wins, it reminds me of the Cultural Revolution in China in which the fanaticism of people as a collective creates both tragedies and slogans. When individual experience wins, it reminds me of an extremely self-centered society in which most people become politically apathetic. Some sensitive artists may feel the greater environment and choose to write different things; it reminds me of the Misty Poets after the time of slogans and the slogans in France during May 68.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I asked M if he had been a migrant worker himself, and had managed to escape, and he wrote that he had grown up isolated from, and had no interaction with, migrant workers, but when he got admitted to one of the top high-schools because he was ranked in the top 0.1% of the high-school entrance exams, he quickly despised the atmosphere of these elite high-schools and colleges “where only one kind of voice is allowed to exist.” It was by being a photographer that he became concerned with migrant workers, and began doing work for the NGO aiming to protect the rights of industrial workers while doing a photography project to record the conflicts in the urbanization process of Chengdu.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">He also sent me examples of rock songs (with translated lyrics), and makes a provocative argument that may have some American analogues when it comes to questions like: “Is hip hop poetry?” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“I think Misty Poets best represent the literary and artistic world in 1980s China; however, the musicians like Zhang Chu, Dou Wei, etc. can best represent the literary and artistic world in 1990s’ China,” and includes a few links which I’ll end with.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">A song recommended about the reform in the 1980s which cause hundreds of thousands industrial workers out of job: </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh0rqCMRPOs" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh0rqCMRPOs</span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">:</span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHalSivNp-c" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHalSivNp-c</span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">): </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Chu_(singer)" style="color: #954f72;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Chu_(singer)</span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b></p><div><br clear="all" /><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div id="ftn1"><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="applewebdata://6CB80C9A-0E1E-4A76-941A-B0CF5D2A709F#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> All translations, unless otherwise specified, are taken from: </span><a href="https://libcom.org/blog/xulizhi-foxconn-suicide-poetry" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 10pt;">https://libcom.org/blog/xulizhi-foxconn-suicide-poetry</span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div id="ftn2"><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="applewebdata://6CB80C9A-0E1E-4A76-941A-B0CF5D2A709F#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="color: #954f72;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[2]</span></span></span></a> I asked M more about this (because I remembered liking Qin’s poem in Ming Di’s anthology), and he wrote: “Personally, I don’t like Q’s documentary not his book; his attitude towards Xu and other worker poets is more like, “that’s fascinating. I didn’t know workers can write poems too.”)<o:p></o:p></p></div></div>Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-52018820572804193662020-12-18T21:27:00.004-08:002021-01-03T09:36:10.470-08:00Light on Extended Arms: Reversibility in Maw Shein Win’s Storage Unit for the Spirit House (Omnidawn, 2020)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLQ7JerBlil63sqlYqb_k1_FV-qcfu4AzwDatsG9JIm3dWJ9JjBn_uv-iHe3nGIi8KaxIgcEMAqF0N3GbUyYxInHoc1YAWYjmB3Dw45gliFeYaEuZ8xBJPnupquErXQtf2hFygo1Cilsdg/s2048/Omnidawn+Front+Cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1365" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLQ7JerBlil63sqlYqb_k1_FV-qcfu4AzwDatsG9JIm3dWJ9JjBn_uv-iHe3nGIi8KaxIgcEMAqF0N3GbUyYxInHoc1YAWYjmB3Dw45gliFeYaEuZ8xBJPnupquErXQtf2hFygo1Cilsdg/s320/Omnidawn+Front+Cover.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.omnidawn.com/product/storage-unit-for-the-spirit-house/" style="color: purple; font-family: Times; font-size: 12px; text-align: start;" target="_blank">Storage Unit for the Spirit House (Omnidawn)</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: start;"><b><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> (cover art by Adrian de la Pena)<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Some say a healthy body makes a healthy mind; others say great physical pain and illness is the result of a spiritual (or, more secularly, emotional or cultural) crisis. I love how Maw Shein Win’s second collection of poetry, </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Storage Unit for the Spirit House (</i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Omnidawn, 2020), is able to language the relationship between body & spirit, and the mysteries of symbiosis by means of daily rituals beyond any reductive narrative of cause & effect, or as Penny Edwards puts it, “invites us to reconsider and reconstitute the holding patterns that organize our lives, and reminds us of the power of the spirit—animal, human or</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">nat</i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">—to resist containment.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Although each of these poems (rarely exceeding one page) stands on its own, they are loosely framed by a plot in which the speaker, and the reader’s, task is to honor, appease, liberate, the neglected</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">nats</i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">, trapped in a (self) storage space, exiled from their rightful spirit houses, and thus (co-)responsible for the “Illness, injury, and disaster” (in Qiao Dai’s words), in past & present, felt in many of these poems. The crises in this book are as physical & social as they are spiritual, or as Eve Wood writes, “Illness…pervades this collection, the sense that the body is at odds with the spirit,” yet since the illnesses are as much a result of being trapped in rigid containers (prisons, storage units, physical disability, wounded kinship and social stigma), as in the ungrounded ‘freedom’</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">of “extreme isolation (like) a radio between stations” (in Portal), that can become destructive as the water in the “Water Space” poems unless domesticated (“now we pour water,” 33), the forms of healing, release, liberation are various.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">In the third “Storage Unit 202” poem (23), whose “pod” becomes an almost womb-like presence (see Amanda Moore’s superb reading of this poem), the temporal, and ethical significance the speaker attributes to objects (“a quilt made of yesterday’s tablecloth, today’s plaid coat/ & tomorrow’s prayer shawls”) suggests that the speaker, who had been previously more materialist, secularized, assimilated into American culture, realizing she must become more spiritual---without having to get all philosophically metaphysical. This doesn’t mean these rituals involve atonement as a renunciation of sensual pleasures, as Win leaves ample room for linguistic play. “I drink moonshine at dawn” may suggest, to a secularist, bootleg liquor—but what if it’s actual moonshine? After all liquor is called ‘spirits’ and Dickinson tasted a liquor never brewed! <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">A similar use of the sublime pun occurs in the first two lines of “Water Space (one)”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">tree mouth<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">of river (24)<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">suggests that, to a <i>nat</i>, a tree has a mouth, and can also be a mouth of a river, and that such an incantation perhaps has the power to liberate “mother trapped/ in a tree” (in ways that remind me a little of Louise Gluck’s “All Hallows”). The lack of personal pronouns in these pieces may show perceptions the mother & daughter share (generational trauma, for instance) despite the differences and distances. In these elemental poems that make up the book’s first section, water is a much more destructive force, but sky (air & space) is more beneficent, and introduce us to the saving powers of “<i>reversibility”</i> <i>(27) </i>on both an image and psychological level (for instance, what’s called shyness, social anxiety and awkwardness that may get mistaken for “idle” (17) by toxically extroverted cousins may not be “attachment avoidance as much as “avoidant attachment”).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">And though there are no poems titled after fire and earth, the fiery colors asters & star(gazer) lillies, snapdragons, and the fuchsia (with its Mardi Gras-esque combination of purplish, yellow and green)—culminating in the subtle sexuality of “Vase (three),” bring an earthy warmness to a section that had started with crisis and disaster, as if may free the “king drinking pear juice trapped in a glass jar” (22), the mother-spirit, spirit mother, and the “wildflower superbloom” from trampling tourists (23)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVJiPPNVoADsxzygwHTbHbuDbhpPRuudeogjZV_KNJFNB1nHJ_aXVCB8K2cpc64hUxHOGGcml-4qMeP8yywwXYiTYxrtuHrwB7KIk48Ex8DQD51xF0Eeqghgi1w32_XRkyuTGswztySL8R/s640/section+two.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="582" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVJiPPNVoADsxzygwHTbHbuDbhpPRuudeogjZV_KNJFNB1nHJ_aXVCB8K2cpc64hUxHOGGcml-4qMeP8yywwXYiTYxrtuHrwB7KIk48Ex8DQD51xF0Eeqghgi1w32_XRkyuTGswztySL8R/s320/section+two.jpg" /></a>(<i>drawings by Mark Dutcher)</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">Section 2 is framed by a prison tale, and the barest outlines of a human subject speaker, but it’s unframed by many lines, or short stanzas, that might be happier without a context, such as:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“resting places<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">dandelion seeds<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">inside a head hewn out of granite”. (41)<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">On a plot level, however, if section one dwelt primarily on addressing the</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">disaster </i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">and</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">injury</i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">the nats influenced, many poems in section 2 and 3 focus more on the</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">illness</i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">, disability. I love the way Win is able to put the feeling of being a prisoner to physical pain into words:</span><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“blindfold wound around a bleeding head<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">sepia timecards & combination locks” (72)<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“the brakes of the car an unsettling sound<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">detachment of hips dislocation of sorrow<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">align the axle your fluids are down” (59)<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">This could suggest a car accident caused the physical injury, but also that many of us in America are brought up to think of, and to feel, our bodies as a car (in which, in the words of Delmore Schwartz, “the ego is always at the wheel”). Just the other day, I felt-and heard-- the creaking in my neck diagnosed as degenerative spine disease like someone obsessively trying to find the right combination to lock (I told a body worker—and she said, “don’t think of it as pain, think of it as energy dancing.”)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">In the process of self-diagnosis that occurs in many of these poems, I also detect a critique of one’s investment in other literary, and dramatic genres as potential causes of illness. The poem “Cinema,” begins with the enigmatic couplet:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">the auteur pops pain pills<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">hybrid, saga, biopic (43)<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Theatre in Three Acts” asks”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“What happens to the body after soliloquy<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">mine in mottled fur coat” (46).<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">On an aesthetic/genre level, these narrative forms of cinema (or novels or memoirs for that matter) are a kind of pain pill and, as many (non-western) healers know, pain pills don’t get to the root, or sometimes have side effects that are worse than the pain they were taken for; as if the poem enacts the <i>patience </i>necessary to doctor the more gregarious, gaudy, and bulky genres. “Spectre Show” ( 45) delves more intimately, or personally, into the relationship between an affective “state of mind” and a physical illness, presumably a childhood experience of being shy---after being traumatized by the stigma of others deriding her for being different, introverted in the 1<sup>st</sup> section, a child with “avoidant attachment” in the shell (“does self-storage matter….is this a panic attack” 84), wrestling with “performance anxiety”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> center of the panel<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> young dance star rehearses<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">steel-encased contestant<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">clickclick<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> rushed to the hospital<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> dog bomb & ambrosia<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">artificial dreams<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">still-beating heart of a queen<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">Similarly, “MRI SCAN” (58) (which visually rhymes with the word “musician”) suggests that the sound of a loud marching band---which in many moods can be a festive cathartic occasion—can also bring on a rising blood pressure that is not good for your health (“panic button/bang bang/last sensation’), especially in your 50s in illness when your body & soul are crying out for something slower & quieter. Again, part of the intensity of the portal Win’s poems sweep us up in is that it’s never clear if this is “actual music” (it could be the cloying voice of a fire & brimstone preacher) whether the music lead one to ER, or this is the music of pain <i>in</i> ER. By contrast to this “orchestration of corporal aches and breaks, creaks and sighs, grunts and groans” I like the way Eve Wood puts it, “Win finds a strange redemption in the <i>imagining center</i>(<i>emphasis added)</i>, or bonding with her health care professional in a hospital over a belief in magic (even on a the level of a single word as “spectre” reverses into “sceptre”)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">trinkets & sceptres & waterfalls in Brazil<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">dragon fruit scooped into bowls<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">owls & blue spaces in parking lots a slithering towards<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">planted things (62)<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">+++++++<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">Like “MRI Scan,” the later poem “Shops” (75) explores the relationship between physical illness &/or disability and aurality (specifically music), with a wisdom equal to any community music therapist. It’s like a sequel: If “MRI Scan” was a song of experience (in its crisis of sickness & despair), “Shops” may be a song of “higher innocence…” as it presents a playful dialogue that could be interior as well as exterior (but with ample white space to save it from sickening soliloquy). The voice that makes up the three stanzas with a justified left margin (that gets both first word and last word) feels healthier than the voice in the indented stanzas (which recall the sick voices of the breaking down body in Section 2 dealing centrally with illness/disability).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">Yet the justified left voice here begins the conversation with the healing powers of a synesthetic poesis:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“phytomineral etudes<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">at the paw quilt shop” <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">What is the relationship between the adjective “phytomineral” and the noun “etudes?” Is the music of the plant or the plant of the music? Is the paw quilt shop the antidote for what’s diagnosed by “CAT scan?” (63) This titular “shop” certainly seems further away from mercantilism than the shops in “Parlor.” The barest hint of touch here could suggest a massage table, massage music:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">smelling salts</span></i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">air guitar & filigree</span></i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">….<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">the reverie of mobs as the architects<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">listen for their Ganesh ringtones<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Perhaps this “reverie of the mobs” could be contrasted with the “MRI Scan’s” <i>revelry </i>of the mobs<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“band marches through the crowd<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">chimes gongs<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">a sound bridge”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Or perhaps Ganesh’s (“eastern” or “southern”) spirit of “new beginnings” is meant to contrast with the “malediction but no misfortune” in MRI Scan’s (“western” or “northern”) evangelicals.</span><i style="font-size: 14pt;"> </i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The reverie of the mobs feels more like a sensual experience of being alive in the body as a finger moves on a lumbar spine and the distance between a suboccipital and a psoas seems to get bigger than, say, the distance between Burma and California and say “hey, architect, you don’t know yourself, you think you’re some ‘unitary body’ or something, I mean not like we’re mad at you or anything, but really you don’t need a Ganesh ringtone when you can be with the real thinging and unthinging… The architects are the indented voice(s)…</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">++++++++++++++++++++++++++</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBX5KSi3YZ_ixLSL15Br0-5YVTVA4kSFNa8F2CtTjMYsj1C43yy6_G8D46FNsDIA34MRjUM_xXnW1OQ_497Z7Lk5n3PHi5bOWSCwt7Vwdad5JyDL0oFTFpRRD_T3T5s4ehNNpBdNGRcKbU/s640/section+four.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="611" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBX5KSi3YZ_ixLSL15Br0-5YVTVA4kSFNa8F2CtTjMYsj1C43yy6_G8D46FNsDIA34MRjUM_xXnW1OQ_497Z7Lk5n3PHi5bOWSCwt7Vwdad5JyDL0oFTFpRRD_T3T5s4ehNNpBdNGRcKbU/s320/section+four.jpg" /></a><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">(drawings by Mark Dutcher)</span></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"><br /></span></i></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">“Shops” uses a strategy Win highlights in section 4, <i>reversibility</i>. Earlier in the book, Win had referred to reversibility of a moon/coin (27), but though the word is not mentioned in section 4, it’s felt in Win’s careful and brilliant choice of wordless title to frame this section: Mark Dutcher’s rendering of a Rubin Vase, perhaps the most famous example of an image that challenges traditional figure/ground perceptual/conceptual relationships. Some refer to this as an ambiguous image; perhaps ambivalent is a better word, since there’s always a split section, or blink interposing itself between seeing the space between the faces as a vase, and the space surrounding the vase as faces. Win makes use of the affective dimensions of that pairing that, to humans, may not be as readily accessible if she had chosen a duck/rabbit.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">How can a poet translate such an image into language? In one of these poems, “Diorama” (74), she writes: “how does a painting speak? language is the difference/among three things.” In some images of the “Rubin Vase” I’ve seen, the’ lips are almost touching (like in Keats urn?), but in Dutcher’s drawing, their symmetry is more “nose to nose” or “jaw to jaw” (which perhaps could suggest a more negative “staring each other down”) as in “Factory,” when Win writes:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“sound of coworkers arguing in the bathroom<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">or is it the other way around”</span></i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> (72, absence of question mark hers)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">If the Rubin vase is merely <i>luma (</i>“black & white self-portraits in bathroom mirrors” 71), Win’s poems in Section 4 become more <i>chroma, </i>dynamic, dioramic, open to more than a mere binary reversibility. Yet the “reversibility” here is not only linguistic and perceptual, but also conceptual and ethical, spiritual/materialist, personal/political, local/global, the public in the private, the private in the public, etc. Nor does the humor in some of these poems preclude their gravitas (the lighter the vase the darker the faces?)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">The haiku-like stanzas of “Spirit House”(4) present a mysterious ritual. We first see “two siblings” as figures, or subjects, while the ground is a sense of danger:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">sibling follows<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">sibling into<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">forest of thorn” (69)<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">But the line-breaks could also suggest that this is not an image of two siblings, but an image of one. —and that which the faces call the ground is really a vase, or, better, the thorns one, or two, must enter to find a forest to lose “oneself” in:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">volcanic relics<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">sister brother<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">blue-throated barbets<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">Do blue-throated barbets <i>really</i> exist? Does such an image have the power to focus on a commonality, must we bring bird and loyal dog together to bring brother and sister together, to traverse the space between, the mystery of the two in the one which is three (a trinity with wider possibilities than the catholic trinity, to say nothing of Freud’s etiolated subject centered maps). Do you feel a sense of peace? There is not that imperial sense of “dominion” over nature, nor of the fear of it that probably spawned such presumption.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The image that ends this ritual:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">distant blaze<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">candle wick floating <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">in bowl of oil<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">invites us to compare the relationship of immediacy and distance, near and far, small and big, matter and spirit (including what’s called heart & mind), objectivity vs, subjectivity. A connection appears established in this conjuring, but it’s left purposely vague—is the candle wick in a bowl of oil a positive image to put out the blaze? Or…..<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">The two stanzas of “Huts” are also based on contrast, but here they’re more framed temporally, and culturally as well as affectively. On one level, the first stanza seems to depict a childhood remembered, traditional, rural Burmese harvest festival, which seems more positive (even Edenic, prelapsarian) while the second depicts a present American, modern, urban, cleansing ritual known as “going to the laundrymat” (I think of the now-closed Brainwash café that would have live music while you washed). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">The first stanza is an image of fullness, satiation, while the second stanza is an image of emptiness, longing, and wanting (for what’s depicted in the first stanza). There’s also a sense of a natural cycle and reincarnation in the first stanza “butchers/ will find gold hay/ in their belly”---so will the non-meat eating milk drinkers! By contrast to these cows, the speaker has “no breasts/but two dark/drops of hillside.”—the absent is more present, the present more absent, memory and conjuring are both imaginative acts---a symbiosis more dynamic than the myth of ‘neutrality’ in which the two cancel each other out in a dubious reified sense of “presence.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">**<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">At other times, Win takes on the voice of a ludic trickster. Like “Shops,” the dialogue in “Restaurant” (73) could be interior and/or exterior (“she met herself in a restaurant”). Is it epideictic or a redacted story? Notably, “Restaurant” (73) is one of the few poems in this collection in which personal pronouns are central, and it could be read as a satire on an overreliance of them--yet any sense of scene, speaker and setting yields to a meditation on names, voices, identity, possession, and <i>reversibility.