Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
an honest American poet
In the suddenness of my research of Hayden Carruth, I discovered this essay on his poetry and the quality of his friendship by, of course, Wendell Berry and the following response to an invitation to the White House in 1998.
April 7, 1998
President and Mrs. Clinton
The White House
Washington, D. C. 20500
Dear Mr. & Mrs. Clinton:
This is to acknowledge your invitation to attend a "Millennium Evening" at the White House in celebration of American poetry on April 22nd. Thank you for thinking of me. However, it would seem the greatest hypocrisy for an honest American poet to be present on such an occasion at the seat of the power which has not only neglected but abused the interests of poets and their readers continually, to say nothing of many other administratively dispensable segments of the population. Consequently, I must decline.
Yours sincerely,
Hayden Carruth
*
There is so much bitterness, irony, and sheer playfulness in this terse, formal reply... the fruits of honesty perhaps.
April 7, 1998
President and Mrs. Clinton
The White House
Washington, D. C. 20500
Dear Mr. & Mrs. Clinton:
This is to acknowledge your invitation to attend a "Millennium Evening" at the White House in celebration of American poetry on April 22nd. Thank you for thinking of me. However, it would seem the greatest hypocrisy for an honest American poet to be present on such an occasion at the seat of the power which has not only neglected but abused the interests of poets and their readers continually, to say nothing of many other administratively dispensable segments of the population. Consequently, I must decline.
Yours sincerely,
Hayden Carruth
*
There is so much bitterness, irony, and sheer playfulness in this terse, formal reply... the fruits of honesty perhaps.
Make Slim Pickins Proud
Olga, in her science journalism adventures, stumbled across this fun toy. Enter the coordinates of your choice, choose a bomb and/or asteroid, account for wind, and enjoy a simple description of your blast radius. Yeee-haw!
Labor pains
A beautiful poem by a poet of whom I was just made aware. What would I be had I a proper education? Stay 'til the end.
Emergency Haying
by Hayden Carruth
Coming home with the last load I ride standing
on the wagon tongue, behind the tractor
in hot exhaust, lank with sweat,
my arms strung
awkwardly along the hayrack, cruciform.
Almost 500 bales we've put up
this afternoon, Marshall and I.
And of course I think of another who hung
like this on another cross. My hands are torn
by baling twine, not nails, and my side is pierced
by my ulcer, not a lance. The acid in my throat
is only hayseed. Yet exhaustion and the way
my body hangs from twisted shoulders, suspended
on two points of pain in the rising
monoxide, recall that greater suffering.
Well, I change grip and the image
fades. It's been an unlucky summer. Heavy rains
brought on the grass tremendously, a monster crop,
but wet, always wet. Haying was long delayed.
Now is our last chance to bring in
the winter's feed, and Marshall needs help.
We mow, rake, bale, and draw the bales
to the barn, these late, half-green,
improperly cured bales; some weigh 150 pounds
or more, yet must be lugged by the twine
across the field, tossed on the load, and then
at the barn unloaded on the conveyor
and distributed in the loft. I help –
I, the desk-servant, word-worker –
and hold up my end pretty well too; but God,
the close of day, how I fall down then. My hands
are sore, they flinch when I light my pipe.
I think of those who have done slave labor,
less able and less well prepared than I.
Rose Marie in the rye fields of Saxony,
her father in the camps of Moldavia
and the Crimea, all clerks and housekeepers
herded to the gaunt fields of torture. Hands
too bloodied cannot bear
even the touch of air, even
the touch of love. I have a friend
whose grandmother cut cane with a machete
and cut and cut, until one day
she snicked her hand off and took it
and threw it grandly at the sky. Now
in September our New England mountains
under a clear sky for which we're thankful at last
begin to glow, maples, beeches, birches
in their first color. I look
beyond our famous hayfields to our famous hills,
to the notch where the sunset is beginning,
then in the other direction, eastward,
where a full new-risen moon like a pale
medallion hangs in a lavender cloud
beyond the barn. My eyes
sting with sweat and loveliness. And who
is the Christ now, who
if not I? It must be so. My strength
is legion. And I stand up high
on the wagon tongue in my whole bones to say
woe to you, watch out
you sons of bitches who would drive men and women
to the fields where they can only die.
Emergency Haying
by Hayden Carruth
Coming home with the last load I ride standing
on the wagon tongue, behind the tractor
in hot exhaust, lank with sweat,
my arms strung
awkwardly along the hayrack, cruciform.
