Or St. Gertrude of Paree?
I'll settle for her Baltimore period.
Hal
"All naming is already murder."
--Jacques Lacan
Halvard Johnson
================
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http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html
http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
http://www.hamiltonstone.org
http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/vidalocabooks.html
On Sep 3, 2007, at 6:27 PM, Joseph Duemer wrote:
> Wouldn'tit be St. Gertrude of Oakland, the famous not-there of
> "there's no
> there there"?
>
> jd
>
> On 9/3/07, MC Ward <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> Worse yet are the one-god-at-most Unitarians, but my
>> father was a lapsed Methodical who sang but never
>> danced or wrote a poem. When I tried at the age of 16
>> to join the Mormons, he refused to allow it on the
>> grounds that he'd signed a pledge to raise us kids
>> Catholic.
>>
>> That's interesting about (St.) Gertrude Stein, but
>> you're right that the poem need not make that explicit
>> to be successful, as your poem certainly is.
>>
>>
>>
>> --- Halvard Johnson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> Oh, well, we lapsed Methodicals can't be expected to
>>> know all the technicalities of achieving sainthood
>>> (he
>>> pleads, eschewing the 5th).
>>>
>>> Ste. Gertrude of Baltimore, for me, is Gertrude
>>> Stein.
>>> Not that that's essential knowledge.
>>>
>>> Glad you like it, btw.
>>>
>>> Hal
>>>
>>> "If Gladstone fell into the Thames, that would
>>> be a misfortune, and if someone pulled him
>>> out, that, I suppose, would be a calamity."
>>> --Benjamin Disraeli
>>>
>>> Halvard Johnson
>>> ================
>>> [log in to unmask]
>>> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html
>>> http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
>>> http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
>>> http://www.hamiltonstone.org
>>>
>> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/vidalocabooks.html
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sep 3, 2007, at 12:45 PM, MC Ward wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Hal,
>>>>
>>>> This is a _wonderful_ poem! I especially like the
>>>> unidentified "he" who speaks on behalf of the
>>> saint
>>>> and himself with no confusion between them. I'd
>>> like
>>>> to know more about Gertrude and her "ascent,"
>>> assuming
>>>> that she's real. Oh, btw, once she's "ascended"
>>>> through the pre-saint levels and been made a saint
>>>> herself, she wouldn't then ascend (if we're
>>> talking
>>>> about being bodily raised to heaven) as that's
>>> always
>>>> been Jesus and Mary's action, exclusively.
>>>>
>>>> Well, it's unexpectedly nice to recall my Catholic
>>>> girlhood--just ignore me if I get too pedantic
>>>>
>>>> Candice.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --- Halvard Johnson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The Ascension of St. Gertrude of Baltimore
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> 1.
>>>>>
>>>>> Half objects are alive. Art enlarges
>>>>> the Western eye, arm reappears as
>>>>> an extension of his desires. Caucasian
>>>>> incised edges shrivel as the body
>>>>>
>>>>> makes the plane of eye visible, definite,
>>>>> along the thread of green that marks
>>>>> the riverbank. Losing its beard,
>>>>> the inner world, the outer
>>>>>
>>>>> spins from nude to nude, making
>>>>> the dangers of nature seem all too evident.
>>>>> Myopic sulks, some fertile stamping
>>>>> ground, flawed but not unastonishing.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> 2.
>>>>>
>>>>> From a moving up toward sunlight, he comes
>>>>> upon assertions that many might single out
>>>>> for further clarification. Dour mosaics
>>>>> have survived in a thousand forms of culture.
>>>>>
>>>>> At the apex of his own ducal authority,
>>>>> the placement of a leg is widely parodied.
>>>>> Comic realities full of charm and surprise
>>>>> come to us with very little in the way
>>>>>
>>>>> of bad press. A woman is the problem
>>>>> that the oppressive robes seem to address,
>>>>> hallmarks of a cold hierarchical mind.
>>>>> Rarely documented were his private letters.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> 3.
>>>>>
>>>>> I will argue that the implacable memory
>>>>> vaulting towards the heavenly lens
>>>>> of age brings us nothing but misery
>>>>> unless the borders of the body
>>>>>
>>>>> be well guarded and observed. Three,
>>>>> two, one. And what then?
>>>>> Electrified by her beauty, I wandered
>>>>> through a sentimental landscape
>>>>>
>>>>> stopping only to inquire after lost relations,
>>>>> their athletic vigor that was told to me.
>>>>> Self-impairment is what took poor
>>>>> Shelley down. Was that ever a secret?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> 4.
>>>>>
>>>>> Soft and flowing were her ways and words,
>>>>> her androgyne friends. The white fez
>>>>> marked her out in public, at night spots
>>>>> along the river, or down at the harbor.
>>>>>
>>>>> Baltimore gives and Baltimore takes away.
>>>>> He even said that he wanted to grow
>>>>> old, no longer in the cloistered
>>>>> university, but out of town, out in the boonies.
>>>>>
>>>>> A face reddens with sexual flush. I met you
>>>>> and you had the more extraordinary
>>>>> influence over me. Apollo only comes out
>>>>> by daylight, the heart irately read.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> [after, and out of, Camille Paglia's *Sexual
>>>>> Personae*]
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Hal
>>>>>
>>>>> Halvard Johnson
>>>>> ================
>>>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>>> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html
>>>>> http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
>>>>> http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
>>>>> http://www.hamiltonstone.org
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/vidalocabooks.html
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>> _____________________________________________________________________
>> _
>>>
>>>> ______________
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _____________________________________________________________________
>> _______________
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>
>
>
> --
> Joseph Duemer
> Professor of Humanities
> Clarkson University
> [sharpsand.net]
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