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">I feel the fourth wall breaking down, sweeping the reader up in its lyric drama, when she writes “I recognize her voice because it’s my voice,” and I wonder if I probably only recognize “my voice” in what I think Win is writing, and if any “reading” of this poem will inevitably tell you more about ‘me’ than Win. When she adds, “I think your voice has a name but it’s my name,” is she chiding the interlocutor for imitating, usurping, her voice, or presuming to speak in her name? She could also be questioning conventional ideas of “authorship” as I feel it would be closer to the spirit(s) of this poem if I were to say Win is not the author as much as plural and protean <i>nats</i> are.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">The contrast between “voice” and “name” in this poem may be similar to the “vase” and “faces”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> voices between the names <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">is like the vase/space between <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">the space/face of the names<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">that frames the voices:<a href="applewebdata://B5D4878F-469F-421F-94C2-4F586DE6A5BA#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">[1]</span></span></span></a> (one conversation, two names…)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">Unlike the more emotionally neutral Rubin vase, however, I get a sense that the speaker shows a clear preference for the voice vase than the name face and their possessive personal pronouns:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">What will you bring to table? What is your sir, name?<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">Perhaps this “sir” is a hollow(ed out), materialist, subject, unable to (embrace) change, trapped in a static sense of time, and reified sense of singularity (of perception and identity), who <i>prejudges</i> voices (of other or self) based on bulky externals—like say race or reputation (“names”)—that prevents them from both truly hearing and speaking (which perhaps could be translated to, “can’t see the vase for the faces”). There’s an ethical contrast implied between a voice of worried containment, and a voice of <i>carpe diem </i>letting go, as if Win, or <i>the nats</i>, are saying, “who needs a name if you got a voice(s)?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">The lighthearted tone of “The Parlors” (73) reminds me of the prose poems of Maxine Chernoff and James Tate. Its short, long-lined (by Win’s standards) stanzas (73) make more of a pact with social realism as they take ethical contrasts in the more public socio-political terms of “we” and “them.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">a local reported to authorities that a moose<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">stormed downtown & broke the shop windows<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">ping pong was back<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">the bars, the halls, the parlors<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">In this juxtaposition, the first stanza represents the xenophobic, chthonophobic, “protective,” mindset of police-state capitalism and private property law & order that “sees” a moose (as a synecdoche for “disorderly nature”)—as a threat, in short a “tragic” world view, while the second stanza represents a playful aesthetic comic (recreating) approach to such a ‘moral, practical’ mindset that would deride it as fiddling while Rome burns. This basic contrast is continued in the first two lines of the third stanza--<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">shopkeepers hid their porcelain figures<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">we wore bright colors to disorient the animals<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">The heavy-handed polemicist in me says, “People over profits! Which side are you on, boy?” And, given the backdrop of an official reality in which wars on poverty, drugs, and terrorism have generally had the effect of breeding more of the very things they claim to be fighting, I kinda want to side with the latter as a more effective strategy (even if science would call it superstition), especially when it helps me swerve out of my heavy-handed polemic against heavy-handed polemics with a line like:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">wool rugs flapped open to take in the glass<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">And when it comes to the reversibility of the figure/ground relationship, and the meta-theatricality of the “alienation effect,” the “bouncing white balls” in the 5<sup>th</sup> stanza may not only refer back to the ping-pong balls, but the movement of words on the page, and a gesture of trans-species solidarity with the freedom of moose-force, as if this moose is another incarnation of Ganesh (who we “saw” in ringtone form in “Shops”), the elephant god of new beginnings, patron of the arts and intellectual wisdom and remover of obstacles!<o:p></o:p></span></p><div><br clear="all" /><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div id="ftn1"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="applewebdata://B5D4878F-469F-421F-94C2-4F586DE6A5BA#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[1]</span></span></span></a> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Barbara Berman (in <i>The Rumpus</i>) writes of how in <i>Storage Unit For The Spirit House</i>, a single word “has so many meanings that it’s tempting to write a long, loopy paragraph on how gratifyingly evocative it is.” I feel that yielding to that temptation attests to the <i>generative</i> quality of the work…<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">+++++++++++++++++++</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic-zi0yO3CFZxwwzgWS30KwsWlku9K-KFjCBuMyGq8qKiu0vxYO9Cv3LFqG9PGF10ZKY5JqNJ0hCXwm-Rkve4BHur2-GQx_RU-mGuA4LVkbGTaSvGdi48hrpKiZGfYrMFWlkjPRpbYswKH/s640/section+five.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="605" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic-zi0yO3CFZxwwzgWS30KwsWlku9K-KFjCBuMyGq8qKiu0vxYO9Cv3LFqG9PGF10ZKY5JqNJ0hCXwm-Rkve4BHur2-GQx_RU-mGuA4LVkbGTaSvGdi48hrpKiZGfYrMFWlkjPRpbYswKH/s320/section+five.jpg" /></a><i>(drawings by Mark Dutcher)</i></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">Section 5, however, takes a darker turn, that flesh out in more narrative detail some of the disastrous memories and wounded kinships that were portrayed more impressionistically in Section 1, as if to circle back to the theme of freeing the mother trapped in the tree. The speaker, as a sustained “I” appears more in this section than the others.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">The childhood memory in “Spirit House (5)” recalls the cousins who gossiped <i>“she is so idle, not as enterprising as her four sisters” </i>in “Spirit House (1).” I had read the cruel extroverted cousins as female, but in Section 5, gender, and the various forms of “toxic masculinity,” are highlighted.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“the neighbor boys, cruel<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">one left a dead kitten in a box on the doorstep</span></i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">” (81)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">Yet here she can bear the stings of that memory better, as left alone, she finds what others call as deficit as actually a strength:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">as a child I did not climb trees</span></i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">instead I gathered leaves that flew to the ground</span></i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">It could also be read as a defense of the transformative language, a beautiful childhood sense of metaphorizing, or a poetic laurel-crowning apotheosis:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I made home among the leaves<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">safely in gold, yellow, brown<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">invented a family who lived in a tree house<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">green twig, the mother<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">broken branch, the father<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">two ferns, the missing sisters<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">If Win had put an exclamation point at the end of the last line, it would sound manically excited—but what makes it as sad as it is beautiful is that it’s just left hanging, as if you can’t metaphorize your way out of the prison of solitude.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">This reminds me of a passage in Shakespeare in which a character who (as a king) tended to take social life for granted (arrogantly believing it was his birthright), now, left alone in solitary confinement, takes to similar metaphorizing:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I have been studying how I may compare<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">This prison where I live unto the world:<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And for because the world is populous<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And here is not a creature but myself,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I cannot do it; yet I’ll hammer it out.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">My brain I’ll prove the female to my soul,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">My soul the father; and these two beget<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">A generation of still-breeding thoughts,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And these same thoughts people this little world,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In humours like the people of this world,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">For no thought is contented….<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Shakespeare’s <i>Richard 2</i> (Act 5, scene 4, 1-11)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">I prefer the way Win does it to the way Richard II does it, largely because Win offers a pleasing (and one might say feminist) antidote to Richard’s parthenogenetic patriarchal metaphorizing. While the metaphysics that sees the soul as the father, and the mother as mere material (a vessel) may be, in many ways, the cause of the universal discontent (or say the global catastrophe of the 400 odd years since Shakespeare wrote that)---ah, if only Win had been in Richard’s prison to critique his first attempt at poetry!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">Toxic masculinity also appears in “Relationship” in the form of a Freud quote (“love cannot be much younger than the lust for murder”), the word “lovelock,” and the kind of Petrarchan language Shakespeare’s male characters are often satirized by women for using---<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"> </span><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“when they met it was murder</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">was it her eyes that slayed him<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">lambent grenades”. (85)<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">And, especially in “Den,” which reminds me of my own childhood in many ways, against the backdrop of a patriarchal police dad barking orders, and a heroic self-sacrificing mother. This could be Win’s mother to whom the book is dedicated, but I see my own mother, and many others, who decide to stay in a destructive marriage longer ‘for the sake of the children’ despite the pleas of children saying, ‘we’ll be happier if you’re happier…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;">In this light (or against this backdrop), I wonder if the book’s final poem’s depiction of a celebratory festive collective expansive spiritual <i>nat pwe</i> ritual (which certainly seems earned after all the darkness that appears in this book) is also meant to signify the marriage of the sisters that can free the mother from the patriarchal tree that confined her, as if the book’s title has indeed reversed to become a Spirit<i> </i>House for the Storage Unit. At the end:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">cousin slowly opened a large trunk of teak & silver strips<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> the nats flew inside, one after the other after the other. (95…)<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">They flew in, but Win purposely doesn’t say whether the lid was closed, or if they’re free (at last)…This refusal of closure can be a great liberation, or, as Amanda Moore writes, “offer comfort and continuity, an assurance of wellness and prosperity, but it also reminds us that there is no “once and for all” healing of the present or past trauma…</span><i style="font-size: 14pt;"> or is it the other way around…</i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Chris Stroffolino </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></p><div><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div id="ftn1"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="applewebdata://06636B47-CFA7-45FD-923C-8878826BD8BF#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[1]</span></span></span></a> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Barbara Berman (in <i>The Rumpus</i>) writes of how in <i>Storage Unit For The Spirit House</i>, a single word “has so many meanings that it’s tempting to write a long, loopy paragraph on how gratifyingly evocative it is.” I feel that yielding to that temptation attests to the <i>generative</i> quality of the work…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div>Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-12177906622616108022020-03-06T08:10:00.001-08:002020-03-06T08:10:38.603-08:00Letter to Suzanne Stein in praise of her book New Sutras<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Thank you </span><span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Garamond, serif;">for this amazing book<b>.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><span style="color: #ffc000; font-family: Garamond, serif;">“Mood pens” [30]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #00b050; font-family: Garamond, serif;">& alas I am born on the </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">cusp of<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><i><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Garamond, serif;">Lost</span></i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">and </span><span style="color: red; font-family: Garamond, serif;">selfish<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Though, if pressed, I’d have to side with<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><i><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Garamond, serif;">Lost<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Garamond, serif;">just as I feel more of a </span><span style="color: #70ad47; font-family: Garamond, serif;">generation X<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #70ad47; font-family: Garamond, serif;">but then so many </span><span style="color: #00b0f0; font-family: Garamond, serif;">baby boomer icons<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #00b0f0; font-family: Garamond, serif;">were really </span><span style="color: red; font-family: Garamond, serif;">war babies<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #44546a; font-family: Garamond, serif;">calling MLK and Malcolm X <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #44546a; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> & </span><span style="color: #ffc000; font-family: Garamond, serif;">Bob Dylan & Aretha Franklin<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a5a5a5; font-family: Garamond, serif;">the silent generation<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a5a5a5; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><span style="color: #c00000; font-family: Garamond, serif;">kind of cracks me up<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Garamond, serif;">So on safe trivia terrain<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> of attempted entertain wit…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #002060; font-family: Garamond, serif;">but yes your Baldwin quote on pg. 22<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #002060; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> “any real change”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #002060; font-family: Garamond, serif;">Reminders, reminders…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #002060; font-family: Garamond, serif;">The </span><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Garamond, serif;">do you see what I mean<i></i></span><i><span style="color: #002060; font-family: Garamond, serif;">voice<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #002060; font-family: Garamond, serif;">And the </span><span style="color: red; font-family: Garamond, serif;">repeat after me </span><i><span style="color: #002060; font-family: Garamond, serif;">voice<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #ed7d31; font-family: Garamond, serif;">Possibilities of <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #ed7d31; font-family: Garamond, serif;">Mutualities<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #ed7d31; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Fragments</span><span style="color: #70ad47; font-family: Garamond, serif;">flow,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #70ad47; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> flow flow<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #c00000; font-family: Garamond, serif;">fast </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><i><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> slow<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Garamond, serif;">playful pain<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Garamond, serif;">detoxifying<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> chastising<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> politico<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><span style="color: #c00000; font-family: Garamond, serif;">[redundant as breath<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #c00000; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> so the laugh takes a bath]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">aggrandizement <i>arrondisement<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #c00000; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> alternat<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #c00000; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><span style="color: #002060; font-family: Garamond, serif;">ive<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #002060; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> ing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #002060; font-family: Garamond, serif;">past pssts & pests<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #002060; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> of online presences<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #002060; font-family: Garamond, serif;">can I say soul<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #002060; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> sustaining refreshing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #002060; font-family: Garamond, serif;">image level </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">for most of page 34<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: red; font-family: Garamond, serif;">though last 3 lines intrude debased human transactional zone<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: red; font-family: Garamond, serif;">“Bride staircase…”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: red; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> 35 the hedonic loop!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: red; font-family: Garamond, serif;">“</span></i><span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Garamond, serif;">faintng couch”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> All the warm sad mysteries bypassing my “analytical understanding”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Garamond, serif;">“as we speak,” like burrowing or dreams, as soon, a trumpet scream<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Garamond, serif;">Surface another depth, depth another surface…<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">or as you say much better later---nothingness and appearance<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #c00000; font-family: Garamond, serif;">to the extent inhaling is knots<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> and exhaling untying<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #00b050; font-family: Garamond, serif;">years between lines <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“…to lower one’s voice to raise it…”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #00b050; font-family: Garamond, serif;">The parable of radical and conservative<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #00b050; font-family: Garamond, serif;">aphorisms on par with paintings…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Museum lung mind</span></i><i><span style="color: #00b050; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> not confined<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> to illusion of indoors..<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #a5a5a5; font-family: Garamond, serif;">divided from mature…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a5a5a5; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><span style="color: #ffc000; font-family: Garamond, serif;">“soft science!” [39]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Noticing “indictable mint”. 39<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> recalling “Christian-like mint” 35<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">something’s up with the mint…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Garamond, serif;">When Suzanne Stein writes, “I stopped selling everyone short!” (40). </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I step back<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">and remember she spoke of a <i>Memento</i>-like backward frame of past & present<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">and make a note to look out for any indication at the end that is really the beginning<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">for a sign that maybe the speaker once did that, as if that is the crisis that precipitated the book—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Garamond, serif;">But then, DOWN, DOWN, PLOT MIND!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Garamond, serif;">And I love the [suggestive] space between—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Garamond, serif;">“Suzanne, what are you doing to resist capitalism?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Garamond, serif;">And<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Garamond, serif;">“I dreamt someone rendered my silk slip in leather…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #00b050; font-family: Garamond, serif;">Like making me want to add the word yummy to<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #00b050; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><span style="color: #b00f88; font-family: Garamond, serif;">osteophytic purply pink<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Garamond, serif;">the feeling of having been<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> too naïve<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Garamond, serif;">for earnest kindness<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">The crescent moon water region Varuna<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Nor is it safe to say Stein’s book enacts the “six modes of consciousness”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Affection, pitilessness, feeling of all destructiveness, delusion, disdain, and suspicion [42]</span><span style="color: #ffc000; font-family: Garamond, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Garamond, serif;">But it feels medicinal…. On 45 hysterical and relaxed….”in defense of nuamce”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: red; font-family: Garamond, serif;">Remember, remember—<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: red; font-family: Garamond, serif;">“self hatred is a shield against coming to terms with the truth of itself…”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Liz Kinnamon refers to “lovably cliché” qualities of New Sutras…<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> “develop a personality of your own”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #b00f88; font-family: Garamond, serif;">Singing<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #b00f88; font-family: Garamond, serif;">Love without clinging…<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #b00f88; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></i><i><span style="color: #c00000; font-family: Garamond, serif;">I think it’s a warm hearted book too [51]<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b><span style="color: red; font-family: Garamond, serif;">The teaching of yoga…<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: red; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Garamond, serif;">To get beyond mere patternings of consciousness<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Garamond, serif;">to pure awareness…<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> even right perception from direct observation,<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Garamond, serif;">inference, or the words of others……a mere pattern<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #00b050; font-family: Garamond, serif;">and Diane Wakowski says seeing goddess instead of enemies rewards her<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> “this is a psychotronics”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Kinnamon says “choosing awe without forfeiting negativity…”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Laura Moriarty says, “one feels understood in a way that is loving but a bit scary.”