Almost 500 bales we've put up
this afternoon, Marshall and I.
And of course I think of another who hung
like this on another cross. My hands are torn
by baling twine, not nails, and my side is pierced
by my ulcer, not a lance. The acid in my throat
is only hayseed. Yet exhaustion and the way
my body hangs from twisted shoulders, suspended
on two points of pain in the rising
monoxide, recall that greater suffering.
Well, I change grip and the image
fades. It's been an unlucky summer. Heavy rains
brought on the grass tremendously, a monster crop,
but wet, always wet. Haying was long delayed.
Now is our last chance to bring in
the winter's feed, and Marshall needs help.
We mow, rake, bale, and draw the bales
to the barn, these late, half-green,
improperly cured bales; some weigh 150 pounds
or more, yet must be lugged by the twine
across the field, tossed on the load, and then
at the barn unloaded on the conveyor
and distributed in the loft. I help –
I, the desk-servant, word-worker –
and hold up my end pretty well too; but God,
the close of day, how I fall down then. My hands
are sore, they flinch when I light my pipe.
I think of those who have done slave labor,
less able and less well prepared than I.
Rose Marie in the rye fields of Saxony,
her father in the camps of Moldavia
and the Crimea, all clerks and housekeepers
herded to the gaunt fields of torture. Hands
too bloodied cannot bear
even the touch of air, even
the touch of love. I have a friend
whose grandmother cut cane with a machete
and cut and cut, until one day
she snicked her hand off and took it
and threw it grandly at the sky. Now
in September our New England mountains
under a clear sky for which we're thankful at last
begin to glow, maples, beeches, birches
in their first color. I look
beyond our famous hayfields to our famous hills,
to the notch where the sunset is beginning,
then in the other direction, eastward,
where a full new-risen moon like a pale
medallion hangs in a lavender cloud
beyond the barn. My eyes
sting with sweat and loveliness. And who
is the Christ now, who
if not I? It must be so. My strength
is legion. And I stand up high
on the wagon tongue in my whole bones to say
woe to you, watch out
you sons of bitches who would drive men and women
to the fields where they can only die.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Many hotels are run successfully without it
This is an excerpt from an early 1900 history of Iowa. I was going to just post the Indian section, for being so well-meaning, so wrong, and so sad. But then I saw the temperance rant that ended the chapter previous and decided the irony was too much.
I think Satan was some better tools at his disposal than drink, don't you?
TEMPERANCE
Forty years ago as has been before said, all the people in this region of
country were accustomed to use intoxicants as a beverage. Liquor was
freely used at the polls on election day. The several candidates furnished
it for their friends, and it was not uncommon to see men drunk, fighting
drunk and noisy, before the polls closed. Here and there at the boat
landings along the river, whisky was kept for sale, and the imbibers
thereof were wont to frequent these places for social merrymaking. Broils
and fights, and reckless smash-ups, were not uncommon. Whisky used to be
termed a good creature of God, but time has shown the fallacy of such a
statement. For if Satan has any one tool more pliant, skilful, Satanic,and
more destructive of all good than any or all others, it is Alcohol. It
blunts conscience, and prompts to the commission of crime; it beats
mothers and beggars families; it ruins character and destroys souls; it
poisons the body and crazes the mind; it drags down the talented and noble
and plunges them into the ditch. Murder, robbery, theft, adultery, anger,
malice, blasphemy and the whole catalogue of crimes are incited and warmed
into life by this fell destroyer. But much has been done to curtail this
evil. It is made unchristian to use it, make it or sell it. It has
disappeared from the public gaze. It finds no place in the most genteel
families. Many hotels are run successfully without it. Elections are
conducted quietly and honestly and honorably without it. In no case is it
indispensable. In most it is decidedly hurtful. Temperance has made
decided advances. Great changes have occurred for the better in the past
fifty years. May we not hope that intemperance will yet be banished from
the land?
CHAPTER XIV
INDIANS IN IOWA
THERE are no adults among us, and few children, who have not heard of
Indians as dangerous creatures - a strange people to be greatly feared;
but many children have never seen an Indian. Some years ago a Pawnee
Indian boy named "Ralph" attended school here in Tabor. He dressed, and
played, and talked, and studied, and recited his lessons just like other
boys. The United States government removed the Pawnee tribe years ago to
the Indian Territory, and Ralph went with them. Geo. B. Gaston and wife
lived several years among the Pawnees in Nebraska, and became deeply
interested in them, so that some of them visited in Tabor more than once.
