Monday, December 15, 2008
Saturday, December 13, 2008
from Lisa Jarnot's poem Whole Hog
after Barrett Watten and for Thomas
1.
The pig is complete.
Barns demand limits.
2.
Pigs fall down to create drama.
The materials are hoof.
3.
Daylight accumulates in work yards.
Farm hands substitute for suns.
...
44.
Flora stand up to fauna.
Science gives features to the world.
45.
Another tractor is invented.
They sniff it like a dog in heat.
46.
Plows fit into a perspective.
Photos of piglets cover the earth.
1.
The pig is complete.
Barns demand limits.
2.
Pigs fall down to create drama.
The materials are hoof.
3.
Daylight accumulates in work yards.
Farm hands substitute for suns.
...
44.
Flora stand up to fauna.
Science gives features to the world.
45.
Another tractor is invented.
They sniff it like a dog in heat.
46.
Plows fit into a perspective.
Photos of piglets cover the earth.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Laura Riding
"The World and I"
This is not exactly what I mean
Any more than the sun is the sun.
But how to mean more closely
If the sun shines but approximately?
What a world of awkwardness!
What hostile implements of sense!
Perhaps this is as close a meaning
as perhaps becomes such knowing.
Else I think the world and I
Must live together as strangers and die
A sour love, each doubtful whether
Was ever a thing to love the other.
No, better for both to be nearly sure
Each of each - exactly where
Exactly as I and exactly the world
Fail to meet by a moment, and a word.
This is not exactly what I mean
Any more than the sun is the sun.
But how to mean more closely
If the sun shines but approximately?
What a world of awkwardness!
What hostile implements of sense!
Perhaps this is as close a meaning
as perhaps becomes such knowing.
Else I think the world and I
Must live together as strangers and die
A sour love, each doubtful whether
Was ever a thing to love the other.
No, better for both to be nearly sure
Each of each - exactly where
Exactly as I and exactly the world
Fail to meet by a moment, and a word.
Friday, December 05, 2008
from Claudia Rankine's Don't Let Me be Lonely
Sometimes I think it is sentimental, or excessive, certainly not intellectual, or perhaps too naive, too self-wounded to value each life like that, to feel loss to the point of being bent over each time. There is no innovating loss. It was never invented, it happened as something physical, something physically experienced. It is not something an "I" discusses socially. Though Myung Mu Kim did say that the poem is really a responsibility to everyone in a social space. She did say it was okay to cramp, to clog, to fold over at the gut, to have to put hand to flesh, to have to hold the pain, and then to translate it here. She did say, in so many words, that what alerts, alters.
Sometimes I think it is sentimental, or excessive, certainly not intellectual, or perhaps too naive, too self-wounded to value each life like that, to feel loss to the point of being bent over each time. There is no innovating loss. It was never invented, it happened as something physical, something physically experienced. It is not something an "I" discusses socially. Though Myung Mu Kim did say that the poem is really a responsibility to everyone in a social space. She did say it was okay to cramp, to clog, to fold over at the gut, to have to put hand to flesh, to have to hold the pain, and then to translate it here. She did say, in so many words, that what alerts, alters.
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