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">and I can’t say it any better….<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #00b050; font-family: Garamond, serif;">Thank you for this awesome book Suzanne…<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #00b050; font-family: Garamond, serif;">Chris<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-74775572675815973232019-08-24T22:27:00.001-07:002019-08-24T22:27:18.359-07:00Smoking In Mom's Garage, Nancy Patrice Davenport<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEHzShlabDtVQ-xAKWdP_Y1g75d7VHfJmEjFIEwkVPQMCzGVvb3ShPg0gWxchHnigVQRFMqMUqlEPD-RV0k2a_zTe_wdRq_GIMghz6CI4JFUFTMz32CV_ZSlRWBYjKXu2B8mmII3UdCAdn/s1600/60349752_2451830438162652_4592890515690618880_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="698" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEHzShlabDtVQ-xAKWdP_Y1g75d7VHfJmEjFIEwkVPQMCzGVvb3ShPg0gWxchHnigVQRFMqMUqlEPD-RV0k2a_zTe_wdRq_GIMghz6CI4JFUFTMz32CV_ZSlRWBYjKXu2B8mmII3UdCAdn/s320/60349752_2451830438162652_4592890515690618880_n.jpg" width="232" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">Smoking In Mom’s Garage---<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">Sometimes a book arrives and I get a sense of the uncanny---like, wow, I’m going through some of the same things, and perhaps similar ages and different, but overlapping “disabilities” (and/or “hard knocks”) have something to do with----all I know is I feel a strong sense of personal presence in Nancy Patrice Davenport’s new book. . I don’t want to sound dogmatically categorical, but when it comes to “themes” or “subject matter” or even persona, these days I tend to be less “uplifted” (is that it?) by healthy body poems than I do when I’m reading, say, poems in which she transforms experiencing epilepsy into beautiful, wise, calm lyrics of self-mastery (“Oakland Epilepsy Siren Song #2” & “Epilepsy Siren Song #7”)…With the exception perhaps of the beautiful portrayal of that dark rock bottom hopeless feeling when you’re too broke to afford the meds you need (“Oakland Rain Song #2”—pg. 60), Davenport’s clear focus is much better at editing out the negative---(emotions? Thoughts?)—and accentuating the positive (“Triumphus,” pg. 26, & even sometimes embracing mr. in between….) and celebrating the “dust bunnies” she becomes very familiar with<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">on the floor:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">a dust bunny trembles in each corner<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">waiting for <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">my touch<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">Swiffer standing in the kitchen<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">is giving<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">me the eye<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">telling me to get to work<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">but the effect of dust dancing on sunlight <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">has always<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">been<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">for me soporific (50)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">Not that this book is primarily dealing with “differently abled” themes, or could be reduced to “mere therapy”---many more of the poems are being an anarchist mom (45), about love of men and women and sleep (42) and cats self, liminal sensuous (the fruit in “Poem For My Big Sister”) sexual “body workers” (“Peacock Feather Earrings” 17), desire, curiosity, need, playful fantasies of riding around in a lover’s beard---in post-Niedeckerian and at times even Armantroutian (is that a word?) lyric. I’m a sucker for line breaks like:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">“an oriole sings<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">the world as I<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">know it…..” (1)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">more excepts <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">“of finches<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">peeping<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">the California Valley Quail” (9<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">Or lines like “electricity shooting seeds”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">Relational---if self is world, other is “Earthly Cosmos” (15)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">“my lover’s stained-glass story book skin…..” (40)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">And so many more highlights in this excellent book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-36107366820745953182019-08-07T19:54:00.001-07:002019-08-07T20:02:47.792-07:00Rest In Peace, David Berman, dear friend...I don't know what to say, but here's something I wrote and showed to David to praise him for inspiring me to write songs again & all the help he's given me over the years) after he sent me that smug character insulting review by Brian Howe in Spin Magazine.....<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixR5VlHMpknutP_ymjJQQ2_YRhGwKRrB74yaa7KQR1hP8607TChiod5JkT1vlwHcEqiJ6CIh9SP5mtiKxEzFfy4hJUBfQ4GETIPXa-BxFcJHzM5Z_PbQRmS2Zs-dpdwQgwNCIVW3O5n-k6/s1600/purple-mountains-album-new-debut-artwork-cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="380" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixR5VlHMpknutP_ymjJQQ2_YRhGwKRrB74yaa7KQR1hP8607TChiod5JkT1vlwHcEqiJ6CIh9SP5mtiKxEzFfy4hJUBfQ4GETIPXa-BxFcJHzM5Z_PbQRmS2Zs-dpdwQgwNCIVW3O5n-k6/s320/purple-mountains-album-new-debut-artwork-cover.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<b style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "garamond";">Appropriating Purple Mountains</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "garamond";"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "garamond";"> “You can move right in”--DCB<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";"> It wasn’t until the 5<sup>th</sup>weekly session (2/19) that I wrote<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">“Still, something’s tugging at me to write a song again<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";"> ---is it some intrinsic internal need?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">or is the fact that an old friend 2000 miles away<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">who I haven’t seen in years, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";"> but is far better songwriter than I’ve ever been<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">is recording his first album in a decade<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";"> & wants me to lay some simple organ chords<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">on the chorus of one of his songs….. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";"> (not that it needs them….)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";"> & though he’s far away, I’m less lonely<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">& his lyrics speak me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";"> a better diagnosis of the “strictly physical”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">aspects that got me into ER<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";"> in the dead of winter pain<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">at exactly the right time:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "garamond";">“On occasion we all do battle with<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "garamond";">a little motivational paralysis<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "garamond";">you get trapped at the stage of analysis<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "garamond";">where thoughts bout the shortness of life may beget <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "garamond";">bouts of shortness of breath in your chest<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "garamond";">doubts bout the worth of the time you got left<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "garamond";">crowding out all but the fear and regret…<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "garamond";"> <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">With their internal rhymes, alliteration, assonance that, in my opinion, can “stand up on repeated readings,” the conscience scouring, heart opening lyric intensity, the refusal to blame & permission to acknowledge your fuck-ups, coupled with David’s long lined/long phrased and very percussive vocal style (a plodding <i>parlando </i>trod halfway between talking & singing, but then as I write that, I realize it might sound like I’m talking about hip hop when I mean more, “say, <i>Coney Island Baby </i>or Leonard Cohen-esque) over simple 2 chord verses, and 3 chord choruses resonated with me. Regardless of whether David’s song is autobiographical, or as he puts in an interview, “tuneful surveillance” of a general cultural epidemic (at least among 50 something white males), it was clear to me that I too suffered from:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "garamond";">storyline fever, storyline flu</span></i><i><span style="font-family: "garamond";"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "garamond";">apparently impairing your point of view</span></i><i><span style="font-family: "garamond";"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "garamond";">It’s making horseshit sound true to you</span></i><i><span style="font-family: "garamond";"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "garamond";">now its impacting how you're acting too (2X)<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">& “right about now” I find lines like:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "garamond";">“I want to be a warm friendly person<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "garamond";">but I don’t know how to do it” (“She’s Making Friends…”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">especially relatable, yes, relatable….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">It reminds me of the Chi Lites singing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">“I don’t know where to look for love/<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">I just don’t know how” & I don’t know<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">how I got sucked into being a solitude addict<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">but can I will myself into a happy collaborating family<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">or at least a house or job with regular piano access?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">(Surely others can relate to a need to be a crazy uncle?)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Anyway, just like he hadn’t done an album in ten years, I hadn’t published a book of poetry for 15—but even though he sings, “when you’re seller and commodity/ you have to sell yourself immodestly” in this song, it needs not be strictly referencing a commodified artist (since social media has now democratized the commodified utterance—or at least the downsides of it)…and, yes, I’m scared of being “immodest” (or feel repentant for previous immodest transgressions), which may of course be the most immodest thing of all (trying to “chide no breather but myself”---which David’s album does extremely well, along with what David C. Drale, referring to classic blues form, calls “idealized, non-specific references to one’s life.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Despite, or more likely because, of the darkness, and absolute sense of social disconnection of<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">“grim lyrics married to music that is cheerful, calm & cool,” I sensed a wisdom in this album (not begging, or blaming), especially when I got to the last verse of “Snow is Falling In Manhattan”:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "garamond";">songs build little rooms in time<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "garamond";">and housed within the song's design<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "garamond";">Is the ghost the host has left behind<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "garamond";">to greet and sweep the guest inside.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "garamond";">stoke the fire and sing his lines.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Lyric as shed skin—?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">like my more “purely physical”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">need for a piano as a cat needs<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">to sharpen claws, or rats gnaw….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">sing it not to be it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">to be & not be it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">to it being not be?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">a sliver of hope….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">“strangely my hope has to<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">be rooted in the realization<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">that I am an utterly dumb creature…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-49546107370523589302019-04-11T20:19:00.002-07:002019-04-11T20:19:17.587-07:00Greg Ashley's Anecdotes<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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In a society in which feeling too much is a crime, Greg Ashley’s <i>Anecdotes </i>is not just another musician’s tell all, coming to terms with the addictions to alcohol and drugs, but it’s often driven by a deeply felt sympathy and empathy for the suffering of others with insights into America’s disease at least as profound as any sociologist, with a heavy dose of gallow’s humor. Although the narrator is disarmingly frank about how his addictions have lead him over and over again to fuck up, Ashley is also a precise observer and listener, with as keen of an ear for the nuances of the music of others’ stories & confessions as he as to other musicians’ in the studio or on stage. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In contrast to many books by people known first and foremost as a musician, you’re not going to get a lot of insights into Ashley’s musical craft as song writer/producer, no epiphanic childhood discovery that music was his calling, or some abstract sense of one’s loyalty to one’s audience or fan base or whatever. No career complaints about being mismanaged, or bitterness about the imitators, sycophants, and “fans” who want him to sound like he used to. There are no cloying confessions, or special pleading. The book is not a self-advertisement.…and if there’s bragging in this book, it’s usually for a “We” (whether Gris Gris, or the French band he worked with in 2017 & 2018).<o:p></o:p></div>
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Though arranged loosely chronologically, <i>Anecdotes </i>eschews the overarching meta-narrative of the memoir for 24 self-contained chapters. Greg has a knack for weaving tales (far better than I am capable of), with the warm tone of a sarcastic shit-talker, who is ultimately more of a lover than a fighter. Even if Ashley’s mouth may get him in trouble, this narrator is able to step outside the barroom brawls that often form in the testosterone driven music scene to appreciate their story-worthy absurdity with the same wry eye of detachment that he brings to watching his past self score crack from a prostitute, and visiting an Elvis museum (not because he’s especially interested in Elvis, but because the man who runs it is a fascinating character).<o:p></o:p></div>
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The poignant portraits of the friends who died tragically young made me cry without falling into the idealizations so easy to succumb to when speaking about the dead, and any policy maker seriously interested in getting to the bottom of why our mental health system, and rehab detox centers, or AA do not work for so many, and consider possible alternatives can learn much from his scathing and witty accounts of being in Rehab & Detox. His portraits of the New Bridge Foundation sound like it could be from Boots Riley’s <i>“Sorry To Bother You” </i>or other dystopian futurism. The dystopia’s already here, and just because you’re sick and you know it doesn’t mean you aren’t able to help heal others. It’s punk at its non-dogmatic best.</div>
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<o:p></o:p>Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-6139841557326946402019-04-01T20:21:00.003-07:002019-04-01T20:21:27.826-07:00“Dig The Scattered Eyes of Stars”—Syncretism in Baraka’s Allah Mean Everything<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "garamond"; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: "garamond";">Introduction<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Misconceptions about the later, or we could say mature, Baraka, abound. He’s been accused of anti-Semitism, anti-white “reverse racism,” homophobia, misogyny, preaching to the converted, ‘vulgar dualistic’ thinking. One white male poet-critic even referred to him as an “Uncle Tom.” Subtler , and less-judgmental, misconceptions include this sense of Baraka as a secular cultural materialist, who not only scorns institutional religions, but also the refuses to make room for spiritual yearnings in his relentless quest for liberation of oppressed people….<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: "garamond"; font-size: 12pt;">[1]</span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Let’s take a famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) poem from <i>Hard Facts</i>(1974), the collection of poetry that inaugurated his transition away from Black Nationalism and the Cult. Nats to “The Third World Marxist Period,” “When We’ll Worship Jesus:”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Jesus need to be busted<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Jesus need to be thrown down & whipped<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Till something better happen<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Jesus ain’t did nothing for us<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">But kept us turned toward the<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Sky (him and his boy allah<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Too, need to be checkd<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Out!)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Need to worship yo self fo<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">You worship Jesus….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Don’t victimize ourselves by distorting the world<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Stop moanin about Jesus…and dyin for jesus<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Unless that’s the name of the army<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">We building to force the land<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Finally to change hands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">And let’s not call that Jesus… <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">The vision here, as in the satirical “Dope” (1977)----</span><span style="font-family: "garamond"; font-size: 10pt;">”</span><span style="font-family: "garamond";">must be/ the devil, it ain’t capitalism”-- is strictly secular, and was taken as divisive by some of the black Church men and women (even though Baraka on many occasions has made it clear that the black church has been a positive force in self-determination).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">25 years later, in “Allah Mean Everything,” he reveals himself much further along at being able to “integrate the inhead movie show, with the material reality that exists with & without them” (as he called for in “Poem For Deep Thinkers”). Baraka has clearly not renounced what could be called “third world Marxism,” but he is further along at integrating it both with what was positive of his earlier phases, and a more elaborated spiritual grounding…that can thoroughly challenge the dominant American institutional religion and its syncretic mesh of Judeo-Christian Monotheism, mind body dualism and capitalism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">It may not be a particularly original idea to say that in 20<sup>th</sup>Century Secular America, Money largely replaced God (quite a few stand-up comics have made a killing on the “Religion, Inc” bit), but what makes “Allah Mean Everything” more profound, and yield more insights and wisdom on repeated readings is that rather than just being a critique of institutional religion and its deep connection with sexist, racist, and classist capitalism is that it’s spoken from a place of deep spiritual longing and vision that is yet not incompatible with a cultural materialist analysis, and breath-taking linguistic play and music.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">According to the dictionary, syncretism is both, “1) the amalgamation or attempted amalgamation of different religions, cultures, or schools of thought, and 2), the merging of different inflectional varieties of a word during the development of a language.” In both senses of the word Baraka’s poem could be considered syncretic. Here, as elsewhere, he labors in the cultural superstructure to challenge the official mappings of Euro-centric thought (drawing connections between two or more specialized, and ostensibly unrelated, spheres of activity—for instance “the devil” and “Santa Claus”-- to expose the duplicity of the “normative discourse” of the official realities, to help create a new language (if not a new religion) at the frontlines where cultural materialism and spiritual idealism meet & divide & meet again…to fight against the racism, classism, and sexism that have thrived under a regime of mind-body dualism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">I believe the spiritual “grounding” that informs the poem clearly shows his wife, Amina’s, influence on him. For his vision of the soul is a largely matriarchal, or at least anti-patriarchal, one. And, as such, it’s at once too philosophical and deep, and also too pun-laden and silly to fit nicely within the Perloff-Vendler-Bloom critical spectrum range, and thus not reach many whites who “love the Le Roi Jones stuff,” oh, and it’s “too much like a sermon” that at times slums it in “recognizably black vernacular” that’s not afraid to listen by telling as much as by showing.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: "garamond"; font-size: 12pt;">[2]</span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "garamond"; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: "garamond";"> Baraka’s Anti-Logocentric Metaphysics.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">The poem begins with what seems to be a paradox, “Allah mean everything, before the word.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">This is clearly a reference to the Christian Bible’s account of the creation. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (Genesis 1:1). In Christianity (or at least the Catholic church in which I was forced to go as a kid), this passage is often linked with a sequel, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,” which suggests that, before the arrival of Jesus, the Word, in the above passage, was <i>not</i>flesh, and in fact preceded flesh, that humans, mere flesh, are separated from it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">For decades, by the time of “Allah Mean Everything,” the concept of The Word with God, had been pejoratively termed <i>logocentricism</i>by many fashionable post-existential theorists</span><span style="font-family: "garamond"; font-size: 10pt;">, b</span><span style="font-family: "garamond";">ut Baraka makes it clear that he rejects secular 20th century quasi-metaphysical replacements for the concept of God or the Spirit such as Derrida’s <i>difference</i>. (“Death is a choice of ignorance. The Z row the hole for whole, the nothing when there nothing is nothing and nothing cannot be. Because even in your mind nothing exists as something. A thought”). The title suggests, on the contrary, that Baraka, is choosing Allah over the Christian God, or converting to Islam: indeed, in the beginning of this piece, there it is, the word, Allah-- but the word Allah never reappears in the poem. He’s clearly not saying <i>everything mean Allah (God), </i>because by doing such he would be reducing everything to the word. Rather, “Allah mean everything,” opens up beyond words and the divisiveness of mere meaning. He leaves the word “Allah” hanging in connotational suspension (though what he says about “God” later could easily apply to “Allah”).