In one old volume and two forthcoming (OcSerp, the Icarus project, and diluvium, respectively), I want(ed) white space. That white space is there for you, dear reader, and I recently came across someone else thinking similar thoughts about it.
In her essay "American Poetic Music at the Moment" in Coming After, Alice Notley refers to white space in poetry as a "non-narcissistic possibility." This is precisely what I was trying to achieve in OcSerp by having facing pages mirror each other, yet contain antithetical material. It sets up a spectrum, implies by its very nature something between the pages that is lost on one side or the other. The play with history, as some reviewers noted, suggests that there are poems extending out to either side as well.
In the upcoming Icarus chapbook containing a sequence by Crystal Boson and a sequence by myself, it's not just about putting two authors in one book. It's about putting together two sequences that take nearly opposite approaches to the same project, stylistically speaking. If we're lucky, readers will find space for Icarus poems of their own. That space will owe itself in part to the space created between us and the existing batch of Icarus poetry, nearly all of it a simple retread of the myth or a reaction to Breughel's painting.
In diluvium, literal space is crucial. On days when the main characters are particularly stressed, fragments and lyrics from the edges of the page creep in and obscure the reader's view of the conscious poetic utterances in the center. This opens up a space wherein the reader is forced to negotiate among sections of the page, to establish personal hierarchies of importance, not just interpret for a single answer.
Three sequences I'm researching for my dissertation take this tack in startling ways. I may include bits and pieces of what I'm thinking about them specifically in future posts. Those sequences, incidentally, are Tom Phillip's A Humument, Anne Carson's Plainwater (which I treat as an extended sequence, not just a book containing several sequences), and Ed Dorn's unfinished Languedoc Variorum: A Defense of Heresy and Heretics.
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JESUS OF NAZARETH AND THE FRENCH TURN TO GOD
3 weeks ago
5 comments:
I've been spending a lot of time with A Humument lately. Have you seen Mary Ruefle's A Little White Shadow? You must--it is so beautiful!
Interesting essay. I'll have to look up the work. Have you seen Maura Dooley's new collection, called Life Under Water? I was reviewed by Ben Wilkinson in the Times Literary supplement and he mentions it on his blog at http://deconstructivewasteland.blogspot.com/2009/03/maura-dooleys-life-under-water.html?widgetType=BlogArchive&widgetId=BlogArchive1&actio. Anyway, she has a poem called The Old Masters, that makes use of the Icarus image at the end of Auden's poem, from the Breugel painting. If you haven't but would like to see it let me know and I'll send it to you.
Hi Karin,
I have not seen Ruefle's work. Just Googled it and saw a sample on PoetryFoundation. It's doing a sort of stripped down Humument - that is, no illustrations, just peeling back to find its text. This may be useful for the diss. Thanks!
Hi Mairi,
Also have not seen Life Under Water, but would greatly appreciate it if you could send me "The Old Masters." I'm not drawing the Icarus work into my dissertation, but this sounds like something of which I really ought to be aware. Thanks!
Mary Ruefle's non-erasure work is fantastic, too. She's in my top three favorite contemporary poets (the other two cycle through, but she's always there).
As soon as I'm back from Texas, checking out all suggestions :-)
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