When we first came to Iowa, forty years ago, Indians lived just across the
Missouri river from us, and when the river became frozen across in the
winter they frequently came over on the ice. Some unprincipled white men,
who kept whisky and drank of it themselves, would give it to the Indians,
and sometimes they got drunk, and then it crazed them and made them
dangerous, just as it does white men. Drunken Indians came to a house in
California City in Mills county once, more than thirty years ago, when the
men happened to be away from home, and the women shut the door against
them. When they could not get in, one of them attempted to shoot through
the open chinks at the side of the door with his bow and arrow; but no
sooner was the arrow-point inserted between the logs than Mrs. Cordelia
Clark Martin, with great decision and prompt presence of mind, seized it
and snatched it out of his hand. Mrs. Cordelia C. Hinton probably retains
that arrow to this day. as a souvenir of the perils of the past. Baffled
in their endeavor to enter that house, they went to other houses, and made
themselves so disagreeable generally that some of the party were killed
before they recrossed the river into Nebraska. So Alcohol proves to be the
apt tool of Satan for the destruction of man kind, whether he be white, or
red, black, brown, or yellow.
Many still live in Fremont county to whom the Indian trails or paths, that
wound over the hills and through the vales, from grove to grove and from
stream to stream, were as familiar, if not as numerous, as are the roads
that accommodate the traveling public now. Indeed their camp fires were
still burning when some among us first came to Fremont county. The forks
and poles which formed the frames of their dwellings, and the bark which
covered them, reminded us often of the singular race that had so recently
disappeared. No history, then, of the county would be complete without
some account of the native tribes which preceded the white man on this
soil.
A feeling of sadness involuntarily steals over us as we contemplate the
waning glory of the nations that once with elastic step,proud mien and
brave hearts chased over these beautiful prairies herds of innumerable
buffaloes, stealthily pursued the bounding deer and graceful antelope, or
more leisurely fished in the rivers, streams and lakes, or waylaid the
numberless birds of passage that vibrated between their summer and winter
homes - nations that displayed their military prowess in sanguinary tribal
conflicts on the field of battle. Strong nations have dwindled to
insignificant bands in their retreat before the influx of the Anglo-Saxon
race, until they may fittingly adopt the poet's sad strain:
"They wast us! Aye, like April snow
In the warm noon we shrink away;
And fast they follow as we go
Toward the setting day."
I think Satan was some better tools at his disposal than drink, don't you?
TEMPERANCE
Forty years ago as has been before said, all the people in this region of
country were accustomed to use intoxicants as a beverage. Liquor was
freely used at the polls on election day. The several candidates furnished
it for their friends, and it was not uncommon to see men drunk, fighting
drunk and noisy, before the polls closed. Here and there at the boat
landings along the river, whisky was kept for sale, and the imbibers
thereof were wont to frequent these places for social merrymaking. Broils
and fights, and reckless smash-ups, were not uncommon. Whisky used to be
termed a good creature of God, but time has shown the fallacy of such a
statement. For if Satan has any one tool more pliant, skilful, Satanic,and
more destructive of all good than any or all others, it is Alcohol. It
blunts conscience, and prompts to the commission of crime; it beats
mothers and beggars families; it ruins character and destroys souls; it
poisons the body and crazes the mind; it drags down the talented and noble
and plunges them into the ditch. Murder, robbery, theft, adultery, anger,
malice, blasphemy and the whole catalogue of crimes are incited and warmed
into life by this fell destroyer. But much has been done to curtail this
evil. It is made unchristian to use it, make it or sell it. It has
disappeared from the public gaze. It finds no place in the most genteel
families. Many hotels are run successfully without it. Elections are
conducted quietly and honestly and honorably without it. In no case is it
indispensable. In most it is decidedly hurtful. Temperance has made
decided advances. Great changes have occurred for the better in the past
fifty years. May we not hope that intemperance will yet be banished from
the land?