<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: "garamond"; font-size: 12pt;">[3]</span></span></span></a></span><span style="font-family: "garamond"; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">More important in this poem is the word “everything” as the poem’s positive spiritual grounding, “Everything is the one, the whole, to understand this is what holiness means.” Some claim that the word “Everything” could be too vague to have any particular religious, spiritual, or moral significance (for some it suggests a heretical pantheism, while others say everything can easily slide back into nothing, but Baraka understands the relational aspects of language enough to ground and define (and thus limit) this word “everything” by realizing that you can only say what holiness is (in words) if you devote a lot of time to saying what it <i>isn’t</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Baraka’s alternative evocation of an everything before the so-called logocentric beginning intuitively makes sense if we consider what we know of creation and beginnings on a personal level involves speechless infants, or pre-verbal wombs. Everything is not just “before the word,” but also able to put it on trial (even if it has to use words to do that). Besides, if we believe the word came before us, then we have little hope of co-creating and/or contesting it, but if we realize that<i>we</i>(or at least everything) came before the word, then there’s hope, and room for thought to be free to allow us to rise above determinism and the tyranny of mere appetite.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">As he continues, in a carefully chosen progression of words, he now links “the word” with the “slavemasters” and “the kings.” In Baraka’s sense, the “word” that is officially “the creation” was really the fall, the great divide. In the process, he not only offers an alternative creation myth, but one that is conversant with the fierce urgency of now, on both a personal and political level. The linkage of the word “Word” to the “slavemasters” makes sense if we consider that the fetishization of spirit in the monotheistic personal (or quasi-personal) “jealous” and “vengeful” God who demands loyalty and gets translated into the word “Lord” (or Baraka’s “absentee landlord”) to render the rest of us serfs of the lord, that separates us as humans (or not yet humans) from the eternal process of creation, creating.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "garamond"; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: "garamond";">Baraka’s Anti-Patriarchal Creation Myth<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">And speaking as a male, from experience as well as intuition, he envisions a prelapsarian beginning in which “the women taught the rest of us, how to stand up straight, and dig the scattered eyes of stars of the other part of our wholeness, where surely we would go to be” (1), until “the hoarders of the earth” (male)….”created God because they could not be what they wanted with Good” (which could be translated to “created Allah because they could not be what they wanted with everything”).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">“Evil created God so they could lie why Good was missing.” The introduction of the word “Good” here is essentially synonymous with “Everything” as it’s used in this poem (“who does the good is everything the all”). It, too, is a maligned, word, and it may seem to be a less philosophically sophisticated concept than “God,” but in Baraka’s poem “good” gains in meaning, and spiritual resonance, precisely by being contrasted to “God,” which he connects to the German word “Got” (as he connects the idea of “heaven” to “having not haven” to show how their very language betrays them). In this, the word “God” is used to prevent Good from happening; the word God is good missing a wheel and, as it turns out, also missing women.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Baraka plumbs the roots of the parthenogenetic fantasies of toxic masculinity that “character assassinated women as they threw them from the high place of art, the birthplace of what carries a visible soul, the womb.” (5) This account could be said to share similarities with writers as diverse as Huey Newton, and Laura (Ridng) Jackson, for instance, in her “creation myth” short-story, “Eve’s Side Of it,” at least in their characterization of men. In Riding’s creation myth storying, men “wanted to make more than there actually was, many and many and more things. For they thought what actually was was no better than nothing. “where is it?” they asked. “What is it? Who is it?” Naturally Lilith was not the sort of person to answer: It is here, it is this, it is I.” Lilith was everything, but she was also nothing in particular.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: "garamond"; font-size: 12pt;">[4]</span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">For both Riding and Baraka, men created the concept of God to overthrow women. Both Baraka and Riding refer to the current epic as “not yet human,” and for many of the same reasons, that the word “human” has usually just meant “male.” This does not necessarily imply an ultimate matriarchal attitude, but it’s clear in this later work that his wife, Amina, whose name can mean soul, had a profound influence on helping rescue Baraka from early attitudes that some would accuse of being male-ist, or homosocial. One may ask if Baraka’s piece falls into the trap of gender essentialism, or heterosexism in valuing women so much for the womb that men have envied, yet still deny them equality.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ftnref5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: "garamond"; font-size: 12pt;">[5]</span></span></span></a> But I think he sees, and praises, in women, a tendency to save the earth (and even men) from toxic masculinity through a spirituality that may also be practical (in a non-pejorative use of that term), as in this passage:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">“And the animals the women taught/ To be with us, give us milk, and honey, and clothes and food, no longer/ Must we roam the forests every day, for a mouth full of food the only/pay.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">The wise man said, the more time you must spend on seeking food and sustenance the less time you have to practice being human. The less time you have to practice your mind.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">In this pre-lapsarian (if not necessarily pre-historic), or even post-apocalyptic world, women were able to transform a hunting society into a gathering society, a nomadic society into a settler society, their domestication allows both genders to become more spiritual through exercising their mind, and thus save them from the greedy accumulative impulses….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">The political argument would call for a re-distribution of leisure, to be fully human the slaves and working classes must be allowed to use their mind, to think. And Baraka knows his working class audience may not have as much time for his poetry as the leisure classes, “you got to go to work so you can remain poor and never understand much. Go through the world and never understand a thing. Except you got to go to work. Go to church all your life and never understand….(pg 9)” and perhaps that’s why he speaks in witty parables and koan-like questioning riddles (or low coups) so much in this poem, the kind that could reach a kid who reads Mad Magazine or likes Monty Python, and who’s known as a class clown. Yet, he doesn’t specifically get into the future materialistic possible utopia in this particular piece. Instead he embraces women, as creatures of mind and spirit as much as of body. He means “animals” in the non-pejorative sense here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "garamond"; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: "garamond";">Baraka’s moral transvaluation<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Many other times in “Allah Mean Everything,” however, the word “animals” is used in the more pejorative sense, as in:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">“What exists insists and resists, it’s<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">so tragic not to be human. So<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">ugly to be ruled by animals.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">The hoarders are evil precisely because they deny a spiritual essence, “worships death, the earth, and calls the sky barren and empty, thinks space is a nothing filled with them and what they know….to be animal and prevent humanity from appearing.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Rather than accuse Baraka of being a species-ist, who would not enjoy Dave Bartholomew’s “The Monkey Speaks His Mind,” which inverts the myth of species superiority, I see Baraka a syncretic pragmatist of a new American language. For when people (or “a people”) present themselves wearing a “Sky Lord” mask, as an absentee Landlord God that tends to call the rest of us (especially black, and women) animals in a pejorative sense, calling these people “animals” is of strategic use, even if on the deepest level Baraka really means “worse than animals” or, as he puts it elsewhere “not yet human.” At one point, Baraka lets out a cry, “We have changed the actual sensuous knowledge of the earth into a slimy animal, spineless with dialectical tongue.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Baraka has also been accused of being too relentlessly, “us and them” (even if by many who would be included in his ‘us’), or even of “preaching to the converted,” but, as Kwame Davis puts it, in an insightful comment, ”Baraka’s sharply drawn camps of Good & Evil force him to admit he had not been immune to that evil,”(xiii) and I’d argue that the warm maximalism of this conscience-scouring work is so effective precisely because Baraka presents himself as also struggling against the temptation to fall in with the soulless who “did not dig the sun, those who created histories of words which dealt with nothing but the transportation of their appetites.”(3)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">As appetites, it’s clear that Baraka locates the oppressor as inside, or potentially, inside ourselves (and he includes himself of not necessarily women), as in the few who are able to rule the many, as in this version of a creation/fall myth:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">“So the place, the tree, the umbrella of our being, when we first rose,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">began to suppose we were no longer what we had been, the unknown<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">feelings the biting the search for only food, and the instant death of<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">what we could not change. They became slavemasters and kings and<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">priests, and began to rule the world.” (Part One, paragraph 5, page 3)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">To say “your appetites are slavemasters” and call the ruling class “terrorists of the stomach” (or equate the dictator with a dick whose god is nothing but orgasm) is no mere “simile,” but an extended body-politic metaphor, an elaborate psycho-social—cosmic-conceit that can also serve as an excellent rebuke to Menenius’s famous “allegory of the belly” in Shakespeare’s <i>Coriolanus, </i>and better Nietzsche’s “Genealogy of Morals.” This raises many questions- Is it our appetites that rule us, or <i>the</i>appetites? When we let the appetites that we think of as our own rule us we’re really letting the ruling class rule us? Have those who are slaves to their appetites made those of us who are not slaves of appetites into slaves of <i>their</i>appetites? Are these appetites even natural, or but a misreading of nature, by the same beasts, or money gods, who see in “war the reflection of natural flesh?” (Para 26, pg. 15) Have I become a spokesman for anti-life forces (or call it evil) without being aware of it? Has it infected the very language we use?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "garamond";">5.Baraka’s defense of the soul as creating creation<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">While Baraka would somewhat agree with Toni Cade Bambara once wrote “the English<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Language is for mercantile business and not the interior life,” he also reminds us how difficult it is to speak of the life of the mind, and the spirit, without the insidious intrusion of economic terms, and that even the term “interior life” may evoke a kind of “self-storage” place or “memory bank,” or as he puts it:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">“They say brain so you will think even thought, Good, is limited and inside, a muscle, not the will of what am you rising, a Black Bird, with burning short stories, history driving you….as space becomes time.” (Part Two, paragraph 11, page 9).<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ftnref6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: "garamond"; font-size: 12pt;">[6]</span></span></span></a></span><span style="font-family: "garamond"; font-size: 10pt;"></span><span style="font-family: "garamond";">The reason they want you to limit, and narrow, or slave your mind (or brain),--not content with taking your body---is because they want to keep people divided in the shell of individualism:</span><span style="font-family: "garamond"; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">On their money is their I<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Above the abducted pyramid stashed<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">In the Metropolitan Museum…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">My Eye, they say, stopping the rise the reach<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">For the soul, in the middle of the <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Air, where we have been & will go again<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Even how we are the soul but that makes no sense<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">To our tiny brain<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">In a similar light, he recalls his brilliant early essay, and defense of thought and process-oriented art, “Hunting Is Not Those Heads On The Wall,” when he writes of how the invention or discovery of steel and electricity are “the grounding of thieves who make art a thing, not creation itself.” (Part One, page 5)---For Baraka, it’s irresponsible for an artist to tell a creation myth, and speak of <i>the</i>creation without also seeing it in connection with his creating as an artist, so while this poem clearly is aware of its own commodified status, that it too inevitably will become another “head in the wall,” it’s soul, its life-force, is precisely in the transpersonal process it’s a part of, only that in this poem it’s more figured as <i>gathering</i>than merely hunting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">And part of this gathering is to free space to take back the word “soul” and “spirit” and “the good,” “wholeness” from the corrupted western tradition and, in the process, suggest a potential for social harmony in which women have a leading role. He also has positive things to say about Jesus here (“the sword was the word of what is real”). He accepts the passion, and even the gospel here, only denies the resurrection to conclude his sermon with <i>“we</i>must rise again.” And when Baraka speaks of the soul, sometimes it takes the form of accepting his own moments of spiritual poverty to conjure (muse like) the creative spirit, “But the soul was from the sun and who did not aspire to be again what it is and we are, unconscious and therefore small, and without the power and burning and desire and endless self of being and coming and becoming re-being re-seeing, all toward what we were when we knew we were.” (2)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">And, by the end he can remind us as well as himself “it is the place where we lie and steal which must be understood and so reveal ourselves to the world to everything.” For me, “Allah Mean Everything” becomes one of the strongest contemporary defenses of the spiritual, and/or idealistic tradition precisely because it’s not cut off from political argument (and vice versa). He concludes by telling us “Science is the only religion.” They only problem with this is that today’s billionaire spokesmen for science as a positive good would no doubt cry heretic at Baraka’s claim that “Science mean everything.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">Of course, music is a science too, and given the important of music (especially non-verbal music) in Baraka’s life and art and culture criticism, it may seem odd that there’s nary a mention of music in this poem. Yet the various musical registers this poem strikes---in the sense of <i>phanopiea—</i>suggests that you may be able to evoke non-verbal music better if you do not “refer” to it.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ftnref7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: "garamond"; font-size: 12pt;">[7]</span></span></span></a>You could even say that Baraka’s poem uses the worded mind against itself to clear a space for a new language, or wordless performance. And it may be important at this juncture to mention that when he read the poem in the basement salons held in his Newark house that it would be followed by a musical performance. But even before that, by the end of the poem I feel a catharsis, and a moral challenge to <i>do something---</i>and never cease to ask myself, “in what ways am I speaking for oppression, without even being aware I am?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ftn1" title="">[1]</a><span style="font-size: 10pt;">According to Kwame Davis in his introduction to <i>Somebody Blew Up America</i>(2007), Baraka’s “faith is in political systems…He rarely, if ever, speaks of evil. His is a secularist conception.” (xxii). Though this may be the case in “Somebody Blew Up America” (2001) it hardly is in “Allah Mean Everything”(1999) and other later work. Although William Harris dates all of Baraka’s work between 1974 and 2000 in his third phase, “The Third World Marxist Period,” a brief comparison of poems that deal with institutionalized religions and spirituality from 1974 to 2000 suggest that his writing since the 90s could be considered a distinct phase, which I will not try to name here (perhaps others already have?)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[2]</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Nonetheless, discussions of race and racism are barely evident in the more widely circulated Part 1 of this poem (though they’re more evident in part 2).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ftn3" title="">[3]</a>By contrast, in “Beginnings: Malcolm,” in <i>Somebody Blew Up America</i>, Baraka celebrates Malcolm’s conversion from the devil of the dominant American god to the ‘lamb’ of Allah.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[4]</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Laura (Riding) Jackson, “Progress of Stories,” 287<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[5]</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;">See especially Part 2, paragraph 12 and 13, page 10, for an account of parthenogenetic womb envy<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ftn6" title="">[6]</a><span style="font-size: 10pt;">What am you, is more plural than “what is you.” by the way….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-8005354007954796172019-03-15T20:09:00.000-07:002019-03-17T20:22:35.635-07:00 Some Thoughts on Words & Music Inspired By A Recent Piece by Ed Berrigan<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond;">One question I often want to ask songwriters: do the words come first, or the melody, or groove? Many seem not to want to give away “trade secrets” (perhaps for the sake of mystique?). I was thus especially happy to read Ed Berrigan’s March 11</span><sup style="font-family: Garamond;">th</sup><span style="font-family: Garamond;">blog-post (“Navigating the Distance Between Music and Poetry”</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ftnref1" style="font-family: Garamond;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[1]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond;">) , as he shared some of his discoveries on his path to find a way to bring what he loves about poetry (for instance, “cut-ups, absurdity, and displacement”) into the formal strictures of song….Rather than choose, say, the way Mark E. Smith (or other avant-poppists) fracture song-structure as an exemplary model to strive for, Berrigan makes an excellent case for the kind of disjunctions found in a Willie McTell song, in a beautiful act of cross-genre syncretism, in ways that sees the genres not in any hierarchal relationship, but as equals.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">I’ve always felt a special kinship with people who come to poetry first (especially post-Donald Allen anthology American, generally non-rhyming, or formal in the sense that most stanzaic song lyrics are), but then later become more devoted to music, or back and forth, “simultaneously,” in that liminal zone where genres wonder if they need border walls (or Venn diagrams), and, if so, why? And, of course, there’s seemingly infinite possibilities in exploring this, despite the perils of an overly specialized society…..<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[2]</span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">There are many things I can relate to in Ed’s account. Little things, like not being shy about doing poetry readings at a young age, but very shy about performing music, or having to keep his ambition to write songs “secret” among his poet friends. Like Ed, I already had a public reputation as a poet before I took songwriting seriously. And like me, he found it difficult to create the kind of “dynamics I could create in my poetic lines” in the more emotional structures of song. I can also relate to taking poems of others and setting them to music. On the <i>Single-Sided Doubles</i>album, I set a Helen Adam ballad to my own melody and appropriated words from Clark Coolidge’s minimalist early book,<i>Polaroid. </i>I realized that Kenneth Koch’s “Variations on a Theme By William Carlos Williams” works as a cute waltz (KK told me he likes McCartney, but not Dylan); maybe I should revisit my unrecorded little English “music hall” (sung with fun mock accent) variation of an Edna St. Vincent Millay sonnet, for comic relief. Do these songs do the poems justice? Perhaps not, but maybe I should try it again…(I think I’d rather be in a band to back up a great writer like we did with Delia Tramontina…..but I digress….)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">I can also relate to finding it much more difficult to write song lyrics than poetry (and something tells me that it probably would’ve been easier to write lyrics hadn’t I been into poetry, or if I enjoyed end-stopped rhyming poetry as much on the page). And I, too, got frustrated and so began to look at poems I had written on the page, and tried to fit them to music, and the subsequent difficulties that strategy results in, the realization that “the writing wasn’t structured for melodic singing.” (6)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">I especially love when Berrigan gets into a nut-and-bolts discussion, in such passages as:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">“Refining the melody line to fit the musical structure still required many repetitions. I’d need to play a song dozens of time to refine the melody, and it was a struggle to edit the lyrics.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">At this point in his journey, he switches his compositional strategy, and stops writing lyrics in advance:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">“In songs, the emotional resonance could be performed through the singing and the musical phrasing. In order to arrive at this naturally, the musical and lyrical generation both needed to happen spontaneously. I could pick a lyrical device, such as using the phrase "Goodbye Forever," a title of a poem by </span><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/06/steves-reading" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">Steve Carey</span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond;">, as an alternating refrain. But rather than write it out, I'd pick a starting chord, hit record on a recording device, and create the song on the spot. If no words came, I'd sing out the shape of the lyrical line so that a more a natural syllabic structure was in place. From there I could gradually edit the words into a more coherent shape, with the syllable limits already determined. This also allowed room for the coherence to be tenuous.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">I love that tenuous coherence is the goal. I’ve come to a similar point in songwriting---with one possible exception. Though I hold it as a goal, I rarely, if ever, “create the song on the spot.” A template perhaps, but it would turn into something like:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">“Goodbye forever, don’t know it won’t do nothing that is under down on blah blah top<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">Goodbye, till never, forgot if slop is shopping or if it only went to market just to rot….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">DRUM. Goodbye forever my mind. DRUM. Goodbye forever my heart. