J. H. Prynne

[Benny Bunter]

shrink the confines down
so that i come back to this

I love this line

 

[woops]

i remember thinking what a great + ambitioous + audacious way it was to open his collected works

 

[Benny Bunter]

I think he wants to be more simple and more accurate. He wants to return to something we have lost. Home.

 

[version]

at all
anyway
whatever

even so

rubbish

 

[Benny Bunter]

Kitchen poems and white stones are amazing books. I read through Brass as well and enjoyed it, but I did it really quickly, just skimmed the surface really

 

[woops]

at all
anyway
whatever

even so

rubbish

you could take this for a parody if you didn't know better

 

[linebaugh]

at all
anyway
whatever

even so

rubbish

 

[version]

I like this one a lot,

Smaller than the Radius of the Planet​

There is a patch like ice in the sky this
evening & the wind tacks about, we are
both stopped/fingered by it. I lay out my
unrest like white lines on the slope, so that
something out of broken sleep will land
there. Look up, a vale of sorrow opened by
eyes anywhere above us, the child spread out
in his memory of darkness. And so, then, the
magnetic influence of Venus sweeps its
shiver into the heart/brain or hypothalamus,
we are still here, I look steadily at nothing.
"The gradient of the decrease may be de-
termined by the spread in intrinsic lumin-
osities"—the ethereal language of love in
brilliant suspense between us and the
hesitant arc. Yet I need it too and keep
one hand in my pocket & one in yours,
waiting for the first snow of the year.

 

[woops]

I like this one a lot,

Smaller than the Radius of the Planet​

There is a patch like ice in the sky this
evening & the wind tacks about, we are
both stopped/fingered by it. I lay out my
unrest like white lines on the slope, so that
something out of broken sleep will land
there. Look up, a vale of sorrow opened by
eyes anywhere above us, the child spread out
in his memory of darkness. And so, then, the
magnetic influence of Venus sweeps its
shiver into the heart/brain or hypothalamus,
we are still here, I look steadily at nothing.
"The gradient of the decrease may be de-
termined by the spread in intrinsic lumin-
osities"—the ethereal language of love in
brilliant suspense between us and the
hesitant arc. Yet I need it too and keep
one hand in my pocket & one in yours,
waiting for the first snow of the year.

what a softie, is the hypothalamus not part of the brain then

 

[Benny Bunter]

Home/return is a big thing in poetry, isn't it? Which is why the Odyssey keeps coming up when you read about all this stuff - Pound, Olson etc, and it's obviously central to Prynne's early stuff too

 

[luka]

Brass is infinitely better than white stones and kitchen poems, neither of which i really love. sometimes i think i hate them.

 

[woops]

what a softie, is the hypothalamus not part of the brain then

i've just looked it up and it is.

 

[luka]

Home/return is a big thing in poetry, isn't it? Which is why the Odyssey keeps coming up when you read about all this stuff - Pound, Olson etc, and it's obviously central to Prynne's early stuff too

i think it might of talked about it in my world famous guide to being a poet

 

[Benny Bunter]

Brass is infinitely better than white stones and kitchen poems, neither of which i really love. sometimes i think i hate them.

I don't know, I think there's a lot more on the level of relatable meaning you can extract from KP/WS, which he then more or less completely jettisons with Brass, but I haven't really read Brass properly yet. It is obviously really really good though

 

[luka]

I like this one a lot,

Smaller than the Radius of the Planet​

I lay out my
unrest like white lines on the slope

loves his nose-bag, Prynne

 

[luka]

I don't know, I think there's a lot more on the level of relatable meaning you can extract from KP/WS, which he then more or less completely jettisons with Brass, bjt I haven't really read Brass properly yet. It is obviously really really good though

i think its an illusion that theres any meaning in those ones.

 

[Benny Bunter]

i think its an illusion that theres any meaning in those ones.

If you mean kitchen and white stones, then I disagree strongly. Nothings very clear though and there are all these oppositions,as we were talking about earlier

 

[woops]

isn't it his thing to spunk as much meaning and as many meanings as possible on the page willy nilly? that's why we have so much trouble with him, not cos he's incomprehensible but the opposite

 

[version]

Home/return is a big thing in poetry, isn't it? Which is why the Odyssey keeps coming up when you read about all this stuff - Pound, Olson etc, and it's obviously central to Prynne's early stuff too

It's where the heart/brain or hypothalamus is.

 

[luka]

hmmmm. i think its becasue everything he has written is, in the strictest sense, total and utter gibberish. i really beleive that. its my position.