The poem on page 1
tells us some of what to look for in the rest of the book.
-- Above the poem is
a dedication to Bennett's wife: For Cathy, siempre. (The copyright page faces
page 1, and has as its dedication: For C. Mehrl Bennett, with love always.) In
case any reader might ever think of this book and these poems as some kind of
abstraction or series of formal experiments, Bennett makes it clear from the
outset that his writing is coming directly from his life, from what is most
important to him in his daily life.
-- The dedication is
written in two languages, in English and in Spanish. We should expect to find
more Spanish as we move along in the book, and we should probably expect some
Portuguese, French and Nahuatl as well.
-- The first word in
the poem is salt, spelled "ssalt". We should expect more deliberate
misspellings, of various sorts, employed for various reasons. In this poem,
salt is misspelled as the first and last word in the first line. As the last
word, it is spelled "saltt".
The length of the
first line here has been determined by the fourth line, the line in which the
title -- letter -- appears, surrounded by mazesalt and saltmaze:
mazesaltlettersaltmaze
The first word in the
poem, as it is intended to be read, is not the first word in the poem as it is
intended to be seen.
The first word in the
poem is the word "salt" or "saltmaze" as it appears
following the word "letter", in bold face, which is the title.
The word
"letter" has six letters, in contrast to both "salt" and
"maze", which have four. In order to have the poem appear as a
"block", every line has to cover the same "amount of em
space". The first written line consists of the last two words of the poem
-- maze salt -- and the first two, salt maze, plus the title, letter.
The first line
beneath the title begins with salt, and requires an additional 's' at the
beginning and 't' at the end to be exactly as long visually as the line which
includes the title. The next line begins with maze, and does not require any
additional letters, because it has three instances of the word
"maze", as contrasted with two in the previous line, and the added
instances of the letters 'm' and 'z' in "maze" are equal spatially to
the additional 's' and 't' in the previous line. The third line here is the
same as the first. It is followed by a line made up of the single word
"eye", in boldface.
The title of the
poem, then, is "letter eye", for reasons which are becoming
increasingly clear.
Following the
single-word line "eye", which occupies the center of the poem as it
is intended to be read, but the end of the poem as it is intended to be seen,
we return to the top of the "block", and begin reading the second
half of the poem (it is a seven-line poem as I see it, as I look at it, but the
more I read it -- and think about reading it -- the less satisfactory
identifying it as having seven lines becomes. Maybe it is an eight-line poem,
with the title-line serving as both the first and the last line. That makes
sense visually, but I can't actually read it that way. As far as reading -- not
looking -- is concerned, line one must be a two-word line -- salt maze --
followed by three four-word lines -- all words in the poem having no spaces
between them -- followed by a one-word line -- I had not thought of this as a
"line" until now -- followed by three four-word lines and the final
two-word line preceding the title).
So, the shape of the
poem in our reading of it, which is invisible unless the form of the poem as a
"block" is utterly destroyed, is as follows:
letter
For Cathy,
siempre
saltmaze
ssaltmazesaltmazesaltt mazesaltmazesaltmaze ssaltmazesaltmazesaltt
eye
ssaltmazesaltmazesaltt
mazesaltmazesaltmaze
ssaltmazesaltmazesaltt maze salt
-- A postscript
informs us that the poem was "found in Ivan Arguelles 'archaic'. We should
expect more findings in, distillations of, and extractions from the works of
other poets and writers, both those, like Arguelles, who are friends and
contemporaries of Bennett, and others who are historical figures. We might also
keep an eye out for other instances of the archaic.
The first poem on
page two opens with the phrase "sample of a clue". Is this one clue
among many, or a part of a single clue? It is both. It is the first line in a
seven-line "block" poem. I flip quickly through the book and find a
lot of seven-line poems. Across the crease is an eight-line "block
poem". I flip quickly through the book and find a lot of eight-line poems.
"you break /
your tooth the street nnnn / shitless churns a stunner."