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">DRUM. Goodbye forever clean break, DRUM ain’t that a good place to start<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">No---no—blah---ugh----ha----<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">Clocks don’t tell time, but time don’t listen anyway….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">(I love the melody though, so hopefully better words arrive…)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">In Ed’s account of his creative journey, he generally started from the words, while I generally started from the music. It was only after I had recorded hundreds of simple, but catchy, vocal melodies (often made while on walks, bike rides, or swings) that either were sung as phonemes, or “dummy lyrics” (as a respite from the word rigor of poetry), that I considered the possibility that I should write words to them. Most of the melodies of songs from a 2001 (“debut”) collection of my songs came from at least 10 years earlier. And sometimes I think I should record some of these “phoneme” or “dummy lyrics”---but on the contrary sometimes I think I revise too much, and I could get tangled in the discrepancy between my standards and abilities (it’s a lot harder to write lyrics, when you don’t have a regular practice space, because you need to hear your actual voice, and not the voice in your head). Vexed, I say (or call it the blues….I’m another white guy who loves playing blues too….), and I, too, have a lot to learn!!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">Just to say, thank you Ed Berrigan. I deeply appreciate your candor; you have both given me a lot to think about and made me feel less crazy & alone, and if you want to correspond about such stuff in the future, I’d be game (frankly, I believe there should be a book, especially after something Jasmine Dreame Wagner recently wrote, and listening to Nada Gordon sing her songs….and thinking about the struggles my multi-genre heroes and sheroes, this book could also include those who publish poetry, or other genres, but, as musicians, work in the non-verbal trenches, more as instrumentalists….more on this later…..)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">CLARK COOLIDGE, POLAROID 20—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2g1fgQlACo" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2g1fgQlACo</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">KENNETH KOCH:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">WITH DELIA TRAMONTINA<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 10pt;">I’m generally less interested in those who became known as musicians and then publish a book of poetry. Most examples I’ve seen, the poems on the page seem to be more like outtakes from their lyrics—I never really cared much for Robert Hunter as songwriter, but he struck me as an exception in this regard, as he acknowledged when he published his first book of poetry late in life that he was still a novice as a poet, with a humility and devotion to the craft I found rare.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-54008321272624313712019-01-12T16:07:00.002-08:002019-01-12T16:07:42.417-08:00Thoughts Inspired by reading Anselm Berrigan’s “& What Does “Need” Mean? For the Parish Hall/ At St Mark’s Church”<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Anselm Berrigan’s most recent book, <i>Something for Everybody</i>, concludes with a “Post-Crypt” called “What does ‘need’ mean?” written to be read at St. Mark’s Poetry Project the night after what Carla Harryman calls “the arrogance of the contemporary” reared its ugly head in the 2016 Presidential election. Against this backdrop, the St. Marks Poetry Project stands like a kind of fortress, or what today would be called a safe space. In the spirit of full-disclosure, I feel I must mention my love of, and nostalgia for, the presence of this venerable institution---from my first visit to see the late Lorri Jackson read for Richard Hell on my birthday in 1989 to my trans-continental flight there in 2005 for my last poetry reading in New York (a reading curated by Anselm by the way), and I’ve always associated Anselm with the spirit of what’s best about the Poetry Project: after all, he attended readings there as an infant.<o:p></o:p></div>
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That being said, this final piece is not merely a tribute to the Poetry Project, but asks such questions as: “Do you feel as if form has/ collapsed? If so, you can’t be a/ pigeon, alas, as I imagine….” Form, I suppose. could mean poetic form, but also the-life-we-took-for-granted form, to name but two. And somehow the spectacle of Berrigan, standing at the podium at St. Mark’s Church, on a night of collective trauma in which I’m sure much of the audience was reeling in a kind of desperation about what’s happening to, or by, America (and maybe tempted to take out their frustration by kicking a pigeon around) , and asking his audience for permission to imagine (“I can imagine, can’t I?”) seems to take on a mythic importance, as he reassures his audience “You do still/ get to say, even the day after election day, peace.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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He goes on to tease the reader with a distinction between “need” and “care,” but demurs to instead speak of privacy and listening. And listening to him, insofar as reading a book in privacy imagines listening at a public performance (and vice versa, like the black dot on the white side, on a flat representation of a globe) invites various sexy question-marks: Does one need privacy to be able to listen? Is listening care, and privacy need? Do I need to care or care to need, or why not both? And how does this relate to the question of form? I suspect that for Berrigan, this crisis of lost form may have something to do with the loss of privacy, or to put it positively, the privacy is what can give poetry form (for instance, Berrigan does not generally put his particular family or professional relationships into the poems in this book, although he will write collaborations <i>with</i>his daughter)—but so can the listening (or the listening synergetically complements privacy by freeing us from form):<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I need to be doing it, to practice/ listening, to get better at it and/ get at getting it better in the fucked/ up constellation that is your head/ becoming poetry, & to be encouraged/ by the mess…..to find out why in poems/ space is not an illusion” (97). Form is social, communal privacy; ethos is aesthetics, formal formlessness. Listening may be a way to protect one’s privacy, or at least to widen and occupy that ‘weekend void.’ It’s hard to tell if I’m drawn to lines that express the need to “let language get so disconnected/ from reality all you’re stuck with/ is definition as another emblem/ of fear---“ because of their wisdom or because of their phrasing. Can I say both? There’s a healing permission to meet in fear, to let ourselves be strong enough to be proudly afraid, and not fear “fear itself” as if it can actually rescue us, so we may embrace the loss of form as potentially a new beginning….<o:p></o:p></div>
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I am well-acquainted with the fear of such letting go, not that it always prevented me from doing it, and I can also understand the clinging to conventions & definitions, but I like the way he doesn’t simply oppose conventions with the easy “outsider” alternative of the unbearable lightness of a “drunken boat” or “free radical,” but rather rhymes it with the word “companions” as if, indeed, conventions can get in the way of companions, or perhaps dance harmoniously together in a conversation during a smoke break at the Poetry Project in 1998 where “you wonder who’s going/ to challenge you to adapt,” and companions can create their own (overlapping) conventions……as if “from the bottom up” (like two pigeons taking off from a steamgrate?)….<o:p></o:p></div>
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If one can use the discourse of the sublime (purposeful purposelessness) in a non-pejorative way, in a world in which “being serious’s just one of many/ ordinary facts of commitment/ & not some dolled-up badge of complexity” (101), I doth could claim a smack of the high romantic subline (or non-western breath therapy, or eco-poetry) in “lives/ go where there’s no forms.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Is it really that simple?<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Here, like anywhere that’s fought<o:p></o:p></div>
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however knowingly & unknowingly<o:p></o:p></div>
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for the right to be itself, on its own<o:p></o:p></div>
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terms, which only means letting<o:p></o:p></div>
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the folks who care enough to really<o:p></o:p></div>
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come through figure out how to<o:p></o:p></div>
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do that too, without much<o:p></o:p></div>
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interference, here has to be able to<o:p></o:p></div>
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freak out on itself out of loyalty<o:p></o:p></div>
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to itself, itself not being made<o:p></o:p></div>
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of any singular thingation.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Does the poetry project become a form for formlessnesses? Or a formlessness for forms? Is it the “something for everybody” of the book’s title? Does describing something you love inevitably become a better self-description than if one were to immodestly list one’s virtues?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Anselm’s psycho-soul-scape of St. Mark’s as a sacred place adhering to certain conventions for the sake of companionship is not glamourized, but nevertheless glamourous as any moshpit utopian. How many poems has this place authored? Why do the poets who invoke the term polis often sound pretentious to me? (just coz I was almost going to say: The Poetry Project is a Polis!)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Yes, this can bring me back to those debates of the 90s in the shadows of those St. Marks’ spires (the doors were red, right?), as some of the 20/30 something “new breed” constantly being asked to “define ourselves” in relation to older poets’ divisions, lamented the fact that, in contrast to the older generation--say, the heroic generation of ’26ish who allegedly were more able to create a scene seemingly from the grassroots bottom up, or Ted & Alice’s days for whom the Poetry Project was a neighborhood nexus--in the 90s, hardly any of the younger poets could even afford to live in Manhattan (yet alone what developers were starting to call “the east village”). Some wondered (though sometimes I guess it’d be seen as arguing) about history: “why couldn’t we at least promulgate the myth of some kind of clean break with past ‘stuffiness’ (as Koch theatricalized in “Fresh Air” Koch)?” Perhaps because many of the so-called X (mostly white) generation poets I knew, met through the mediation of older companions and/or institutions like St. Mark’s or The Seque Space. That whole youth “anxiety of influence” or “Michel’s iron-law of oligarchy” question---did the institution become as stuffy as what it rebelled against? And, if so, did it have a negative impact on our own development as writers and as a community? What is “poetic autonomy?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Of course, we never got to the bottom of it. I tried to look to a broader common enemy---the property developers who were pushing us out, and then using us to push others out, etc…. I probably enjoyed much more standing near the back at poetry readings—near the book table---swaying my head, and even my hips (and often Meg Arthurs was nearby doing it so, and letting me feel like less of a freak) as I listened to poetry, always secretly (or maybe sometimes polemically) wishing there were more drums, and wanting to get home so I could read the book which of course I couldn’t really hear too well (for feeling-reasons similar to what Anselm talks about in this piece). And there were also nights that had more music; I even tried out the piano once or twice…<o:p></o:p></div>
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Anyway, reading Anselm’s piece makes me want to say to some of those “St. Marks haters” (and I won’t name names), it’s easy to blame an institution, or a convention, for not allowing you to do something you never asked for permission to do, and it’s too easy to take something for granted before realizing how many cities and small towns (where people can still walk to work or play) could benefit from something like the Poetry Project, (memories come back---the Newsletter often injected some serious fun into the poetry wars between L-A-N-G poetry, and New York School, for instance, and may have even played an important role in helping their ridiculous divisiveness to subside). I don’t know if it gave me a sense of “form,” but it gave me a sense of home that seemed more capacious than the niches of the poetry wars. What’s it like now? So many dead, but if Anselm is still fueled by it, I’m sure it’s great. Longing is weird…<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the above passage, I should underscore that the word “care” (which he had teased us with earlier) reappears, & now I’m really interested in how care and need relate to each other, for Anselm, &/or for me. But, instead of offering an essayistic conclusion to this question, he ends his talk, and his book, with a poem by his step-father Douglas Oliver that begins, “kindness acts idly or unnaturally, /leads you into fear. Act in kind.” And I wonder if need bound up with care can equal kindness, at least as a “beginner’s math” starting point to be put on trial…..but the idea feeling that kindness “leads you into fear” resonates deeply, and recalls his earlier line about “definition as an emblem of fear.” In any event, since part of the point of this lyrical essay was to make room for the need to listen, it’s only fitting that the book would leave us, with Anselm listening to (and passing on) Oliver’s words…(which means it’s time for me to stop trying to paraphrase, summarize, or analyze Berrigan’s words, so I can better listen….)<o:p></o:p></div>
Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-3671542546281272052018-06-20T19:36:00.001-07:002018-07-21T22:49:40.997-07:00Rest in Peace and Power Chris Brown <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I’m still in shock, and probably 5 simultaneous stages of grief right now (heavy hearted? Bursting hearted?)…..but I have to try to say something, by way of tribute, at the risk of missing something essential, and this end up being more about me than Chris Brown….I guess I only knew a sliver of his life, but I wish to celebrate…..I don’t like to use the term “star student” coz it implies favoritism, but if anybody was, Chris Brown was.<o:p></o:p></div>
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2014: I was teaching my first creative writing class in 5 or 6 years, and still very much mourning Amiri Baraka who had recently died, and since I taught at a school where whites are a minority, and it was a multi-genre class, I thought The Amiri Baraka Reader would be a perfect model text for work in various genres. The first night of class, I arrived 30 minutes early, and there was already a student sitting there reading the Baraka reader. “Wow,” I said, “I see you bought the text already. I didn’t know the bookstore had it yet.” He looked at me puzzled, “The Baraka reader? Oh, I’m just reading it on my own.” That’s how we met (he loved to tell others that story….)<o:p></o:p></div>
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And, in his classroom performance the entire semester, he seemed to, intuitively (if not necessarily ‘naturally’) have the word “teacher” written all over him. He had strong, clear righteous political analysis, but often kept them in reserve, and let others talk even if he disagreed. He chose his battles and earned an authority, I believe, with everybody in the classroom with when he would weigh in with insightful, empathetic analysis of others creating writing. He helped make the class run more smoothly as mediator. Often I felt he was more like a co-teacher, or taught me more than I taught him—for instance, about James Baldwin, Afro-centric theory, etc. Yet, he seemed surprised when I asked him, “have you ever thought about teaching?” I think we were both trying to reinvent ourselves when we met (I’m told he was a personal trainer in a past life/)…<o:p></o:p></div>
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He became a tutor in the writing center, and, in the 3 years he was at Laney, he took full advantage of the (alas, too few) extra-curricular resume-building opportunities Laney can offer while at the same time working as activist to put the community back in community college—serving in student government, the steering committee for the Laney College teach ins, on the frontlines of the anti-gentrification struggle, and helping to spearhead the <span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif , serif , "emojifont"; font-size: 12pt;">Umoja-UBAKA</span> program, all the while keeping his grades up so he could transfer with some financial aid to U.C.—Davis and continuing to work on his creative prose, drama, and poetry. The wide net he cast reminded me of myself in undergrad….(and sorry if this sounds more like a teacher’s “recommendation letter”)…<br />
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I invited him on my radio show to read his creative writing and also talk politics, current events, systemic racism, etc. On air, it became almost immediately apparent to both of us that we had a verbal chemistry, and he became co-host of my show and immediately made it better. We brought in other students, and began plotting ideas for future shows. We were just getting started. Unfortunately, do to scheduling issues, the show was not renewed….<o:p></o:p></div>
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Chris Brown had so many talents, he debated with himself on possible majors and seemed relieved when I told him you don’t have to major in English as an undergrad to be able to get into an MFA Creative Writing program should he choose that route. He made me feel like I was helping him, even if I’m not so sure I was….We stayed in touch after he left Laney (his FB posts were often very informative and insightful; he was the first to show me the BBQ Betty video before it went viral, for instance….). He kept me posted on his adjustments to Davis as a more impersonal environment in which he’d find himself in that position of being the only black in classes, and the burden of having to represent, etc….and the hyprocrisy of the self-proclaimed radical (Marxist or anarchist) professors who marginalize racism, etc…..The future? He said he’s like to go back to Oakland and give back…..he also said he’d like to check out Africa (Liberia?)….and of course keep writing. He was only starting to publish, but he was patient and disciplined and had long term projects….even as he posted some poems in FB. He was one of the kindest people I’ve met in recent years, and, though I don’t have many non-FB or non-professional friends these days, I hope it’s not presumptuous to say he was one of my closest friends, and I still can’t believe he’s gone. Rest in power as peace!<o:p></o:p></div>
Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-55454805611225535542018-04-10T21:58:00.001-07:002018-04-10T21:58:45.860-07:00April Drafts #10<br />
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4. For Shane Frink<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ever feel struck in an after picture called disability?<o:p></o:p></div>
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If I make light of my own personal trauma, would you accuse me of making fun of yours?<o:p></o:p></div>
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If I weren’t too busy comparing myself to those who compare,<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’d consider buying a performance enhancer disguised as an anti-depressant<o:p></o:p></div>
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If I make light of my own personal trauma, would you accuse me of making fun of yours?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Like that Up & In Truth App that can make some appreciate being down & out<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’d consider buying a performance enhancer disguised as an anti-depressant<o:p></o:p></div>
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Coz it doesn’t matter if I’m <i>having</i>fun if I can <i>be</i>fun<o:p></o:p></div>
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Like that Up & In Truth App that can make some appreciate being down & out<o:p></o:p></div>
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& I can dig the way repeat’s fingers push the buttons you can call mine<o:p></o:p></div>
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Coz it doesn’t matter if I’m <i>having </i>fun if I can <i>be</i>fun<o:p></o:p></div>
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As if my happiness is absolutely dependent on yours, and I fail<o:p></o:p></div>
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& I can dig the way repeat’s fingers push the buttons you can call mine<o:p></o:p></div>
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& gladly acknowledge your suffering’s worse than mine from jump<o:p></o:p></div>
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As if my happiness is absolutely dependent on yours, and I fail<o:p></o:p></div>
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But 50 year olds may feel more futurity than they felt at 20<o:p></o:p></div>
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And I’d gladly acknowledge your suffering’s worse than mine from jump.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ever feel stuck in after picture called disability?<o:p></o:p></div>
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But 50 year olds may feel more futurity than they felt at 20<o:p></o:p></div>
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If I weren’t too busy comparing myself to those who compare<o:p></o:p></div>
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Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-92108872796092754342018-01-04T19:38:00.000-08:002018-01-04T19:39:44.302-08:00#CaliforniaLegalCannabis <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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(too long for a tweet; too topical for a poem)<br />
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It’s 2017, & the billboards claim “Victory”<o:p></o:p></div>
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& evoke 1960s “radical chic”…<o:p></o:p></div>
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Men & women, black & white<o:p></o:p></div>
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smiling, flashing the peace sign<o:p></o:p></div>
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that was originally the victory sign<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(closer to the camera, the V<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
is bigger than the face)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
as if the culmination of a 50-year struggle.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s 2017 on the streets where 50 years ago,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
they proudly chanted “all power to the people!”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
the new billboard honors that history<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
by claiming “Flower to the people!”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Who needs power if you got flower?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Who needs need if you got weed?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yet it’s hard for me to celebrate<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
gentrified neoliberal flower power<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
even if I run the risk of sounding<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
like Jeff Sessions, “I used to like<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The klan before I found out they smoked pot”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(enter the cultural critic)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">When Kanye West
sampled Gil Scott Heron’s “Comment #1” (1969) in “Who Will Survive in America”
(2010), he edits out lines like “The irony of it all, of course, is when a pale
face SDS motherfucker dares look hurt when I tell him to go find his own
revolution….. He is fighting for legalized smoke, a lower voting age, less lip
from his generation gap and fucking in the street. Where is my parallel to
that? All I want is a good home and a wife and children and some food to feed
them every night.”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I guess Kanye didn’t think those lines <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
were relevant 50 years later….(or he’s bought? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t think it’s proper for a white to call <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
a black man a “Tom”). And a Latina writes <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“unfortunately, in California, people are more<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>interested in
legalizing drugs than people.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
& if the non-violent thing you’re in jail for is no
