david b. said
>but I'm fed up of not-saying, of negative air on the list....
Hmmm, david...
Anyway, Mayan linguistics is fascinating indeed. You might want to check out
Eliot Weinberger's classic essay, "Lost Wax/Found Objects" in Sulfur 21 for
suggestive relationships of findings to contemporary poetics.
>From: "david.bircumshaw" <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: "david.bircumshaw" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Close Listening
>Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 21:50:55 -0000
>
>I've been leafing through an Bernstein's 'Close Listening' and like the
>following,
>no doubt this terain will be familiar to some, for which I beg patience,
>but
>others...
>
>and no doubt to there are those who could correct my little wit of this...
>
>but I'm fed up of not-saying, of negative air on the list....
>
>A study of Mayan poetics called, 'Towards a Poetics of Polyphony and
>Translatability' , by one Dennis Tedlock, and written in a very odd
>English,
>the sort that is peppered with academe and clumsy attempts at originality
>of
>phrase, that can very easily disinterest a reader, however, he does know
>his
>Mayans.
>The piece develops out of an account of Mayan work preserved by the Spanish
>in a sixtenth century transliteration, hence written in 'our' alphabet but
>in Mayan or 'QuichE' (shd be an accent on the 'e'). A work called 'Popol
>Vuh' or 'Council Book', from the Guatemalan highlands.
>It is a book of lessons on poetry which takes the form of a story of how
>the
>gods prepared the world for human beings and how human beings might have
>developed, illustrated by hypothetical poems for humans at different stages
>of development.
>From the onset the gods wanted human beings who could speak to them (yes,
>we
>were born to, from, talk) but their expectations were also poetic. But they
>didn't want to hear complete sentences so much as phrases or words in
>parallel pairs. when they made the animals each species made a different
>sound but repeated the cry without variation. After four attempts the gods
>succeeded and humans appeared, four of them. When the gods ask them to
>talk,
>they get a poem in reply;
>
>Qitzij chik truly now
>
>kamul k'amo double thanks
>oxmul k'amo triple thanks
>
>mixojwinaqirik we've been formed
>mi pu xojchi'nik and we have mouths
>xojwachinik we have faces
>
>kojch'awik we speak
>we listen we listen
>kojta'onik we wonder
>kojsilab'ik we move
>
>thus far, the author says: 'there are rhythms here, but they are temporary
>rhythms created by alignments of syntax and meaning.... rhymes, too, in the
>broad sense... but again aligned with syntax and meaning ... the effect is
>to foreground the parts of the parallel lines that _do not_ rhyme (I like
>that) '
>
>The first sentence is not yet over:
>
>utz kaqana'o our thinking is good
>
>xketamaj naj naqaj we have the knowledge of the far and near
>mi pu xqilo nim ch'utin and we've seen the great and the small
>
>upa kaj in the sky
>upa ulew on the earth
>
>fr'inst ' mi' is the perfect aspect, 'pu' a conjunction'., then the verb
>followed by 'nim ch'utin' - ' great small' which itself links with 'naj
>naqaj' in the line before/above which is ' far near'. Does it start to come
>across? And how the monostich pegs, builds, holds up the whole, the line
>carrying the non-isometric rhythms. I'm very into this. It accords with my
>own
>experience of how poems happen, stand.
>
>The gods are alarmed and cloud the understanding of humans, so, reduced to
>mortals who can only communicate with the gods at a distance, they are left
>to the desperation of prayer.
>After a long time wandering in darkness, humans regain some of their
>understanding, becoming dreamers and diviners, learning how to use
>'instruments for seeing' such as crystals. Or books.
>
>
>david bircumshaw
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