Here the clues
are
1) "break" refers immediately to "line break" and then
to "your tooth" (poems in this book will refer to themselves, to
their forms and formal components)
2) the four 'n's, in bold face, signify only
their own shapes and sounds, which will be repeated as an end rhyme with
"stunner" in the next line
Next:
"soap of
chins and cost re
tainment no"
"my sawdust
wind
or soup's a hand"
"ch
ew or
mumbling in the lint"
Four lines here,
shown as six, are meant to emphasize one possible rhythmic pattern, hidden in
the block form. These three rhythmic units work against the rhythmic clues
given by the block-shape of the poem. We are not interpreting any kind of
graphic score here, this is not a visual poem which guides us through its
soundings. This is a visual form designed precisely to work against its
rhythmic patterns.
The first line
actually provides us with a clue about how to read it, thereby giving us a clue
about how to read what follows. There is an extra space between "you' and
"break":
sample of a clue you
break
That break, which
precedes the word "break", is a rhythmic marker. The next rhythmic
unit is
"break your
tooth the street nnnn"
followed by
"shitless churns
a stunner" [where line = rhythmic unit, perhaps the only instance of that
in this poem]
Alternatively, the
first two lines can be read as uniquely irregular in this otherwise
rhythmically consistent poem, where line coincides with rhythmic unit in lines
3, 4, 5 and 6, and possibly even 7, though the extra space in line seven
between "mumbling" and "in the lint" cause us to question
the stability and persistence of any choice of rhythmic patterns for our
reading. Once we attend to this final added space, we notice that there are
extra spaces throughout the poem:
in line three,
between "shitless" and "churns", between "churns"
and "a", and also between "a" and "stunner (so we
might read it as "shitless" pause "churns" pause
"a" pause stunner";
the same
configuration in line four: the first word "soap" followed by two
spaces, then the second word "of" followed by two spaces, and then
the phrase "and cost re" ("soap" pause "of" pause
"and cost re";
and again in line
five, with an even more complex irregularity: the continuation of
"retainment" from the previous line in "tainment", followed
by two spaces, then "no" followed by two spaces, then "my"
followed by two spaces, then "sawdust" to end the line;
line six is even more
irregular: "wind" followed by two spaces, "or" followed by
two spaces, "soup's" followed by two spaces, "a" followed
by two spaces, "hand" followed by two spaces, to the line ending with
"ch", the first two letters of "chew".
All of these extra
spaces, some of which I have surely left out of this brief discussion, are
caused/required by the "block form" of the poems. All of this rhythmic
diversity or uncertainty, chaos or polyrhythmic potential, however one
experiences it, or choose to experience it, is generated by the constraints of
the block form. The limitations of the form insist on a degree of complexity
which would be unattainable without those limits. Without the constraints of
the block form, the spacings would be regular, as usual, and the rhythmic
complexity -- confusion -- indeterminacy -- instability -- etc. would be
entirely unnecessary.
Page 13
quacked the
picture
I think this was
originally, if only in the poet's mind, "cracked". Why do I think so?
Semantically, what difference does it make? I am not trying to make sense of
this poem by combining and recombining denotations. I am trying to understand
how it came to be what it is. How did it get into its shape? How did its words
get in their sequences and juxtapositions? What decisions were made by the
poet? Why were they made, to the exclusion of all other possible decisions? The
word "quacked" is not in this poem because of what we can find out
about it in a dictionary. It is here because of certain sonic and letteral
relationships it has with other words. In this specific case, I think the
decision to write "quacked the picture" was made because of how it sounds,
and because of how its letters are arranged -- in relation to the word
"cracked", which isn't in the poem at all. However, without the word
"cracked", which I am neither reading nor seeing as I look at and
read this poem, this poem could not be. It is a cracked poem, and the crack is
between what is, and what is behind what is, as a causal agent. And, in the
case of this poem, what is behind what is, what is behind this poem being the
poem it is, with its specific shapes and sounds, is the poet's mind -- making these
decisions, adding this to the stock of available reality.
thumb clam sorta br
inked and saw my b ack glivered with a
I think this was
"blinked". The poet thought or read "blinked" and decided
it would be better as "brinked". Why do I think so? Do you agree with
me? If not, why not? How can it possibly matter if the "thumb clam"
blinked, rather than brinked? What matters, to me, is how a poem becomes a
poem. Why this word here, and that word there, rather than any other words? Why
this letter, instead of that letter, why one letter replacing another? A poet
cannot write a sonnet without asking and answering these questions. Why should
a poet make a "block poem" without asking and answering them? What if
the subject of a block poem is the need for asking and answering these
questions? If that is the case, then it might be important for block poems to
insist that a reader notice these options and decisions.