longer a crime,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
shouldn’t you be freed immediately and, as reparations,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
be allowed to resume where you left off?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
or are you now just “the competition”<o:p></o:p></div>
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someone had to jail so they could corner the market…<o:p></o:p><br />
along with the Monsanto Gen-Mod Big Pot Agri-business<br />
coming to a pothead near you<br />
<br />
<br />
#Harborside #JeffSessions #Warondrugs</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-71472274351656702232017-12-21T19:26:00.006-08:002017-12-21T19:26:50.839-08:00Book Review: Hourglass Studies, Krysia Jopek (Crisis Chronicles, 2017)
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE0g_6T5P4FKI7HYgnV7pq6hNcIOWQ8LF1OrfbQSi9fueR2-Cg3TsJ2GDmDchrBxvQA1fiH1UNbdGeol-VSG4nmGQVBN65oXt8vy8xutMnvEWLc0SbuoAcvbEGXtPLXKzyerT-lKFjFQ5f/s1600/HOURGLASS+STUDIES+Front+cover+PROFILE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="373" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE0g_6T5P4FKI7HYgnV7pq6hNcIOWQ8LF1OrfbQSi9fueR2-Cg3TsJ2GDmDchrBxvQA1fiH1UNbdGeol-VSG4nmGQVBN65oXt8vy8xutMnvEWLc0SbuoAcvbEGXtPLXKzyerT-lKFjFQ5f/s320/HOURGLASS+STUDIES+Front+cover+PROFILE.jpg" width="238" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Today, when the word “hourglass” is used, it’s more likely
to modify “figure” or “economy.” Yet, when I was a kid, we used to make fun of
a soap opera that claimed, “like sands through the hourglass, so are the days
of our lives.” But what does that mean exactly? I think they meant it like
“funny how time slips away,” as if turning it over means death? But, as a
time-measurer, the hourglass and the (electric, non-digital) clock both figure
time more as a circle than a line (even if you can’t turn back the hands of
time). The clock may be self-contained, but the hourglass needs something to
turn it over if the sands are to return to the other side, and while a clock is
thought of as measuring a day, in Krysia Jopek’s <i>Hourglass Studies (</i>Crisis Chronicles, 2017), the hourglass measures
the year (and maybe even “our lives”).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Many poets and writers have considered the analogy between
the day and the year (noon is like the summer solstice, midnight the winter
solstice, and evening an equinox), but viewing the seasonal cycles as the
primary scope rather than the diurnal cycle gives Jopek’s poetic sequence more
gravitas (it’s one thing to say “the darkest hour is just before the dawn” and
quite another to plead, “if winter comes, can spring be far behind?” or dream
of “second innocence” or “next time is the best time” as if it wouldn’t be
winter had you not made some dreadful error in summer):<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“A clock points the exit
of bliss balanced with the least<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
severe
bitterness. To want so much and
turn over pliant grains<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
of sand without
meaning. (1)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The clock is active; the hourglass passive; time itself
seems absent. Is it the clock that wants to turn over the hourglass’s sands? Is
pointing out the exit the same as wanting so much? Is the hourglass more like
time itself than a clock is? What is time if not measured? What is time if
measured? Does the clock really start it? Like the unmoved mover, or the logos
that allegedly comes before the flesh (time)? Can measuring devices evoke the
unmeasurable?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For those who are looking for ‘speaker and situation’ to
ground this poem from these potentially infinite questions, one could this say
it takes place “in the month of winter solstice/ when the change is due to
come” (as Syd Barrett put it, setting the I-Ching to music), and, in this
sense, they provide an alternative ritual to navigate the month in which
American suicide rates are highest than the ready made pseudo-religious rituals
of secular Xmas. Of course, the winter solstice can be “a metaphor for” a
personal psychological journey, (“the illusion of starting over” 13), as if
this point of the darkest sand grain second is one with the indivisible void,
or the illusion of transcendental timelessness, where the center becomes the
conference, but I feel this book gains power if you read it in December (or in
June for Australian readers).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To “brace” for winter, to be forced to breathe in cold air
and see your breath…..It’s an “uphill” struggle, a descent into darkness, a
crisis poem, trying not to merely wait, trying not to cling so tight as to
strangle the gift. As the winter solstice approaches, one may be more likely to
feel “time’s defiant passing.” Scared of the dark and the cold, the
Anglo-Americans debate is it better to hope for spring, have a “mind of winter”
(they say NYC’s tough, well, I’m tough!), give in and embrace the darkness
(even if you have to hibernate, turn yourself off---as opposed to over—to do
so)….and let desperation have its day, aware of the dangers of pure poetry,
while “skipping backwards through the hurricane” (15). Krysia Jopek fiercely
flirts with many of these survival strategies, and finds a few to be immortal
and free (though not without a wry gallows humor; perhaps that’s what she means
by [<i>melanc]holy</i>). For instance, I
could call Section IX an ode to the strength of fragility (pg. 17-18), and a
no-nonsense account of the terror of being abandoned like a clock by time (or
time by a clock), and the trauma of isolation (or is it the isolation of trauma?):<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Magnetized to the floor, the character cannot arise from
the death scene, forgotten by everyone else on stage. The audience already went
home and dig cathartic holes.” (18)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But such a thematic reading of <i>Hourglass Studies</i> can run the risk of reducing it to “those story
facts, dust of the empirical, collage spun into pastiche by emphatic critics
stripping the coda. Everything reified; <i>go
home.” (2), </i>and, more intimately, Jopek’s brilliantly condensed almost
aphoristic short numbered sections become like the sands in the hourglass, the
grains of sand Blake could see worlds in (like snowflakes, no two alike); many
of these poems use the language of measurement to evoke an unmeasurable world,
even as the contemporary socio-political world makes occasional appearances
(section III, pg. 5-6).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of the greatest pleasures of this book is the severe (if
not necessarily stark) forms of intimate shape-shifting (“Impeccable” 23)
attention to turns of phrase that have the power to both slow down defiant time
as well as speed up the transitions (and become more like time than a statue),
while never losing its authority falling into “mere language play.” Reading it, I think of Tristan Tzara’s “the
wonder of the word; around its center the dream called ourselves,” relishing
Jopek’s ambivalence about whether “to be fully on-guard” (15) while still
letting the double-meaning exceed logic’s grasp and compel hours of timeless
wonder. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Perhaps I could do better justice to this book by just
quoting some of these sections that especially grabbed my attention (I wonder
if I posted them on Facebook—out of context---if it would turn more people on
then this attempt at review)…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Someone convinces we were needed in that house where sorrow
slips in on a Saturday, accordions the stairs.” (9)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Wrists ache for a paintbrush to supersede the photograph.
Neck falls to confound interval, whispers to the knees to straighten and heal,
forget the long winter up ahead.” (12)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Names can be changed, change can be given, wind can push
light objects through the street.” (13)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“<i>Push me!</i> The boy
orders the swing tangling verdant<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
[lush] decrescendo[s] [of] the marshland arching
from the<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
definitive.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of her most [dis][ch]arming devices is the use of
brackets that push the envelope of language’s ability to harbor multiple
meanings, perspectives and moods, which tend to get more complex as the book
progresses:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
…..the hand[le] slips out of focus, displaces the
current…(7)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
…the last day of vacation around the [is]land, different
each time…(7)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
…Torrential downpour and thunder [deco]rate sleep to tell of
the [s]hip, the [t]rain, the waiting to be carried [a book] under someone’s
arm” (14)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“pass out pain[t] for everyone”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Furiously night after night [p]urging emotions.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“The goodbye proven with [photo]graphs, waiting for the roof
to heal, undo the laces, finish the prop[hecy], so there could be surprise
again <i>without the ego’s shallow
pit[fall].” (19)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“The notebook [of winter] fell from the wind[ow]. Everything
heavy when days are X-rayed by night, the chest falls back [in c]loud.” (20)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Another comes to title the composition <i>[Melanc]holy.”(20)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“The feet sting upon landing: memory [g]losses ambit[ion].
(20)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By the time we reach the final poem (section XII, as in
clocks have 12 hours, years have 12 months, etc), the eponymous word
“Hourglass” finally appears for the first time, even though there had been many
clocks: “The hourglass flipped the conversation over. How to end when one
doesn’t recognize the beginning?” The poem had begun with the desire (or is it
need?) to turn over hourglass, as if the hourglass is a passive device, but
here the hourglass is an active power, as if, like a clock, it has hands
afterall, though not rendering people—at least as characters-- superfluous. In the
process, many dualisms seem to resolve themselves (though not in a
once-and-for-all static way). “<i>I wake and
remember I am [a] stranger.”…..Being what they seem,…..</i>time again has
meaning” Or, even better:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The director’s arms rock the camera and eucalyptus<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Drunkenly<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And [time] becomes a [chara]acter”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(Is an “acter” a cross between an actor and an aster?) Being
and seeming, Jopek both is and isn’t saying time becomes a character, coming to
accept that time will always be defiant, but then again so will the hourglass.
The ending of this poem reminds me of the Rilkean sublime that mixes “beauty
and terror” (<i>Duino Elegies)</i> which in
a way enacts the hourglass turned back to the poem’s beginning (with a Rilke
quote), while at the same time evoking the green of spring, as if writing this
poem got her through the winter….if you’re looking for a kind of happy ending
in which worry is transformed into wonder……either way, this book helps quicken
the mind, and may help prevent the onslaught of Alzheimer’s and other conditions
they say we’re prone to in the winter of our lives…..<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Chris Stroffolino<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment--><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-64757519696181475662017-12-14T09:58:00.001-08:002017-12-14T09:59:57.420-08:00Thinking About Poetry Readings & Collaboration In Time Of Cultural Crisis (for Kiyomi Tanouye, R.I.P)<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Thinking About Poetry
Readings & Collaboration In Time Of Cultural Crisis<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(for Kiyomi Tanouye, R.I.P)<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I haven’t got asked in a long time, but I turned down a
poetry reading today. I used to do them all the time. Excuses, excuses. I’m not
ready. It’s been over a decade since the last book, “aside from my job, I’ve
become a hermit,” etc…..but does the feeling of being crippled, not fully
comfortable in body, an awareness of metal where there should be leg, have
something to do with it?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One aspect of the PTSD I’ve struggled with since that near
fatal accident in 2004 I probably need to come to terms with is a phenomenon
you could call “stage fright.” I stopped doing poetry readings when people
asked until they stopped asking, but I don’t know if <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fear</i> is really at the essence of it. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As I lie bedridden, I thought back to the days when I had
two good legs, and those long NYC trudges through the brown ice and snow, with
a group often as big as 20 (mostly) poets, looking for a bar or restaurant with
circular tables for a more democratic post-reading talk than was possible at
the places with long thin “last supper style” tables which encourage
hierarchical pecking orders. And, during these walks, the conversational
pairing off that happened was almost as fun and enlightening as when we finally
got to sit in the bar (and occasionally switch seats so we could be social
fireflies), but that seemed no longer possible now that such walks were
impossible, and, besides the Bay Area is not the walking city NYC was (except
perhaps during Litquake or Beastcrawl).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was often on these
walks or restaurants afterwards that I felt that poetry came socially closest
to being a collaborative art form (even if, or maybe even because, the
conversations were not themselves commodified). In NYC, many mastered the art
of talking over someone in order to listen better!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Indeed, the riot of enthusiasms issuing from many inwardly
directed writers could be intoxicating, and even detoxifying, like these
conversations (even if at times contentious), allowed us to unleash much of
that energy pent-up from the protracted solitude our art required. These
conversations were also fertile ground for our writing to perhaps unpack or
sort or, on the other hand, let exist as fragments (or, in my case, somewhere
between; I should probably mention that this was before Facebook did a number
on the fragment). This mysterious, and/or even glorious, symbiosis, or see-saw,
that could occur between the solitary and the social was on full display here. It
was perhaps the closest that poets and novelists could get to that feeling when
a bunch of musicians decide that they’re sick of their solo acts, and will
gladly settle for only having 2 or 3 songs on an album to be part of a “super
group” that can create a sound larger, or deeper, than the sum of its parts. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The “poetry reading” that occasioned this wasn’t really the
performance, but rather the pre-text, or as one friend put it, “the poetry
reading’s like the emperor’s new clothes,” and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Sometimes you need a “thing” (or pre-text) or nothing’s gonna happen.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s easy to forget how relatively new the whole standard of
the poetry reading is. It wasn’t so big in Williams’ and Stevens’ day. Even
O’Hara did relatively few. The so-called “founders” of the American Canon,
Dickinson and Whitman demurred, and, as Anselm Berrigan put it back in the 90s,
“Catallus never had to go down on a mic.” It rose, perhaps, as a democratizing
tendency in the 50s and 60s. I think I embraced it because it could save the
page from itself (just as the page could save the stage from itself): When I
first started giving readings, I learned it’s always important to read some
work you don’t consider finished so you can hear what you sound like trying to
say it to a room full of people. You can tell if you come off pretentious, but
then some are charmed by what others consider pretentious, and that is probably
unavoidable, but a lot of this is happening on an unspoken level, and it
doesn’t matter if you’re just projecting because it helps you revise. Perhaps
that’s the highest function of the reading?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yes, I too have enjoyed the speedy wash of words over me, as
I stood at the back of St. Mark’s Poetry Project, with Meg Arthurs, swaying and
crossing the line, a little too much for some, into dancing, and, yes, feeling
the beautiful disorientation and the implied task of later, in solitude,
reading the book, if there was a book.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have loved the readers who aspire more to “stand-up
comedy” as well as those who aspire more to prayer (though preferring the more
collective Afrocentric notions of praise to the Euro-American dominant forms).
And I’m enough of a narcissist to have loved the sound of my electrically
amplified voice when I lean into the microphone and recite soft and deep, and
then step away from it and get louder and flail. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ah, but what’s a poetry reading without the post-reading soiree? Is it
as barren as a computer without an internet?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At the typical poetry reading, the room was mostly filled
with other poets. This is largely a group for whom the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">essence</i> of artistic creation is solitary, individual, and/or
“sullen” and/or “nest like,” a community of inwardly directed folks (which is
not necessarily synonymous with shy. I speak as one of these people, and am
proudly introvert!), and there’s nothing wrong with that! Yet even back in the
days when I did many poetry readings (though I aspired to the kind of ‘in
between poem’ digressions that Creeley and Baraka often did; word-jazz), I was
skeptical about whether the standard ritual and/or institution of the poetry
reading did justice to the poems, and I know others felt the same way.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For me, what made a poem on the page such an experience is
that I (and I don’t think I’m alone in this) can spend more time on the
sentences and lines, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">slow down time!</i>
I can spend an hour on a poem that you spent 3 minutes reading at the reading
(which is much better than spending 5 minutes hogging up or “wolfing” down
something you spent 3 hours cooking), and intimately enter into a conversation
with it. I can go back and forth between two poems, in two different books, and
write while reading, bike around the block to decompress and them come back and
read it again. It’s like a solitary sublimated version of the collective moshpit
molecule dance, and the walls come a’ crumblin’ down (or are built again, more
beautiful, superior---of doors).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At the reading, by contrast, it’s more difficult to catch up
with words that some might say “slither while they pass they drift away.” I
could latch onto something you said in the third poem, but by the time the
reading was over I had forgotten and after the reading we talk and I’m like
“wow, there was something <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really great</i>
in your third poem, but I uh…..forget,” and of course some take that as an
insult. Or I could sit there, or stand there, taking notes (Bruce Andrews would
show by example, and I appreciated that!), but some would take that as an
insult….<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ever notice how many times poets apologize if anybody in the
audience has heard a poem before, in contrast to musicians? Does anybody else
(aside from Kaya Oakes, author of “Why Poetry Readings Suck”) feel that the
standard (white) reading creates an event-matrix in which most of the audience
feels alienated from the essence of creation, as even perhaps does the one
performing his or her poem? And, what alternatives would you suggest? I’m
certainly not going to suggest making them On-line! Whatever negative I say
about the reading-centric culture, it would be even worse if made more
‘virtual.’<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I could get on my high horse and say that the standard
idea of a poetry community mediated socially by the “reading” promotes a
climate and a culture of glut, as if we would have been more glamourously,
intimately, and efficiently “fed” by the reading if, instead of reading 20
pages in the 20-to-30 minutes allowed, we’d perhaps read one or two pages and
then have a discussion about it. This form of distribution would honor the
“less is more” aesthetic that poetry often relies on. That does seem to happen
on special occasions (like when PennSound has those Poem-talks, and, the model
that collection <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Writing/Talks </i>put
together in the late 80s still has potential), but I seriously believe the
poetry scene, as a whole, would benefit if we considered doing more of this. I
mean, if we’re gathered together to honor the writing, we might as well let the
writing come alive verbally (not to snuff out improvisation, but we could even
announce the text, or at least one of them, in advance, so people can come
prepared with questions). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And if you get to noticing that this starts to sound
suspiciously like a classroom, perhaps it’s an occupational hazard. Speaking
only for myself, I’ve found the creative writing workshop more collaborative,
collective, and communal than 99% of poetry readings. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5790787681689660413#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>I’m
not suggesting we entirely <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">replace</i>
the standard reading, but at least ask ourselves ways we could do better, to
supplement rather than supplant. Not that “getting” the words the way you do
when reading in solitude is always the most important aspect of the performance
if the sound of the reader can evoke a feeling, and, certainly, if the reading
includes music, to engage our bodies, I have no problem with not “getting” all
the words.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe I’ll do a reading again, but I feel I need music, and
not simply <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">phanopiea</i>….. Music, at its
performative essence, makes more room for call and response, and is more
collaborative and democratic. Despite the much touted biopic stories or
legendary bands breaking up because of “egos” or “musical differences” (to say
nothing of record labels trying to play band members off each other to double
their profits), looking at the way music operates socially from the perspective
of “the poetry scene,” the fact that these bands even got together in the first
place almost becomes a superhuman feat of collectivism! That’s partially
because there’s a different ontology proposed than for poetic creation. Since
the creation of the artifact happens more collectively, on a de facto (if not
quite de jure, alas) level, there’s a more visceral democracy in which the
whole is greater than the sum of its parts; sure, our solitary art may have
helped prepare us for it, but it’s easier to break down some walls between
individuals as well as the audience and the performer.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But collaboration in poetry is generally considered a
novelty, or “something extra;” it’s a stunted art compared to music. It’s
certainly more difficult (if not impossible) to argue that it is the essence of
poetic creation, but maybe poetry readings or “poetry scenes” could benefit if
we encouraged more collaboratively written poems (combining lyric and narrative
perhaps). We could demand that every MFA program have at least one course in
collaboratively written poems (or that each graduate thesis must include at
least 20% collaborative poems), and there should be more book contests for
collaborative pieces. I believe such modest proposals could help combat the tyranny
of essentialism and individualism that so many poets, on paper at least, are
right to call out but that nonetheless haunts much of the literary world, on a
“poetics of institutional structural level” that many resign themselves to. It
could also help create a larger audience for poetry if you’re into that kind of
thing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Feel free to argue with me, or to refuse, but I believe it
could have positive aesthetic and ethical consequences, even if we stop shy of
pooling our resources for a live/work/performance venue to help revitalize
local culture in an era when Big Tech is doing its best to destroy what’s left
of it. Or, I could get all manifesto like, and say, “we demand a moratorium on
all poetry readings that are not either dance shows, or organizational
meetings”—but it’s probably better to make it a character in a polyvocal poem
or piece of “flesh fiction.” Music, of course, is often an organizational
meeting even when it’s not (just as music therapy is often more effective when
it’s not called that), especially in times of cultural crisis, and, again, I
think of Kiyomi Tanouye, who perished in the Oakland warehouse fire of 2016.