CHAPTER XIV
INDIANS IN IOWA
THERE are no adults among us, and few children, who have not heard of
Indians as dangerous creatures - a strange people to be greatly feared;
but many children have never seen an Indian. Some years ago a Pawnee
Indian boy named "Ralph" attended school here in Tabor. He dressed, and
played, and talked, and studied, and recited his lessons just like other
boys. The United States government removed the Pawnee tribe years ago to
the Indian Territory, and Ralph went with them. Geo. B. Gaston and wife
lived several years among the Pawnees in Nebraska, and became deeply
interested in them, so that some of them visited in Tabor more than once.
When we first came to Iowa, forty years ago, Indians lived just across the
Missouri river from us, and when the river became frozen across in the
winter they frequently came over on the ice. Some unprincipled white men,
who kept whisky and drank of it themselves, would give it to the Indians,
and sometimes they got drunk, and then it crazed them and made them
dangerous, just as it does white men. Drunken Indians came to a house in
California City in Mills county once, more than thirty years ago, when the
men happened to be away from home, and the women shut the door against
them. When they could not get in, one of them attempted to shoot through
the open chinks at the side of the door with his bow and arrow; but no
sooner was the arrow-point inserted between the logs than Mrs. Cordelia
Clark Martin, with great decision and prompt presence of mind, seized it
and snatched it out of his hand. Mrs. Cordelia C. Hinton probably retains
that arrow to this day. as a souvenir of the perils of the past. Baffled
in their endeavor to enter that house, they went to other houses, and made
themselves so disagreeable generally that some of the party were killed
before they recrossed the river into Nebraska. So Alcohol proves to be the
apt tool of Satan for the destruction of man kind, whether he be white, or
red, black, brown, or yellow.
Many still live in Fremont county to whom the Indian trails or paths, that
wound over the hills and through the vales, from grove to grove and from
stream to stream, were as familiar, if not as numerous, as are the roads
that accommodate the traveling public now. Indeed their camp fires were
still burning when some among us first came to Fremont county. The forks
and poles which formed the frames of their dwellings, and the bark which
covered them, reminded us often of the singular race that had so recently
disappeared. No history, then, of the county would be complete without
some account of the native tribes which preceded the white man on this
soil.
A feeling of sadness involuntarily steals over us as we contemplate the
waning glory of the nations that once with elastic step,proud mien and
brave hearts chased over these beautiful prairies herds of innumerable
buffaloes, stealthily pursued the bounding deer and graceful antelope, or
more leisurely fished in the rivers, streams and lakes, or waylaid the
numberless birds of passage that vibrated between their summer and winter
homes - nations that displayed their military prowess in sanguinary tribal
conflicts on the field of battle. Strong nations have dwindled to
insignificant bands in their retreat before the influx of the Anglo-Saxon
race, until they may fittingly adopt the poet's sad strain:
"They wast us! Aye, like April snow
In the warm noon we shrink away;
And fast they follow as we go
Toward the setting day."
to wrest from the oppressor his victim
Last week there was a rally at the state capital in Kansas by supporters of the Tenth Amendment Movement (which is distinct, I think, from the Tenth Amendment proper, which all of us, unless tyrannically ruling the Union, implicitly support by not tyrannically ruling the Union) and this was the first I had heard of it.
I honestly don't know much about the history of the movement. I imagine it has much in common with the 'tea party' folks and all that rabble-rousing in town hall meetings over health care. It seems pretty fucking clear that the movement, as it stands now, is just a way to express 'revolutionary' distaste for Obama's policies.
Which is a shame, not because they don't like Obama--fuck that guy-- but because they've hijacked a potentially very interesting debate that could be happening on the role of states vs. the federal government, a small hobby horse of my own for a while.
My basic idea runs thus:
Hey, let's limit power of all kinds!
Or at least think about it.
I don't know. The more I think about politics the muddier everything becomes. Why is so much of liberal thought based on the idea of a strong central government? That seems to go back to monarchy on one side and Marxist control of production on the other. Neither really worked out very well, and no liberal really wants to imitate either model. Is there a credible alternative vision? If there is, I haven't heard of it.
Now, the liberal tradition, which it's preference for a powerful centralized protector of liberty (from who?) is distinct, in my mind, from various Leftist movements that, when not actively aligned with the socialist or communist ideals, are generally against the centralized consolidation of power. Or is that just my own personal interpretation? Maybe the Left is made of wittle baby Castros, I don't know.
And the Right is equally compromised. Theoretically opposed to a strong central government unless they are in office (also weird, they want a weak central government but a BIG STRONG leader like Reagan or Bush...) while providing an umbrella for all kinds of racism and xenophobia.
