Benny Bunter
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Wordsworth's 'spots in time' from the Prelude
J. H. Prynne
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- 100 god damn pages butchering sontag cooking with propane corpsey why are you so thick deaths from bromo-dragonfly enjoy your journey enjoy! everyone! gravity bong happy to help! jamaican voodoo gang from predator 2 lads vs. dudes martin anus prynne is boring as fuck shaun from delaware stoned modernism teat. the albert ayler of the recorder the bee is the messiah the path clears by the use it gets thick as fuck to pollen traitor cow-juice treacle assembled proverb tangle proton west coast dudes
Benny Bunter
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We know from reading Cartoon that 'gut' can mean 'channel' or 'stream', so broken gut, flow bereft, grip torrent and fluent lock are all closely related.
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
Be interested to know what you think of this @luka in light of that Lucretius quote and other stuff we've been discussing. Got a feeling you don't like Stevens though.
I see the clattering bucks as thoughts, or perhaps external information flowing (or rather clattering dumbly) through the mind, and the bristling firecat as the artistic imagination that leaps upon them, , makes them swerve, creates friction, and later dreams up new creative works.
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
Yeah, I was reading it the other day actually, a scan I downloaded from somewhere, from that Conceptions book. Really really good. I love Stevens.
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
This is the poem he dissects
I
There was an ease of mind that was like being alone in a boat at sea,
A boat carried forward by waves resembling the bright backs of rowers,
Gripping their oars, as if they were sure of the way to their destination,
Bending over and pulling themselves erect on the wooden handles,
Wet with water and sparkling in the one-ness of their motion.
The boat was built of stones that had lost their weight and being no longer heavy
Had left in them only a brilliance, of unaccustomed origin,
So that he that stood up in the boat leaning and looking before him
Did not pass like someone voyaging out of and beyond the familiar.
He belonged to the far-foreign departure of his vessel and was part of it,
Part of the speculum of fire on its prow, its symbol, whatever it was,
Part of the glass-like sides on which it glided over the salt-stained water,
As he traveled alone, like a man lured on by a syllable without any meaning,
A syllable of which he felt, with an appointed sureness,
That it contained the meaning into which he wanted to enter,
A meaning which, as he entered it, would shatter the boat and leave the oarsmen quiet
As at a point of central arrival, an instant moment, much or little,
Removed from any shore, from any man or woman, and needing none.
II
The metaphor stirred his fear. The object with which he was compared
Was beyond his recognizing. By this he knew that likeness of him extended
Only a little way, and not beyond, unless between himself
And things beyond resemblance there was this and that intended to be recognized,
The this and that in the enclosures of hypotheses
On which men speculated in summer when they were half asleep.
What self, for example, did he contain that had not yet been loosed,
Snarling in him for discovery as his attentions spread,
As if all his hereditary lights were suddenly increased
By an access of color, a new and unobserved, slight dithering,
The smallest lamp, which added its puissant flick, to which he gave
A name and privilege over the ordinary of his commonplace—
A flick which added to what was real and its vocabulary,
The way some first thing coming into Northern trees
Adds to them the whole vocabulary of the South,
The way the earliest single light in the evening sky, in spring,
Creates a fresh universe out of nothingness by adding itself,
The way a look or a touch reveals its unexpected magnitudes.
Prologues to What is Possible
I
There was an ease of mind that was like being alone in a boat at sea,
A boat carried forward by waves resembling the bright backs of rowers,
Gripping their oars, as if they were sure of the way to their destination,
Bending over and pulling themselves erect on the wooden handles,
Wet with water and sparkling in the one-ness of their motion.
The boat was built of stones that had lost their weight and being no longer heavy
Had left in them only a brilliance, of unaccustomed origin,
So that he that stood up in the boat leaning and looking before him
Did not pass like someone voyaging out of and beyond the familiar.
He belonged to the far-foreign departure of his vessel and was part of it,
Part of the speculum of fire on its prow, its symbol, whatever it was,
Part of the glass-like sides on which it glided over the salt-stained water,
As he traveled alone, like a man lured on by a syllable without any meaning,
A syllable of which he felt, with an appointed sureness,
That it contained the meaning into which he wanted to enter,
A meaning which, as he entered it, would shatter the boat and leave the oarsmen quiet
As at a point of central arrival, an instant moment, much or little,
Removed from any shore, from any man or woman, and needing none.
II
The metaphor stirred his fear. The object with which he was compared
Was beyond his recognizing. By this he knew that likeness of him extended
Only a little way, and not beyond, unless between himself
And things beyond resemblance there was this and that intended to be recognized,
The this and that in the enclosures of hypotheses
On which men speculated in summer when they were half asleep.
What self, for example, did he contain that had not yet been loosed,
Snarling in him for discovery as his attentions spread,
As if all his hereditary lights were suddenly increased
By an access of color, a new and unobserved, slight dithering,
The smallest lamp, which added its puissant flick, to which he gave
A name and privilege over the ordinary of his commonplace—
A flick which added to what was real and its vocabulary,
The way some first thing coming into Northern trees
Adds to them the whole vocabulary of the South,
The way the earliest single light in the evening sky, in spring,
Creates a fresh universe out of nothingness by adding itself,
The way a look or a touch reveals its unexpected magnitudes.
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
Good, maybe not one of his best, I prefer the earlier stuff in Harmonium, but Prynne's analysis of it is unbelievable. (As in, good)
sus
Moderator
Your probably right it's just that I find most poetry incomprehensible I have to read it over and over and even then sometimes I don't get anywhere, I'm actually very thick
luka
Well-known member
a grippage torrent in forage presentation, will
affix new side got to tell short and mute. Inlet
is meant by age
luka
Well-known member
were you just browsing the prelude thread and found this> must have felt great and slightly unreal
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
Yeah, amazing. I started browsing that thread cos @sus mentioned it here. Then I saw 'alpine' and 'elude' and it all just came together. There's no such thing as a coincidence.
luka
Well-known member
it feels too easy sometimes like it wants to be discoverd
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
I think I already had Wordsworth in mind when I saw 'Oh' which made me think of that Prynne essay.
sus
Moderator
I need tos ophisticate my reading techniques because you cant possibly write them if you cant read them
I think partly why I read secondary sources benny is because they alert you to these techniques so you look out for them
of course you can just spend massive amounts of time and energy attending and noticing the text, that's good too, but usually strange poetic texts using foreign techniques, they just slide off me and I never trust authorities so how can I know when to invest when will be worth it
I think partly why I read secondary sources benny is because they alert you to these techniques so you look out for them
of course you can just spend massive amounts of time and energy attending and noticing the text, that's good too, but usually strange poetic texts using foreign techniques, they just slide off me and I never trust authorities so how can I know when to invest when will be worth it
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
I was just about to go to bed when Luka forced me to choose a poem to read. Not sure if technique is the right word tbh, all you have to do is read and be open and then things start to happen.