She had a knack for creating multi-genre events in which introverts and
extroverts could meet from the ground up in which the poets don’t feel crowded
out by the dancers.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Chris Stroffolino<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5790787681689660413#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">See Notes To An MFA In Non-Poetry
(Spuyten Duyvil, 2017).<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-19946928281511954892017-10-10T19:35:00.000-07:002017-10-10T19:35:01.792-07:00John Ashbery's "Listening Tour"---A Reading<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0CRRlxh7HcMDqK4KsR_qQTSfyye5wQeT0KGHhF44RLXddp8dvGfE4d_Yd-dW_E9hBX7pxsQy3_k6nbRwoi-kTaJP69Dt6rHIpBOvBMTr1JDTOGFiCpekx-FFvQk_8Nmwm-7QBJj4GtEeJ/s1600/th.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="278" data-original-width="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0CRRlxh7HcMDqK4KsR_qQTSfyye5wQeT0KGHhF44RLXddp8dvGfE4d_Yd-dW_E9hBX7pxsQy3_k6nbRwoi-kTaJP69Dt6rHIpBOvBMTr1JDTOGFiCpekx-FFvQk_8Nmwm-7QBJj4GtEeJ/s1600/th.jpeg" /></a></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">I tried, but forgive me John, if I can’t write about
you without also writing about myself….<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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In her brilliant and moving tribute to John Ashbery,
Kimberly Quiogue Andrews writes:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“But at the same time, we’re all trying a little bit to get
out from under our various elitisms.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ashbery’s later poetry tries almost <i>too</i> hard
to do this, revels almost <i>too</i> much in its “gee willikers!”
performance of nonchalance. It’s why a lot of the excerpted bits of verse
you’ll see in our collective mourning will be from the ’70s and ’80s, those
earnest decades in which Ashbery’s poetry hummed with a desire to crack the
code of itself.” I certainly will not quarrel with the many celebrations of
Ashbery’s earlier work, which has been a profound influence on my own, but
reading his later poetry leaves me with the feeling that perhaps we just
haven’t caught up with it yet.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In his review of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Breezeway</i>
(2015), Dan Chiasson writes, “the finest lyrics in this book rank with
Ashbery’s best short poems.” One of these poems, according to Chiasson, is
“Listening Tour.” Here’s the first stanza of this two stanza poem:<o:p></o:p></div>
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We were arguing about whether NBC<o:p></o:p></div>
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was better than CBS. I said CBS<o:p></o:p></div>
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because it’s smaller and had to work<o:p></o:p></div>
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harder to please viewers. You didn’t<o:p></o:p></div>
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like either that much but preferred<o:p></o:p></div>
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smaller independent companies.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Just then an avalanche flew<o:p></o:p></div>
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overhead, light blue against the<o:p></o:p></div>
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sky’s determined violet. We<o:p></o:p></div>
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started to grab our stuff but<o:p></o:p></div>
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it was too late. We segued . . .<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Of the many ways that this poem can be read---Susan Schultz
reads it in light of recent American politics and Hillary Clinton’s listening
tours---I currently favor an interpretation in which the “Listening Tour” is
not a politician’s, but, rather, Ashbery’s own.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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In an interview published in the New York Times on May 7,
2015 (not long after <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Breezeway</i> was
published), he said: “I’m told that my poetry has influenced a lot of younger
poets, so it’s nice to find someone who might have absorbed it at second hand
and be trying to shake it off — nice, that is, for showing me how to shake off
my own influence.” This is a beautiful short description of the kind of (anti-essentialist
intersubjective) democratic mutuality the later Ashbery finds and encourages in
the process of reading and writing, as if to strip away the hierarchy clothes
and one-sided narratives of “anxiety of influence” and such that may put up
barriers between a famous poet and acolytes, imitators, the so-called “small
people”—but, rather, see if what they have to say, their concerns, etc., can
maybe influence his policies, or platform, I mean poetry, and at the same time
save him from becoming a cliché immured in a not-so-divine sepulcher of a mere signature
style. Or, you could say, in contrast to contemporary politicians, Ashbery may,
sometimes at least, campaign in prose, but he governs in poetry.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ashbery does not simply listen, but actively engages the
“you” on his listening tour. The argument that starts “Listening Tour” is
cordial, chatty, and seemingly gentlemanly enough (even if it may fall short of
being a marriage of true minds). The “you” doesn’t necessarily disagree that
NBC is worse than CBS, and the “I” doesn’t necessarily disagree that “smaller
independent companies” are better…. Furthermore, Ashbery obviously did his
research, for indeed CBS did have to “work harder” than NBC/RCA (CBS,
incidentally, was born around the same time Ashbery himself was in 1927).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
The poem invites the reader to cast his or her self into the
role of the “I” or the “you,” but, as is often the case with his later work, I
find it uncannily easy to identify with the “you” of this poem, as if Ashbery
and I had the same thought at the same time, or perhaps that he had seen an
essay I wrote (and if, so, it’s hard to avoid an embarrassment that he could be
“slumming” it in my writing, like a negative muse).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of course, this argument about networks may not be that
important at all (abstracted as it is from body language), but is really more
of a set-up for what happens next: the avalanche!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The avalanche suggests a clean break----“and now for
something completely different” (as Monty Python would put it), as we must bow
down before necessity, perhaps, or confront mortality……but it’s no ordinary
avalanche…. for what kind of avalanche is it that flies (not falls) overhead?
Can that be properly called an avalanche? It doesn’t seem to be cutting the
very ground out from under us, but rather inspiring awe; it didn’t destroy us,
but passed us by, maybe even waving and smiling. This avalanche, you could say,
went over our head (spared us), and it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say
that this avalanche that didn’t hit us is a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">virtual</i>
or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">vicarious </i>avalanche, an avalanche
we wouldn’t know about without the network airwaves (to say nothing of today’s
wireless networks). Could this perhaps be saying something about the over-saturation
of pop culture? Or have we left such trivial debates behind? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Is the “avalanche” like that moment when you’re on a long
walking/talking date with a fast-talking New Yorker and suddenly s/he snaps you
out of your logorrhea and says “look at that bird” and that could humble you
into the kind of shared silence that has to happen before the kiss? Or has even
a word as powerful as “avalanche” lost its power to rouse the reader out of
complacency or the triviality of overdosing on culture-criticism and media
studies from the perspective of a poet who (as Chiasson writes in his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New Yorker</i> review of the book) “has gone
further from literature within literature than any poet alive?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And, of course, the aesthete in me loves the color
combination, as if this represents the “shared view” beyond argument, the
sunset perhaps, but does the personified violet keep our mind off the argument,
or does it tell us something about either the “I” or the “you” (who are having,
or being had by, the argument) with which the poem started (I.e.—one is more
“light” and the other more “determined”), and why would this flying light blue
avalanche in twilight time make us want to start “to grab our stuff?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And why was it too late? Was the avalanche going to hit us
after all? Were we, was “the we,” too busy enjoying the beauty of slowing down
time, of seeing the disaster as a kind of bird in flight, lost in wonder, or
what some would call “a zone,” that it become too late to save “our stuff?”Oh,
horrors; is Chiasson right, and this is the moment of death? The questions
proliferate…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But wait,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
too late for what?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I mean if it can be proven<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
there is no death but seque<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
… and ellipses….<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
as if somehow surviving <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
a disaster proves <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
it wasn’t a disaster?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Can we fuse—ourselves--<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
with death—<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
in a breezeway<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
or planisphere--to see?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Is it really posthumous, or just post us having lost “our
stuff”? And what is “our stuff?” Maybe looking at the second (and final)
stanza, can help explain:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And in another era the revolutions<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
were put down by the farmers,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
working together with the peasants<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And the enlightened classes. All<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
benefited in some way. That was<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
all I had to hear.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Whatever…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, given the contrast between the two stanzas, what do you
make of the elliptical segue, or the transition between them?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On one level, you could read it as death (as Chaisson,
apparently, does), but it could also be time travel back to another era,
presumably earlier than the present in which they’re arguing about 20<sup>th</sup>
century radio (and television) networks, a less urban and suburban, but more
rural, era, perhaps before electricity (or in a so-called “underdeveloped”
country), a more placeless and vague time, a prelapsarian, and perhaps
apocryphal, utopia.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What Susan Schultz calls this “bizarre take on revolutions”
may deserve further investigation. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In this poem, all (both manual laborers and intellectual
laborers) benefitted from the putting down of a revolution. There’s two
questions to ask: did such a thing happen (descriptive assumption) and would it
be a good thing if it did (value assumption), but since both “revolutions” and
“enlightened classes” are what we could call “loaded terms,” vexed terms (that
have been used by both left wing and right wing, the proles and the
corporatists), in order to know whether putting down a revolution does more
harm than good, or whether it has positive or negative connotations, we may
first have to define revolution is.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Long before I learned of the tradition in poetry in which “revolution”
is what Wallace Stevens calls “the pleasures of merely circulating,” my first
memory of the term revolution had positive connotations, torn between some
romanticized notion of the American and French revolutions of the late 18<sup>th</sup>
century, and the failed (or yet to happen) revolutions that Marx, Malcolm X,
The Black Panthers and Gil Scott Heron spoke about. Even though both are touted
as democratizing, in many ways, they are on opposite sides (the American
revolution, which by some definitions was really just a regime change, not only
didn’t deliver on its promise to free the slaves, but actually increased
slavery). So, the word could have as many negative connotations as positive---and
in the poem (on first reading at least), it seems to have negative connotations
(as if a revolution can keep everybody down!)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The American Revolution is also contemporaneous with the
“Scientific Revolution” or “The Enlightenment,” a paradigm shift that coincided
with the rise of “the enlightened classes” that parallels the advance of
capitalism, the slave trade, the Enclosure Acts that harmed the majority of farmers
and peasants, and paved the way for “industrial revolution” and the subjugation
of nature by “enlightened man.” But doesn’t the word “enlightened classes” make
you cringe? Would it be better to say “intelligentsia,” “public intellectuals”
or “culture workers?” Does the phrase itself imply hierarchical snobbery
(peasants and farmers can’t be enlightened)? And does this argument have
anything to do with the argument about CBS, NBC and the indies? I suspect
Ashbery is up to something else here, but before we get into what that might
be, I think it’s important to shift our attention (back to) the poem’s
relational “framing device.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In this second stanza, you may notice how both the “I” and
the “you” (and even the “we”) are entirely absent in the first two sentences
(or 5 lines). Now, let’s pause, or at least slow down, to consider what the
transitional line unit (as opposed to the sentence unit):<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“benefitted in some way. That was”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
feels like the first time you’re reading it before the next
line closes the sentence. At first, you may think it’s a continuation of the
same argument about the revolution, as if he’s going to say “That was…..a
better time” or, in the plural, join Edith and Archie or Mary Hopkins, in
singing “Those were the days.” The re-emergence of the “I” in the next line,
however, is jarring, especially considering that the “you” has not re-emerged.
While it’s possible that the “I” survived the avalanche that the “you” died in,
it seems more likely that the last two sentences retroactively changes (or at
least contextualizes) the meaning of the first five lines by suggesting that
they were spoken by the “you,” and that, despite the avalanche, they’re still
continuing the argument, as if there are invisible quotation marks around the
first five lines. If it’s the same “you,” is it possible that this coalition of
farmers, peasants and the enlightened classes is to the “smaller independent
companies” what the revolution is to NBC!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In this light, Ashbery is not telling us what he thinks
about revolutions, but simply describing what a “you” he meets on his listening
tour says. “That was/ all I had to hear.” could theoretically signify
excitement, as if to continue, “and I was hooked,” but, as the final line makes
clear, it signifies disgust, dismissal, contempt, even hurt…..as if this person
the “I” meets on his listening tour could very well be like those folks wearing
a “Make America Great Again” hat, being interviewed (by small independent
journalists, if not CBS or NBC), and when asked “when was America great the
first time” can’t come up with a specific time in which “all benefitted.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Indeed, while the argument about Networks could seem a
little more relevant to the present, the argument in this stanza is even more
vague and general than the historical shifts with which Ashbery starts
“Definition of Blue,” from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Double Dream
of Spring (1970</i>):<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The rise of capitalism parallels the advance of romanticism<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And the individual is dominant until the close of the
nineteenth century.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In our own time, mass practices have sought to submerge the
personality<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By ignoring it, which has caused it instead to branch out in
all directions<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
From the permanent tug that used to be its notion of “home.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Somehow between the stanzas of “Listening Tour,” the
argument became more one-sided, more monologic, and more impersonal. And the
final two sentences makes it clear that the “you” has lost the “I” as if the
argument the “you” proffers is like that avalanche flying over the head of the
“I” and frankly of itself, as if the avalanche had bombed it back to the stone
age….or puts up a Trumpian wall, as if the “you” needed to get the last word,
and fell into what Paolo Friere would call “the banking model” of conversation.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If it is the sentence, “All/ benefitted in some ways” that
triggers Ashbery’s disgust, the final “Whatever….” hits hard, as if you can
hear him muttering beneath his breath the word “dude!” as in “whatever dude.”
In this light, the line break “That was/ all I had to hear” can also be read as
“that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">was</i> was all I had to hear” (as
if to say, “get out of the past, and help the present!”)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You could even say the word “Whatever,” in this poem at
least, has more power than the “avalanche” did to shake one of habitual
thinking. One reader (who prefers not to be named) told me that the didactic
point of this poem was to contrast poetry with cultural criticism, but he’s not
condemning all cultural criticism here, just particular ones with a tendency to
make too easy generalizations about eras. His permissiveness ensures that the
disgust is more with a particular kind of argument, not necessarily the person
making it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Furthermore, going back at least as far as “Definition of
Blue,” Ashbery has over and over used poetry as a tool to rebuke the temptation
for any sense of “the good old days” (that sometimes haunts his poems, for
instance in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Where Shall I Wander</i>) in
his relentless futurity (which even at age 88 had not abandoned him!). Reading
this poem makes me realize how, in a history of radio and the record industry I
wrote for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">RadioSurvivor.com, </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I fell into the tendency to over-idealize at
least one sector of what economists call “The Great Compression” (1945-1965)
era, in an abstract way, being that I didn’t live through it. John, unlike me,
did live through that period and certainly knew damn well that all didn’t
benefit: Jim Crow, for instance, and Ashbery’s own lived experience of having
struggled against homophobia in that normative closeted era.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In my essay about NBC, CBS and smaller independent radio
stations and record labels, I was trying to master a rhetorical strategy one
often finds in economists like Robert Reich and Joseph Stiglitz, historians
like Howard Zinn, or cultural and music critics like Nelson George: that the
people’s movements that helped create the middle class paralleled the
grassroots building of a cultural infrastructure in mid-20<sup>th</sup> century
America, and took a stand against the corporatists (like CBS and NBC) who used
words like progress to signify their “revolution!” My argument about the
networks and the independents takes place in this mid-century context, and a
sense of nostalgia informs it, and, as everyone knows, it’s easy to be
nostalgic for a time before you were born.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In this essay, I make exactly the same argument the you of
the first stanza of “Listening Tour” makes; I wrote this essay for a different
audience in 2011, after the illegal corporate takeover of a local community
radio station. I felt that somehow spending 6 months researching a “people’s
history of radio and the record industry” in the 20<sup>th</sup> century would
help me ground my argument to help in the fight to save KUSF!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It didn’t occur to me that John might read
it, but it’s hard not to wonder, especially given the fact that he liked my old
poetry, and even though I hadn’t seen him in a decade since I moved to
California, he might have checked out what I’m up to (and this is the era of
Google).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Given what he says about reading writers who are influenced
by him and watching them try to shake off his influence to show him ways to
shake off his own, I could flatter myself to say that, stylistically, this poem
may be a tribute to the “careless brilliance” JA admired about my work: I’m
pretty sure I have at least one poem that begins with “we were arguing.” One
may also notice Ashbery’s use of (clunky) lines with feminine endings, which
I’m told was part of my “signature style” (much to Marjorie Perloff’s chagrin).