And all this energy devoted by kind, brave, sincere, passionate people on both sides to simply discredit the other side so that their side can finally fix everything. This has been going back and forth for some time now. Did anyone ever fix it?
But why are we even still stuck with this 'grand experiment?' I don't think it worked, I don't think it's working, I don't think it's going to work. I think we done fucked up.
Let's try to devote some time to thinking up new communities, new possibilities, that learn from the excesses of this representative democracy. Is this really the best we can do?
Eh. I hate this post. I need to get out of the house.
I honestly don't know much about the history of the movement. I imagine it has much in common with the 'tea party' folks and all that rabble-rousing in town hall meetings over health care. It seems pretty fucking clear that the movement, as it stands now, is just a way to express 'revolutionary' distaste for Obama's policies.
Which is a shame, not because they don't like Obama--fuck that guy-- but because they've hijacked a potentially very interesting debate that could be happening on the role of states vs. the federal government, a small hobby horse of my own for a while.
My basic idea runs thus:
Hey, let's limit power of all kinds!
Or at least think about it.
I don't know. The more I think about politics the muddier everything becomes. Why is so much of liberal thought based on the idea of a strong central government? That seems to go back to monarchy on one side and Marxist control of production on the other. Neither really worked out very well, and no liberal really wants to imitate either model. Is there a credible alternative vision? If there is, I haven't heard of it.
Now, the liberal tradition, which it's preference for a powerful centralized protector of liberty (from who?) is distinct, in my mind, from various Leftist movements that, when not actively aligned with the socialist or communist ideals, are generally against the centralized consolidation of power. Or is that just my own personal interpretation? Maybe the Left is made of wittle baby Castros, I don't know.
And the Right is equally compromised. Theoretically opposed to a strong central government unless they are in office (also weird, they want a weak central government but a BIG STRONG leader like Reagan or Bush...) while providing an umbrella for all kinds of racism and xenophobia.
And all this energy devoted by kind, brave, sincere, passionate people on both sides to simply discredit the other side so that their side can finally fix everything. This has been going back and forth for some time now. Did anyone ever fix it?
But why are we even still stuck with this 'grand experiment?' I don't think it worked, I don't think it's working, I don't think it's going to work. I think we done fucked up.
Let's try to devote some time to thinking up new communities, new possibilities, that learn from the excesses of this representative democracy. Is this really the best we can do?
Eh. I hate this post. I need to get out of the house.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
contention continued
First, a fun slight alteration of a translation from Nerval:
"This life is a shithole and a whorehouse. I am ashamed that God should see me here."
The version I found said 'hovel' and 'house of ill-repute' which I just don't believe can be accurate.
The in-laws were dispatched without incident. Our little shack was approved of, our food was prepared and eaten with pleasure (sour-dough pancakes and barley jambalaya, oddly enough) and I missed most of it because I've come down with some sniffles. So I threw myself at some prose but my foggy head produced little of value.
As I was saying, prose poetry, according to what few rules are (mostly) agreed upon, should look like prose but magically be something different, although what, exactly, no one knows.
Both prose writers and poets tend to scapegoat the prose poem for this vagueness, but scapegoating is exactly what it is. The trouble is, no one is really able to define either prose or poetry, especially poetry. Prose can always fall back on its 'Hey, we don't use line breaks okay!' Poetry, however, being on shakier ground, usually resorts to socio-political theory to explain that if we think it sucks, we voted for Reagan. (My political reference is dated but so are most of these poetic movements.)
And the ubiquity of MFA programs for writing ensures-- insert rant against MFA programs here.
Anyway, I'm gonna fix everything. Aren't you glad? Shit, I am. (Also, I've been drinking this 'yogi tea' which is pieces of various tree barks and peppercorns and cinnamon and ginger that you boil for my cold and I think it has other odd properties...)
Now, bear in mind that most of what I am about to say has been discredited variously throughout literary history-- or, rather, bear in mind that I know that.
I think that certain modes of thought have inherent and natural forms of expression. Political argument, argument generally, expresses itself most easily and perhaps most forcefully in prose.
Evocation of the undefinable, whether varieties of love or God or nausea, finds itself most comfortably in poetry.
Time is also an easily divisive quality. Prose deftly creates the sense of time's passage, either slowly or abruptly, while poetry has at least a foot in the timeless.