I think
"glivered" was "silvered" before it was
"slivered", one step at a time to its present state. Why
"silvered"? Silvered because mirror.
melting mirror gn
itlem
This "gn"
was previously "on". The "g" retains (almost) the shape of
the "o", with the addition of a loop below the baseline. Where did
"itlem" come from? From "item"? From "them"? From
"it them"? "It item"? I don't know. Maybe it didn't come
from anywhere. Maybe Bennett invented it, ex nihilo, cut from the whole cloth
(rather than from a source text), conjured from the swarming sets of possible
combinations available to his mind. I don't think I am going it on a lem by
suggesting such a thing.
On page 72 is a
seven-line block poem entitled "os". The word "os" appears
in the center of the fourth line, in boldface.
In English os = bone
in Portuguese os = the in Spanish os = you
in French os = bone
in French nos =
our
in Portuguese nos - we in Spanish nos = us
in Portuguese noso =
we do not
also, in an earlier
note on my response to his book entitled Nos, Bennett mentioned connotations of
"breath", as in nose
The first three lines
and the last three lines are identical. no no no no no no
Line four is
significantly different:
no no n os o no no
So, the poem begins
for our reading, which is distinct from how it begins for our looking, as
follows:
o no no
and it ends
like this: no no n [no non]
It appears to be a
poem made entirely of negations, but it manages to negate itself, to affirm
itself, that is, which is a negation of its negations. Its initial reaction to
itself, in the center of itself, is "o no". And it's final statement
on itself, also at the center of itself, is "no non". We find
ourselves in this
kind of situation over and over, going about our daily lives. In order to
arrive at our quiet, nuanced affirmations, we must surround ourselves with
small, incessant negations. I only have to think for a moment of love, not the
idea of love but the daily experience of love, to be reminded of how this
works. This small poem, made of 40 'no's, an "os", an 'n' and an 'o'
-- is a love poem. A lyric poem, a love song, something very much like a sonnet.
On page 82 is
"lint", also known as "fork lint". Fork lint is one of the
secrets. Bennett has been known to mail and hand out name tags which read:
Hello, my name is Fork Lint. One wears such a badge like one of the Secret
Masters of The World!, one whose name is secret (perhaps hidden behind the mask
of Karen Eliot, or or some less familiar pseudonym), whose secrecy is open,
whose mastery is a ritual in a myth. The myth. Fork itself is one of the open
secrets. Lint is another. It is 2018 and still very near the beginning of the
Trump Regime. Science has come and gone and come back again as a semi-reliable
set of epistemological procedures. Poetry remains the guardian of the secrets,
and poetry has no more time for the sad academic pastime of hiding secrets in
places other than plain view. The fork is the fork, wherever you find it. Lint
is ever lint. Lint and fork together are, to quote a rubberstamped koan on the
cover of a recent envelope-zine from Bennett (if the mail box is the museum for
certain underground visual artists, then it is a library for certain poets in
the network): TINE : WAR. We are there. In the cosmic war against awareness,
every moment of awakening occurs at a fork in a road. We choose both/and, carry
onwords as our multitudes, swarming to the futures. Lint is wherever we have
been, following us, like a poem about to happen, whenever we awake.
The poem
"lint" (aka "fork lint") has seven lines. Lines one through
three and five through seven are identical:
fork fork fork fork
fork
Line four is:
fork fork lint fork
fork
It is to be chanted,
silently or aloud, a muttered mantra, neoist code for presence, the mirror in
the mask of what is.
