Amy King : Say To Me That Your Dreams
(Riding the Meridian)
A man walks through memory
to epileptic abscess broken intention,
"I am the animated texture of individual's sound,
one of convex edge and pointed item."
It is not health -- It floats.
The red person of legs admitted into
the vertical relief a circular staircase in aviation
bears the soft song of a bicycle Japan upon the full flight.
Hello man, we go with park,
"Having the power of aeons in some of my hand, a lead over my own position."
It draws fire
that the easy output is the enemy already extracted,
such dye erases fabric on the skin
placing the gate in the frame directly
behind the foreground gestures
while over the chest the wing tip stills
a wireless breeze of membrane.
@
I begin with King at the end of her work: the "wireless breeze of membrane," because for me it describes the kind of language enacted in the early part of this poem. It is, as poems like this -- poems with fractured language, disconnected parts, seemingly aleatoric conjunctions -- often are, a kind of work that resists interpretation. It is, to use Billy Collins' phrase, a work that is not accessible, there is no "obvious" way in to what is going on inside the text, and it would be weird or creepy of me to suggest otherwise. What is great, or, rather, one aspect of the fun King is having here, is that there is no way in which the language proffers some kind of promise of hidden sense -- there is no hidden "key" to be discovered.
For me, the most vibrant part of the poem is the final stanza, which compresses a series of strange instructions: instructions enacted, rather, that tell us how to construct a kind of barrier to sense. "Placing the gate in the frame directly / behind the foreground gestures." If we cast backward to the beginning of the poem, what seems at first a kind of damaged language becomes animated: "A man walks through memory / to epileptic abscess broken intention."
The staggering, in other words, is the poem's aesthetic, the resistance to sense means that the islands of sense -- walking through memory, going to the park -- gain an increased structural power, it is as if we navigate from line to line with these in mind. To say "here is where I am lost" is not the point, one is lost almost immediately, and if you're going to enjoy this poem, you're going to have to enjoy being lost, going to have to enjoy staggering until it feels like dancing, or at least skipping.
And enjoy skimming and non-linear reading -- jumping back and forward -- as well, going through words rapidly without needing to make sense of their connections -- or, rather, allowing connections to make themselves, even when contradictory. There is a demand in the reader for a kind of negative capability in the reading itself, a willingness to suspend the irritable reaching after fact. Take for instance the most seemingly inpenetrable stanza, the fourth: I belive that if you are not imagining, seeing, a circular staircase, going back and modifying it in the light of what comes after -- putting a bicycle inside of it, hearing a song in the stairwell -- you are not doing the necessary work to enjoy the poem.
I'm aware that for many of my readers this poem is just "crap." I think this kind of poem produces a strange kind of free-floating anxiety that can be released through contemplation or internet flames. I'd encourage posters to live with the poem for a while, letting its images and sound-images (think of that pidgin English, what does that evoke?) play on you, before posting, although, as with any kind of work that reaches a certain pitch of excellence, it does come down to a matter of taste.
A man walks through memory
to epileptic abscess broken intention,
"I am the animated texture of individual's sound,
one of convex edge and pointed item."
It is not health -- It floats.
The red person of legs admitted into
the vertical relief a circular staircase in aviation
bears the soft song of a bicycle Japan upon the full flight.
Hello man, we go with park,
"Having the power of aeons in some of my hand, a lead over my own position."
It draws fire
that the easy output is the enemy already extracted,
such dye erases fabric on the skin
placing the gate in the frame directly
behind the foreground gestures
while over the chest the wing tip stills
a wireless breeze of membrane.
@
I begin with King at the end of her work: the "wireless breeze of membrane," because for me it describes the kind of language enacted in the early part of this poem. It is, as poems like this -- poems with fractured language, disconnected parts, seemingly aleatoric conjunctions -- often are, a kind of work that resists interpretation. It is, to use Billy Collins' phrase, a work that is not accessible, there is no "obvious" way in to what is going on inside the text, and it would be weird or creepy of me to suggest otherwise. What is great, or, rather, one aspect of the fun King is having here, is that there is no way in which the language proffers some kind of promise of hidden sense -- there is no hidden "key" to be discovered.
For me, the most vibrant part of the poem is the final stanza, which compresses a series of strange instructions: instructions enacted, rather, that tell us how to construct a kind of barrier to sense. "Placing the gate in the frame directly / behind the foreground gestures." If we cast backward to the beginning of the poem, what seems at first a kind of damaged language becomes animated: "A man walks through memory / to epileptic abscess broken intention."
The staggering, in other words, is the poem's aesthetic, the resistance to sense means that the islands of sense -- walking through memory, going to the park -- gain an increased structural power, it is as if we navigate from line to line with these in mind. To say "here is where I am lost" is not the point, one is lost almost immediately, and if you're going to enjoy this poem, you're going to have to enjoy being lost, going to have to enjoy staggering until it feels like dancing, or at least skipping.
And enjoy skimming and non-linear reading -- jumping back and forward -- as well, going through words rapidly without needing to make sense of their connections -- or, rather, allowing connections to make themselves, even when contradictory. There is a demand in the reader for a kind of negative capability in the reading itself, a willingness to suspend the irritable reaching after fact. Take for instance the most seemingly inpenetrable stanza, the fourth: I belive that if you are not imagining, seeing, a circular staircase, going back and modifying it in the light of what comes after -- putting a bicycle inside of it, hearing a song in the stairwell -- you are not doing the necessary work to enjoy the poem.
I'm aware that for many of my readers this poem is just "crap." I think this kind of poem produces a strange kind of free-floating anxiety that can be released through contemplation or internet flames. I'd encourage posters to live with the poem for a while, letting its images and sound-images (think of that pidgin English, what does that evoke?) play on you, before posting, although, as with any kind of work that reaches a certain pitch of excellence, it does come down to a matter of taste.
produced by Simon | 6:35 PM
7 Comments:
Simon *is* good!
