I wonder if anyone has seen Carol Mirakove's book _WALL_, recently
published by ixnay press in Philadelphia? This is surprizing work, at the
prosodic level in particular since packed with narrow-angle reverses and
speed stunts which don't easily get commuted elsewhere, into a thematic
clearing outside the prosody's own circumference. That is, the prosody
doesn't seem to require, as does much modern prosody, that its phonic
effect should stimulate the recognition of an anterior sensibility or
disposition -- Mirakove's lines are not evidences of an idea, but
intimations of an idea. Were this a derogatory remark it would be quite
misplaced, but it isn't; I mean simply that the rhetoric is not forensic
or epideictic, cannot stop to argue for a result since the possibility of
any result has been energetically discounted. Kind of rapid spree of
phenomenological reduction in the courtroom toilets, to put it that way.
There is a danger that this kind of swerving and aggressively uncompleted
syntax can seem merely complacent, since the omission of argument is just
as easily aggrandized as argument itself can be; what Mirakove seems
to do however is to discount that result preemptively, by forcing her
prosodic agility to stand in opposition to (and not just as the contrary
of) the possibility of that grandness. I like this speed which is not
(would not be) fluency. It is the speed of impact, the velocity of
contradiction and cutbacks in self-belief, never the speed of -assurance-.
Because not tending toward any ideal result, the poems do often seem
targetless, highly charged but making no charge of their own, excited by
their own debilitation. This could be a questionable point at which to
break off, to be satisfied, in theorizing one's purposes in writing -- why
stop unless in some way pressured to do so? Does Mirakove not think that
-reluctance to argue specifically- can not only appear as, but finally
also imply a more passive condition: the condition of -having been
deterred from- that kind of argument, perhaps by the immensity of concrete
political dissuasion in (eg) contemporary L.A., where she lives? If a
fact is hostile, surely it ought not to be granted the power of
deterrence? Arguments are of course often tacit or in the form of
index-by-omission, but I don't feel that they are so in _WALL_. The
question might then turn out to be: does this work account for the
omssion of political targets through the drama of a resultless prosody, or
does this prosody (in itself very affective and striking) do no more than
-raise- that question? Plus: exactly how much ought it to matter?
A few other questions: if her life is this fast, whose lives are therefore
much slower? Do they appear in implied counterpoint? What is the
relation, in her prosody, of speed to assonance? Could any critique of
reification be extrapoltaed from that -- as if perhaps the noise clusters
are crunched-up so that they can more rapidly be skipped over? Qs for any
or no As,

best, K


poem by Carol Mirakove, from _WALL_ (ixnay press, c/o McCreary, 1164 South
10th St., Philadelphia, PA 19147. e-mail [log in to unmask]):






go-kart jusrisdiction



it's the hyphenated kind
with a k in the middle
downhill no brakes running on
your snuff bars
bongos &
the plum lady
love pump under foot
freckles the sidewalk with pulp
      steamy slush
wind up
clitoris metal
sparking speaking on metal
hair traipsed on a corner crossing
white paint
crayola-crusted
egos in the lines
& that's why I love you exacto knife
for being something to smash
this
reckoning, or not-speed
is not fun, not fucking fun
so drive I sd & for not-christ's sake
shut yr eyes
cause I'm the lazy quick type
with a patch of wind & not much clock &
wind
& wind



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