Beginning on page 136
are twelve pages of "cut blocks", seven-line block poems in which the
central, fourth lines are much longer than than the surrounding six lines. On
page 143 is one entitled (using the fourth line as the title) "what you
scattered in the muddy shower". Here are the first three lines:
the gristle luggage
of my coughing suit it's seeing
It is hard to read
that, as it is, one word after another, on the page, only the letters that are
there, and only in the sequence in which they are written. "The gristle
luggage" becomes "the gristle language", I'm not sure why. Maybe
this book has destabilized the identity of the reader, not necessarily this
reader -- or not only this reader -- but the reader in general, the idea of the
reader. At every intersection there is a question, a set of questions, bandits
lying in ambush to attack any unprepared reader. To attack any prepared reader,
for that matter. I feel that I am not expected, maybe not permitted, to settle
on any certainty, to settle for certainty itself. The gristle language, I am
chewing on it "as we speak", the thistle language, the whistling
language, the language bristles. I bristle, chewing on these thistles,
whistling while we work, on the gristle language of my coffin. It is not far
from coughing to coffin, no matter which tine you take at the fork in the
reading road. What you (or I) scattered in the muddy shower? So far: language
thistles whistling bristles coffin. Am I making this up? Of course I am. Am I
inventing this way of reading, based on nothing, freely associating simply
because I can? I don't think so. Here are lines five through seven:
with his footwe ar
mament cut ting off his ankle
What is is as rich as
we will permit ourselves to make it. It is part of the job of the poet to
assist us in knowing that. With his foot we are. With his footwear armament.
With his footwear armament cut. With his footwear armament we are cut. With his
footwear armament we are cutting. Cut one make two cut thirty two make sixty
four cut five hundred and twelve make a thousand and twenty four on and ongoing
make a world make a cosmos a life.
03.13/14.2018
__________________________________________
Postscript
Email exchange between Bennett &
Leftwich, 03.14.2018
JMB:
couple typos i saw:
top of p. 4: "Page 7" should be "Page
13"
2nd to last parag. p. 5, line 2: It's initial reaction... should be:
Its initial reaction...
Fascinating
essay/engagement with this book! I think that when/if this is published, scans
of the poems you discuss from the book could be included, so it's clear what
you're talking about. Re the poem on page 13, the line "melting mirror gn
itlem": "gn itlem" is also "melti ng" backward. This
in no way detracts from what you say about it as read "forward",
which is obviously the way it will be read, primarily!
Re the
translation of "noso" as Portuguese "we do not": though I
found this definition, as you did, via an internet translation site, it's not
something I've ever read or heard. Maybe it's some
archaic
usage? Normally, "we do not" would be "nós não".
"noso" means "our" in Galician, similar to Portuguese,
which has "nosso" for "our" (used with a male noun). Bottom
line is that the phoneme "nos" has an enormous sea of swarming
resonances, as you rightly point out. And your conclusion that this is a love
poem is exactly right, and right in large part due to such swarmings.
The
phrase "fork lint" was created by Cathy and me collaboratively. Forks
and Lint are both topics/talismans we have played with extensively in lots of
different ways. I like the phrase a lot, it makes a great mantra, tripping of
the tongue in rivers of sound... And in that regard, these poems, especially
the ones with repetitive words, are great performance scores as well as visual
mandalas (of a sort) - mandalas that move through time, like poems, but are
also static, meant to be perceived all at once as single objects.
forklinttnilkrof,
thank you!, john
JL:
thanks, John.
fixed the typos.
and now that you mention it, it is obvious what
this is!
gn itlem
melti ng
it amazes me, what i see and what i don't see when
reading your work. it seems like this backwards melting is so obvious, now that
i see it.
should have been obvious.
anyway, i agree, if this is ever published
scans of the poems should be included.
the
internet as a whole is not reliable at all for translation. i have been
learning and relearning that over and over in the last year or so. i thought it
had gotten better than it is.
JMB:
problem is, that language is so immersed in context, that what a word
"means" is not a fixed thing at all, ever. and language is always
changing, constantly, and much faster than one normally realizes
JL:
that's a good "problem" for us not so for our machines
over
time these machines will teach us, collectively, to be limited in the same ways
that they are limited
JMB:
hah! unless the machines all fail when the power grid collapses....
*****