I read your review of my poem last night and immediately forwarded it to a few friends. Some replies this morning:
"Wonderful to have such careful, exact & intelligent attention to one's poem."
"-- he has said most clearly what readers have to do to get under the skin of your poetries: getting lost, putting linearity away, enjoying the non-fitting-together of the pieces. Very smart and well-deserved tribute …"
"I just printed it out, because he talks about negative capability and I just taught Keats. Maybe I can even use his review and your poem in a class …"
Likewise, I am flattered by your careful attention and insight on how to approach and read the poem ... you've stated it quite eloquently. Simplified, I initially try to teach my students that the "poetic impulse" is more of an effort to ‘make new’ or take apart and rearrange what has been naturalized: to veer from logical narrative paths because they always surface when sought, whether imposed by the reader’s selective sense-making or what the reader desires (& the poet always hopes the reader is open to many desires, however unfamiliar and regardless of her initial agenda).
Ultimately, the poem begins through the writer’s carving/crafting of what we each think we know, what we decide to include, and of course, what we leave out. Similarly, the reader might come to the poem with a hope, a need, or an expectation, but finally, she might find she is jarred or surprised—-and undone in an even more satisfying, memorable way.
Okay, enough: you don’t need me attempting what you’ve already said so well. I hope you keep up the good stuff on rhubarb is susan!
Thanks again, I am most grateful.
Amy
Hi Amy,
Thanks for your kind comments. I suppose I am a newcomer to some of this kind of verse; I would say that you are not writing in the language tradition, which is the "difficult" poetry I am most familiar with. There seems to be a sense in which the images you produce want to be taken serious in a narrative, but at the same time that narrative is fractured and essentially absent.
So there is a kind of absence at the center of your work which I find intriguing, but which is very different, I think, from the kind of absence that one finds in, say, Lyn Heijinian. For example, I think Heijinian wants to be read linearly.
Anyway, I'm happy to encounter your work, and I'm glad to get you on the blog with some of your own thoughts. I'll say I find your work difficult to read, in the sense that I am not yet practiced in how to read it -- but at the same time, I feel that the kind of work necessary to an enjoyable reading is precisely not intellectual. So there is a limit to how far criticism can go.
I agree Simon is good.
The way Mack the Knife was good. Mackie seduced ladies in London with the same line. Why use another when you've got one that works?
Amy swoons, because she thinks Simon is discussing HER poem.
But Simon's rhetoric, as complex as it sometimes appears, is merely apology for whatever cannnot be understood.
Simon's aim is not to explain a poem, but to shine a light on his own maze-wandering rhetoric.
Simon's apology is a projection of a critical type, not a defense of an actual poem.
(Negative Capability: Keats is spinning in his grave.)
The Minotaur lurks in a nursery rhyme.
Simon, practice your art in reverse--and catch the beast, if only once, devouring your opaque hearts.
Find yourself at last. Find Mack the Knife within a clear and tender song.
I would find that far more amusing.
But yes, indeed, keep up the good work. (wink)
Monday Love
Dear Anonymous Ad Hominem Man aka “Monday Love,”
I know who you are. And I know you've used your anonymity for your prescriptive “critiques” before - ad nauseum.
In spite of your need to hide, your gender lines show right through (& they do in many of your other posturing posts too). You say that Simon only wants to make me swoon (recalls C.B.: "Poetry is like a swoon, with this difference: / it brings you to your senses.” –- can reviews do that too? Excellent!).
So you state your version of Simon’s motivation to review. Simon is a man, and Amy is a woman, ergo Romantic Pursuit! Such “sophisticated” thinking plays at opacity, but lacks the polish. We arrive at the same tired old school of patriarchal thought that dictates when a man considers a woman’s work in any serious fashion, other men must intervene and put a stop to it by any means necessary. You revert back to elementary school playground mentality by yelling out, "Simon loves Amy!" Stating it simply “Monday Love,” you blatantly ignore content and dismiss substantial discussion as so much “boy chasing girl” fodder. Alas.
As far as dismissing Simon’s actual consideration as an “apology” twice (repeating it doesn’t make it so), I’ll spare you the definition of a Straw Man fallacy. You’ll need to look that up on your time. But a hint: it has to do with avoiding critical engagement…
Using flaccid sarcasm, you call for a “clear and tender song” to amuse you. Hmm, the clarity and amusement you request, you omit yourself!
So what does Mr. Love really seek via his post? He commands, “Find yourself at last.” The lady doth protest too much, methinks. The player queen could only reflect so much: is your command a hope that someone will find you, in spite of the mask? In all earnestness, may my question only be whimsical speculation. I truly hope you aren’t using these forums to find yourself, at last.
Finally, I cannot resist a note on the poor simplification you’ve made of Mac the Knife. Mac was acutely aware of certain societal hypocrisies and used them cleverly *and* complexly to his own gain. He was a smart manipulator. Your spinnings, however, reflect your need to boil the world down into simplistic sentiment, and dismiss what you don’t possess the skills to address as “rhetoric.”
A line from a James Tate poem arrives, “God, I love this game ..."
Really though, I'll return your wink when next we meet so you know that I know you in your thinly-veiled personhood too.
Amy
p.s. It’s past my bedtime, but again, I can’t resist: since when is a review meant “to explain a poem”? Isn’t that, in fact, an “explication”? Since Simon made no claim to "explain the poem" (in fact, he considers ways to approach a seemingly inaccessible poem; did you actually read his review?), you have provided us with an excellent example of a Red Herring fallacy.
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