Through the accumulation of these formal properties and their, to my mind, natural alignment (which is not to say they can't switch sides with powerful results) I'd like to create a kind of compass by which to navigate my ideas about text, and also create a kind of living map, via these prose poems, as a record of those explorations.
What makes this (i.e. the two pieces I've already posted) prose poetry is that it contains 'unbroken' prose elements and exists at the boundaries of prose space. The presence of the page, of the prose rectangle, defines how the prosy and lyrical play together. They are, perhaps, something like sculpture, half painting, half drama.
While all this may sound airy and theoretical it is really just the explication of my ambivalent, ambidextrous, ambiguous relationship to reading and writing. I've never fit comfortably into any genre of writing and I was never pruned or trained to believe anything about it by those who know better. The epic poem, the novel, the lyric, philosophy, tragedy, journalism, comedy-- none of these forms have ever moved me as such, but when any written work undoes me (which is how it feels, like I have been split, pared, unraveled, and have to begin all over again) as each of these have, it all feels the same.
It feels like a human being with rare gifts groping past the edge of their abilities.
In short, I think that each idea, each phrasing, each story, etc, had its own form. I'm trying to draw out these possibilities and the prose poem is how I think this can best be expressed.
Tall order.
"This life is a shithole and a whorehouse. I am ashamed that God should see me here."
The version I found said 'hovel' and 'house of ill-repute' which I just don't believe can be accurate.
The in-laws were dispatched without incident. Our little shack was approved of, our food was prepared and eaten with pleasure (sour-dough pancakes and barley jambalaya, oddly enough) and I missed most of it because I've come down with some sniffles. So I threw myself at some prose but my foggy head produced little of value.
As I was saying, prose poetry, according to what few rules are (mostly) agreed upon, should look like prose but magically be something different, although what, exactly, no one knows.
Both prose writers and poets tend to scapegoat the prose poem for this vagueness, but scapegoating is exactly what it is. The trouble is, no one is really able to define either prose or poetry, especially poetry. Prose can always fall back on its 'Hey, we don't use line breaks okay!' Poetry, however, being on shakier ground, usually resorts to socio-political theory to explain that if we think it sucks, we voted for Reagan. (My political reference is dated but so are most of these poetic movements.)
And the ubiquity of MFA programs for writing ensures-- insert rant against MFA programs here.
Anyway, I'm gonna fix everything. Aren't you glad? Shit, I am. (Also, I've been drinking this 'yogi tea' which is pieces of various tree barks and peppercorns and cinnamon and ginger that you boil for my cold and I think it has other odd properties...)
Now, bear in mind that most of what I am about to say has been discredited variously throughout literary history-- or, rather, bear in mind that I know that.
I think that certain modes of thought have inherent and natural forms of expression. Political argument, argument generally, expresses itself most easily and perhaps most forcefully in prose.
Evocation of the undefinable, whether varieties of love or God or nausea, finds itself most comfortably in poetry.
Time is also an easily divisive quality. Prose deftly creates the sense of time's passage, either slowly or abruptly, while poetry has at least a foot in the timeless.
Through the accumulation of these formal properties and their, to my mind, natural alignment (which is not to say they can't switch sides with powerful results) I'd like to create a kind of compass by which to navigate my ideas about text, and also create a kind of living map, via these prose poems, as a record of those explorations.
What makes this (i.e. the two pieces I've already posted) prose poetry is that it contains 'unbroken' prose elements and exists at the boundaries of prose space. The presence of the page, of the prose rectangle, defines how the prosy and lyrical play together. They are, perhaps, something like sculpture, half painting, half drama.
While all this may sound airy and theoretical it is really just the explication of my ambivalent, ambidextrous, ambiguous relationship to reading and writing. I've never fit comfortably into any genre of writing and I was never pruned or trained to believe anything about it by those who know better. The epic poem, the novel, the lyric, philosophy, tragedy, journalism, comedy-- none of these forms have ever moved me as such, but when any written work undoes me (which is how it feels, like I have been split, pared, unraveled, and have to begin all over again) as each of these have, it all feels the same.
It feels like a human being with rare gifts groping past the edge of their abilities.
In short, I think that each idea, each phrasing, each story, etc, had its own form. I'm trying to draw out these possibilities and the prose poem is how I think this can best be expressed.
Tall order.
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