A Rock critic once wrote that Lou Reed’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Transformer</i>
was Reed trying to imitate Bowie who was trying to imitate him, but if indeed
Ashbery is imitating his imitator here, it must clearly be said that “he does
Stroffolino better than Stroffolino.” So any pride I feel, if flattered, is
mixed with enough shame and embarrassment (was I a negative muse?) that the two
may cancel out to leave a sense of futurity---and even though that final
“Whatever” may hurt like a door slam shut, there’s always the ellipses…..the
poem is a gift I cherish, even if I have to use the personal allegory to enter
into it. Meanwhile, onto the next…..person? channel? . <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the end, I read “Listening Tour” as a poem about an
argument, or conversation, that goes wrong. For, this isn’t ultimately a mere
poetic flight of fancy, but a hard-nosed realist anti-utopian anti-nostalgia
generalization poem….<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Chris
Stroffolino<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Name="List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
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Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5790787681689660413.post-45141582707660141952017-09-23T11:18:00.002-07:002017-09-23T11:18:28.065-07:00Thoughts Inspired By Jonathan Taplin’s Move Fast And Break Things (2017):<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHV0gJdFnI32DR2lIBPGrr7yAoTDV70ocdiXWVpZUCNQEc-OLq1RKdh5cd2mePHVc4BIwhvlrfOslyGiHAd6IuUALJKvpN8m8VKqy6mSmrPn9zt9_IhFFd3j_AwlAbKLZRIjWHyaRZ9RWC/s1600/51S7QCSSrQL._SX320_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="322" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHV0gJdFnI32DR2lIBPGrr7yAoTDV70ocdiXWVpZUCNQEc-OLq1RKdh5cd2mePHVc4BIwhvlrfOslyGiHAd6IuUALJKvpN8m8VKqy6mSmrPn9zt9_IhFFd3j_AwlAbKLZRIjWHyaRZ9RWC/s320/51S7QCSSrQL._SX320_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="206" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; line-height: normal;"><i> </i> A).</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">An
Appeal To Warren Buffett and/or Pandora<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Have you ever read Ralph Nader’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Only The Super-Rich Can Save Us? </i>I haven’t, but I recently stumbled
on a cartoon starring the animated voice of Warren Buffett called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Secret Millionaires’ Club.</i> Buffett
gives animated pre-teen aspiring millionaires (we can’t all be billionaires
like Warren) innovative business solutions to everyday problems. You could call
it a kinder, gentler, version of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Apprentice</i> with the power to reach kids at an earlier age than Trump.
American Entrepreneurialism at its best. I don’t know how successful this show
is in making pre-teens think that Buffett and his ‘brand’ of capitalism is
cool, but this particular episode, titled “Avast Ye Downloads,” features an
aspiring rock band (they’re multi-gendered, and even multi-ethnic) upset that
all these people have downloaded their song for free, and trying to figure out
how to recoup their losses.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Meanwhile, one of their friends, Millie, is struggling
because her parents’ retail store (CDS, and maybe books) has closed down
because sales have plummeted thanks to the 21<sup>st</sup> century tech
“revolution” that has put so many out of business and onto the streets. No need
to worry, however, for luckily superhero Warren is here to save the day.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Though Buffett is only 1 of 2 on the list of top ten richest
men in the world who does not owe his fortune to tech, his advice to the kids
realizes that “if you can’t beat them, join them.” Accept the paradigm shift.
He’s certainly not going to suggest that we force Google subsidiary Youtube to
pay royalties to the artists for their song. Rather, he advises them to convert
the record store to an all-ages dance venue which will 1) allow Millie’s
parents to make at least as money as they did with a record store, and 2) give
the band a forum, a venue, with their ready made audience of kids who of course
love them, to showcase their new smash without having to rely on clueless and
greedy music industry middlemen down in LA. If the Music Industry does
eventually come to you, you can bargain from a position of strength!<o:p></o:p></div>
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They can use that great democratic medium of the internet to
get their songs out, and it doesn’t matter if they don’t make money on the art
object commodity anymore, because they can create a live experience that can
revitalize local culture! Even though these kids are all American, “anytown
USA,” wholesome, and their song is that boring kind of post-Green Day watered
down geeky rock (that doesn’t really rock), Buffett’s advice is kinda “punk
rock,” and not significantly different from, say, Steve Albini’s championing of
free-download culture. Certainly, Buffet doesn’t come off like an anti-fun cop
the way the RIAA executives too often come off like greedy scolds when
demonizing consumers with their talk of artists’ rights (that often don’t
trickle down to the artists after they blow the advance on necessities like survival).
I also like the way he seems to embrace a more decentralized, locally based
culture as opposed to today’s centralized LA-based music industry…. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Is Buffett’s vision realistic? Does he put his money where
his mouth is?<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5790787681689660413#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
or has he just drunk the tech utopian’s Kool aid that disguises libertarianism
as democratic? <o:p></o:p></div>
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First, this fantasy assumes that there are still enough
people who can afford to go to such shows that would generate enough revenue to
keep up with the constantly rising prices of rent in places where they can find
jobs (or that they even have leisure time to see shows in between working 2 or
3 jobs, and long commute times)….I mean, maybe it’s possible for a kids’
“hobby” band in the socialist economy of officially standard pre-18-year-old family
life (no homeless street kids in this Secret Millionaires Club!), but the
second you have to pay your own room and board, bye-bye, your nice little youth
art scene, time to grow up now and get serious like Warren.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Secondly, given the expenses it takes to record music, and
to convert a record store into a performance venue that’s “up to code” (and can
pay all the municipal fees to be legal), obviously, it would take an influx of venture
capital to pull it off. One might think if Buffett truly believed that this
would be a way to save small businesses (record stores, and bands) that are
threatened by the technocracy, that he’d make funds available to do so, that a
venture capitalist like Buffett should do more than offer kids a story that is
more fantasy than reality.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But even if Warren Buffett won’t put his money where his
mouth is, I wonder if other institutions with cultural clout will? A coalition
of artists, musicians and other culture workers have tried to appeal to the
City Hall of our town that the arts can be an “economic engine,” for this city,
but our offers (and/or pleas) have fallen on the deaf ears of a government too
busy privatizing what used to be its legendary civic auditorium back when
Oakland took more pride in its culture. So I ask even though Big Tech got us
into this mess, could Big Tech help get us out of it, maybe by providing some
form of reparations for destroying the record,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>book and even video, stores? And can we convince them it’s in their
self-interest to do so?<o:p></o:p></div>
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I think of that streaming service, Pandora, which is based
in my town, and has employed some musicians I know. Nonetheless, as a music
distribution service, it might as well be located in the everywhere-and-nowhere
placelessness of web culture. It has no particular connection, or allegiance,
with local musical culture. By contrast, 50 years ago, one block from where
Pandora’s HQ now stands, the radio station KDIA made much more room for the
local than Pandora does, while still being connected to a national (but more
decentralized) culture.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Now, Pandora may not exactly be up there with Facebook,
Google, and Amazon in the super rich category, but if they could devote some
resources into the creation of a multi-genre “local music” channel, ideally
somewhat curated, it could help create a sense of local pride in the wealth of
culture available in this town in which many more young folks are more aware of
the music being imported from LA than of the great musicians who may live on
the same block. If Pandora, or other digital tech services, would take a chance
to re-establish connections with the community in which it’s based, it could
create avenues so that some of the “entertainment buck” that is currently being
drained from our town to enrich Hollywood and Silicon Valley’s coffers, could
stay local and may even create a cultural export to help brand Oakland (or
insert your town here)…<o:p></o:p></div>
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In trying to convince the techies that such ideas would be
in their self-interest, I’ve found myself banging my head against the wall for
several years, and Jonathan Taplin’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Move
Fast And Break Things</i> confirms my suspicions that the reason the venture
capitalists in the tech sector remain unreceptive to such an alliance with
local musician collectives is not simply because they are indifferent to local
culture, but actively hostile to it. Since Silicon Valley’s reigning ideology,
by their own admission, is monopolistic, anti-democratic (and libertarian),
they consider a thriving local music and arts culture a threat to their business
model at least as much as Hollywood has since the 1970s. Besides, a thriving
local arts culture could lure people away from spending so much time on social
media! So, if we can’t find venture capitalists in the tech sector to realize
how local “independent” music can help them, maybe Hollywood’s music industry,
who has also been decimated by Big Tech in the 21<sup>st</sup> century, may
finally realize that supporting local music may be in its best interest….<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">B) What Kind of Co-op
Can You imagine: Notes To A Plea To Hollywood<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">“I’m not interested in
nostalgia but rather in figuring out what changed.” (240)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">“The entirely new fact is
that the monopolist in the digital world enjoys a power that the monopolist in
the physical world does not. This is the ability [not only] to isolate
producers one from another and discriminate among them, but also to isolate
consumers from one another and discriminate among them.”(120).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">“If the digital revolution
has devalued the role of the creative artist in our society, then we need to do
more than play around the edges.” (279)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">“On November 13 and 14, 2015,
around one thousand activists and techies met at the New School in New York
City to talk about reinventing the internet. Their hope was to create a co-op
model: individuals dealing directly with each other without having to go
through data-scraping corporate hubs such as Google and Facebook.” (214)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Subsidiarity, according the
Oxford English Dictionary, is “the idea that a central authority should have a
subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed
effectively at a more immediate or local level.” (267)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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I love Jonathan Taplin’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Move
Fast And Break Things</i> (2017) not simply for its brilliant diagnosis of the
cultural and economic crisis in which most Americans find themselves in the era
of 21<sup>st</sup> Century Monopoly Technocracy, but also because of its
passionate defense of an alternative ethos (for instance, “Small is
beautiful”), and possible solutions for collective institutional change that
could better the lives of the vast majority of us. Taplin’s wisdom is backed up
by 50 years of experience working in the culture and/or entertainment industry,
and he does an amazing job of creating cross-generational solidarity against a
common enemy in unregulated 21<sup>st</sup> century technocracy. He compels me
to ask some difficult questions.<o:p></o:p></div>
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When he spoke to an audience of mostly Generation Xers and
Millennial “creative types,” in Oakland this summer, the talk inevitably turned
to how Big Tech is largely responsible for the crisis in the music industry and
culture, and possible ways out of it. Near the end of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Move Fast and Break Things</i>, Taplin writes: what if artists ran a
video and audio streaming site as a nonprofit cooperative? Let’s assume they
would let the co-op keep 10 percent of the revenue, either from ads or
subscriptions, in order to run the infrastructure and have money for general
marketing. The artist would take the remaining 90 percent..” 269<o:p></o:p></div>
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Such “cooperatives do not ask artists to forgo other
distribution outlets but rather enable them to take advantage of a series of
distribution windows that could lead to much higher income, even if it means
less for the middleman. The model exists in the music business in the form of
Bandcamp……” (271, 272). But Taplin is aware of a need to go beyond the Bandcamp
model. “In an ideal world, this kind of decentralized infrastructure of artist
co-ops might bring back some of the regional distinctions” (273) before the
industry centralized in Hollywood circa 1970. So how do we bring back
regionalism?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Bandcamp may be fine for some musicians, but its default
position is placeless. And, in an era in which “the longstanding principles of
individual success, taken for granted by an older generation, are moving out of
fashion,”(271) it lacks a collective thrust needed for the daunting task of
luring the music listener and/or consumer away from Youtube and other
established streaming services (especially in an era when Youtube’s parent
company Google can make sure your streaming site doesn’t show up high in its
search engine). I think such a co-operative would need to be primarily locally
based, connected to an actual place, say a live/work performance venue that’s
also a recording studio (like the warehouse I lived in here in Oakland before the
city government used the tragedy of a warehouse fire to crack down on such
spaces). Nor need such a nonprofit cooperative be exclusive or based on genre,
or sub-genre and niche-marketing. It could provide an alternative to the
placeless and niche music culture encouraged by the web (in conjunction with
the major labels), but emphasizing an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">eclectic</i>
array of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">local</i> musicians. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We don’t have to like each other’s music to
work together for the greater health of the local culture in the spirit of
“unity in diversity” or strength in numbers…..</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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The nonprofit cooperative video and streaming site could not
only serve the function that “the record store” (or video store) did in the 20<sup>th</sup>
century, but also take on some of the functions the radio had, or should I say
podcast. DJs will curate shows of new, local, talent, and host local events
(for instance a dance craze contest, open to musicians of all genres, or
another contest in which musicians write tribute songs to the heroic efforts of
the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga against the digital monopolies) to
strengthen the connection between recorded and live music, and create a
productive symbiosis between the virtual reality and the visceral reality, to
restore the “balance between local and global” (273) Taplin claims his NPR
station has…..and, working from the grass roots, could perhaps provide some
push back against the trickle-down culture that Big Tech pushes on us. Yet,
this would be difficult to start without some venture capital….perhaps a
public/private partnership….<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">C) Generation Gap:
Appeal To Hollywood<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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When Taplin talks about regionalism I get nostalgic for the
days when many musicians didn’t have to become national celebrities, or move to
LA, to make a living….And I can hear cheers coming from the audience when he
says, “In a culture such as ours, which has long advocated a “melting pot”
philosophy that papers over differences, it is valuable to recognize that
allowing our dissimilarities to act as barriers is not the same as appreciating
the things that make each culture unique, situated in time and space and
connected to particular people.”(29)<o:p></o:p></div>
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While Taplin got his first gig working with Bob Dylan in
1965 in an era of top 40 radio that appreciated “the things that make each
culture unique, situated in time and space and connected to particular people”
much more than today’s more monopolistic culture, many in attendance at the
talk came of age at least 20 years later, in an era of diminishing returns for
innovative musicians, yet <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">before</i> the
advent of the internet. We are often labelled “underground” because we try to
create a grass roots locally-based sustainable minimalist cultural economy
(like they could in the 40s and 50s) against increasingly difficult odds, or
you could say we were abandoned by the record industry. For instance, a
national network of local Punk and Hip hop rose from the ruins left by 70s
centralized corporate radio and record industry only to be cherry picked,
coopted, and fragmented by it circa 1991. The Telecom Act of 96 played a role
in further exacerbating a wealth gap in the music business (narrowing
playlists, and purging much of the more innovative hip hop and post-punk
alternative from the radio), as did the media conglomerates devoting much more
energy and money into pushing music from a previous generation at our expense
than they did when that generation was our age. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Taplin paints a picture of an old Hollywood that valued
frugality and transparent relationships with its artists, but that was largely
gone in our (pre-internet) era: a bridge had become a wall. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This hurt the consumer too. The RIAA labels’, and Media conglomerates
like Clearchannel, short-sighted bottom-line obsessed cultural economy in the
80s and 90s created much discontent among both producers and consumers of
music. This became fertile ground for Napster, and, later, Youtube to prey on.
I also believe that had record labels not phased out the more affordable
single, and inflated the price of the CD-single, or EP (with maybe 4 songs) to
$9.99 while the full length CDs prices nudged close to $20.00, that many would
not have been attracted to Napster’s promise of “free.” I think many would have
gladly paid <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">less</i>, but the only
alternative available was “free.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Thus, many musicians have an almost ideological opposition
to Hollywood’s “Blockbuster” mandate for success, but know that music comes
alive more in small venues. Many understand the phrase D.I.Y (do it yourself)
is not just about “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">individuals </i>dealing
directly with each other without having to go through data-scraping corporate
hubs such as Google and Facebook,” (120—emphasis added), but was originally
understood more collectively (do it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ourselves</i>),
and labored intensely in defiance of Hollywood’s gerrymandered niche marketing
relentlessly bent on dividing us. Some of us may have fallen for the
temptation, and the promises that the web could liberate us and provide an
alternative to the way the music industry had disseminated local scenes, only
to see Big Tech cut further the ground out from under our alternative arts scenes
in a number of insidious ways, including gentrification (though that’s outside
of the scope of this essay): meet the new boss, worse than the old boss….<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, reading <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Move Fast
And Break Things</i> almost makes me feel sorry for the old-money mostly white
male Hollywood oligarchy, and the thought occurs to me, “if they too have been
victimized by the New Technocracy, maybe they could be an ally?” Maybe Taplin,
“with suspiciously close ties to the entertainment industry establishment” can
be an ambassador and help forge a truce between Hollywood and us.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Though many agreed with Taplin about the cultural and
economic disaster the technocracy has caused, we wonder if Hollywood can be a
true ally, given its own history of crushing local music scenes almost every
time they sprung up in the last third of the 20<sup>th</sup> century? Can the
Hollywood establishment bury its hatchet with local musicians and regional
scenes and be willing to forge a new coalition against the Technocracy that has
hurt both of us? Can Hollywood realize that it’s in its self-interest to work
with the “underground?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Surely, we can find common ground with Hollywood and the
RIAA establishment. Even if we may not have been receiving as much in record
sales in the “Jam-Econo” era (the regimen of relentless touring of a national
college radio small venue circuit until your lead singer/ guitarist dies on the
road in a van), and thus may not have felt the sting that maybe Sting and his
ilk felt when sales royalties dropped in the 00s (“when you ain’t got nuthin,
you got nuthin to lose’), it doesn’t mean that any of us would object if we did
get more fairly compensated for our artifacts—but for this to happen in the
internet age the old Hollywood/RIAA/Clearchannel media conglomerates have to be
seduced and convinced that it is in their best interests to cede some of their
centralized power back to what currently remains of the local communities…to
the benefit of all.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Taplin quotes Yrval Levin’s “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Fractured Republic: Renewing America’s Social Contract in the Age
of Individualism”</i> on the concept of “subsidiarity.” (267) Certainly, this
is lacking in the contemporary music, and culture, industries. Yet once upon a
time, back in Taplin’s day, the major labels had more regional offices (back
when they still had to compete with viable local labels that produced national
hits before they bought them out). Perhaps <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">subsidiarity</i>
is the only thing that can save Hollywood and, frankly, America.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So perhaps the streaming online and video cooperative
mentioned earlier (section B) can actually be funded by Hollywood and serve as
a “regional office” from their perspective, but one with much more autonomy,
rather than the “colonization” model some of these older regional offices
relied on. This would certainly help create the bridge between local and global
and make cultural exchange more of a two-way street rather than the one way
street it currently too often is. And I believe that if Hollywood took such a
chance, and rethought its model of how it pours its profit back in to investing
on content, it may be the one thing that can save it (and us). You have a choice,
Hollywood, either try to compete with Silicon Valley on its own terms, or
decentralize.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->#MoveFastAndBreakThings. #JonathanTaplin. #WarrenBuffett #SecretMillionairesClub<br clear="all" />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5790787681689660413#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"> Buffett is best known by many ‘progressives’ for his
comments about how whack the tax code is when his secretary pays more than him,
which makes him sound more ‘enlightened’ (noblesse oblige?) than many
billionaires, though he adds nothing about giving her a raise, or paying her
taxes! I suppose even a billionaire has more mouth than his money can back up;
I certainly do….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Chris Stroffolinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15592573837034477710noreply@blogger.com0