Dave thanks -so protive might mean something or other -continually vibrating
?? found the book better as I got into it for me sort of two strands -
Brophy mentions Genet -can you recommend other modern poetic prose cheers
Patrick -struggling here Patrick doing kitchen shelving protively
-----Original Message-----
From: British & Irish poets [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of David Bircumshaw
Sent: 24 October 2013 21:57
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: help protive!
patrick
below is an excerpt from "THE INSCRIPTION OF "FEMININE JOUISSANCE IN
ELIZABETH SMART'S BY GRAND CENTRAL STATION I SAT DOWN AND WEPT" by Denise
Adele Heaps (which you can easily find online). The commentary explicates
the viewpoint of the book's 'continually vibrating I' and should make it
easier to take a shot at 'protive'. Hope you've made it to Page 84:
"Her entire body is aroused by his mere presence: "But he never passes
anywhere near me without every drop of my blood springing to attention. My
mind may reason that the tenseness only registers neutrality, but my heart
knows no true neutrality was ever so full of passion" (20). "The continually
vibrating I"(21) is in a state of perpetual jouissance at the mere
anticipation of intimacy.
The love affair itself is transformed from a heterosexual coupling to a by
turns bisexual, homosexual, lesbian, and incestuous union through poetry and
metaphor. In her foreword, Brophy finds Smart "agreeing with Genet about the
convertibility, the metamorphic indetermination, of the sexes" (12). Hearing
her lover recount his homosexual encounter with "blond sapling boys with
blue eye-shadow" in printshops (20, 68), the narrator replies, "One should
love beings whatever their sex"
(20). Both the narrator and her lover are hermaphrodites who metamorphose
from one sex to the other at will. Their love partakes of the lesbian and
incestuous embrace:
"I remember the night it turned him into an Assyrian girl, casting down his
lashes under a blossoming turban. Then we were two sisters and I the
protive. He had no breasts, and this was nostalgic. O the glittering incest
bird. But all so gracefully submissive, who will put the hand over the
heart?" (82) Pondering her lover's shadow, the narrator becomes virile and
grows phallic:
"Also, smoothed away from all detail, I see, not the face of a lover to
arouse my coquetry or defiance, but the gentle outline of a young girl. And
this, though shocking. enables me to understand, and myself rise as virile a
cobra, out of my lodge, to assume control." (22) After a night of unsatiated
desire, guilt. and despair. her phallic "phoenix of love is as bright as a
totem pole, in the morning, on the sky, breathing like a workman setting out
on a job" (36)."
On 24/10/2013, Patrick McManus <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dave thanks and what did you or others think it meant-??for this poor
> old puzzled head -some think it's a typo?
> Cheers P
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: British & Irish poets
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David
> Bircumshaw
> Sent: 24 October 2013 19:03
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: help protive!
>
> Patrick - I think at you look at the paragraph as a whole and what it
> is describing it's not too hard to decipher what Smart probably
> intended by 'protive'.
> Best
>
> David
>
>
> ------Original Message------
> From: David Bircumshaw
> To: British & Irish poets
> Subject: Re: help protive!
> Sent: 22 Oct 2013 10:45
>
> Maybe you should quote the paragraph Patrick:
>
> "I remember the night it turned him into an Assyrian girl, casting
> down his lashes under a blossoming turban. Then we were two sisters
> and I the protive. He had no breasts, and this was nostalgic. O the
> glittering incest bird. But all so gracefully submissive, who will put
> the hand over the heart? (82)"
>
>
>
> On 22/10/2013, Patrick McManus <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Hi all you well reads -I old and ancient am reading or trying to
>>
>>
>>
>> Elizabeth Smart-By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and
> Wept..............'
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Part 8 page 82 in my edition (Paladin '91) mentions the word 'protive'
>>
>>
>>
>> 'Then we were two sisters and I the protive'
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> I can't seem to find the word anywhere -any of you got any ideas ? is
>> it a typo??
>>
>> -I have faith in this group!! Do not let me down!!!!
>>
>>
>>
>> Of course someone might have the original edition I was wondering if
>> it was connected to votive as in offering???
>>
>>
>>
>> Patrick poetic prosing protively
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> David Joseph Bircumshaw
> **
> Website and A Chide's Alphabet
> http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/david.bircumshaw
> twitter: http://twitter.com/bucketshave
> blog: http://groggydays.blogspot.com/
> Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.com
>
>
> Sent from my BlackBerry smartphone from Virgin Media
>
--
David Joseph Bircumshaw
**
Website and A Chide's Alphabet
http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/david.bircumshaw
twitter: http://twitter.com/bucketshave
blog: http://groggydays.blogspot.com/
Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.com
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