"We must uncenter our minds from ourselves"..

thanks for giving me a reason to look him up.

KS

On 08/10/2007, joe green <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Thanks! -- the speaker is Robinson Jeffers...
>
>   with the distance, irony and then I hope transcending of irony and particularity I want...
>
>
> kasper salonen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>   this starts out brilliantly -- literally & figuratively. I can envision
> Orion bright against utter blackness. the linking of the constellation to
> earthly items makes it legendary, humanised (hunter, thigh, lion's skin,
> spear: and especially the adjective string "brilliant lilac and ashy", it's
> a wonderfully visual, but also almost olfactory image).
> the invented background, dog/woman/treasure, is just brief enough to serve
> as a wondering myth-explanation, more a whimsical idea than any sort of
> belief. repetition of the sword burning (this time against no thigh, but
> shining on its own) and the same adjective string is just effective enough.
>
> so far this really reminds me more of Caleb's image-ful poems, differing in
> a sort of sweepingness here & in length.
> putting those two phrases in the first stanza in quotations gives this an
> added ambiguity myth-wise; are you commenting on existing conceptions,
> reverting them, forgetting them, laughing at them? I like it.
>
> repetition of 'standing' in st2 feels a bit faux-grand; also the
> article-less "sky-blessed story" feels somehow weak. then again, maybe it's
> allowed or supposed to, being the spoken words of a character outside/inside
> the poem. repetition of poem/story also doesn't come across as effective;
> they're rather flammable words, or raw words, especially ot use in a poem.
> "the journey always the beginning" is a good way to describe the everlasting
> rotation of the 'heavens'.
> the dialogue sequence is nice, kept fresh with turns of phrase like the
> second sentence (where journey/treasure is inverted), "Orion wanted what?",
> the word "disremember"; the ellipsis also makes it feel like a real
> conversation -- between who I wonder. "A good story" is separated
> effectively, it ends the dialogue but continues the poem.
>
> I'm not certain what 'this story' refers to. possibly to the conceptual or
> underlying narrative shared by all great myths?
> I dislike "peeled Ape". since we're on the verge of prehistory in this poem
> as it is, the phrase conjures an actual monkey instead of the assumed human
> figure. an ape in Russia is also a bit ludicrous, slightly too ludicrous for
> the poem maybe? the dialogue already established an informal tone. evolution
> is described drolely starting with "Four million years...", funny stuff. 'A'
> Homer indeed.
>
> "starlight from the thighs of the water" is interesting, along with the
> inward contracted eye it seems a good metaphor for blindness. liquidation,
> haa.
>
> "killed and killing things", and the relationship between (causing) death &
> immortality is quickly played on. "unhuman heaven".
>
> cities as slave camps, coexistence as slavery? not seeing it. though "we"
> probably doesn't refer to Us aka humankind.
> "..so that something human will live forever in the clear dark". ahh.
>
> ENSKYEMENT? play on camp, encampment... the irony is apparent, but still.
>
> "Homer was the best of the liars / who made a compact with death".
> good'un. but maybe pact instead of compact? or maybe there's a use for the
> word compact I disremember.
>
> "unhuman beauty of reality"; a definite dismantling of the Romantic. but we
> sicken on what is not even half-real? you mean we sicken on emotions
> conveyed through lies? I'm lost.
>
> the torture-clip is brief enough to serve as a separator. good.
> from "Look at the stars" to "...flipped a nickel", this is my favourite part
> of the whole poem. just beautiful. mention of another greek character not
> yet mentioned freshens, re-mention of the dog this time starry-eyed
> continues that, the enjambement livens it all, the quotations make it
> internal, the flipped nickel is hilarious. great.
>
> from "only love" to "it loves you", this sounds a lot like Williams' later
> poetry to me; same regularly skipping line, it's wonderfully, minimally
> dramatic.
>
> more kindness in a lion's claw than in a rose; quite an aphorism.
>
> kind of a thrust into modern times next.. I still dislike having poets in a
> poem, couldn't it be exchanged for some other representative of metaphysical
> activism?
>
> poets in goat pastures loking at the stars. a good contrast. I could be one
> of those goats.
>
> haha, "you will need this". ouch.
>
> passeth understanding, groan. well, it works, but I always had a distaste
> for Eliot's use of the Upanishads. feeling cropped up again here.
>
> the drawing out of the sentence with "say, say say" is great. I think the
> second 'this' could be a 'the', i.e. "the hungered emptiness".
> bones of sleepy children? what?
> winter under the Pleiades seems surreal. nice.
>
> "It is only a trick of deep gravity / that makes the hunter fall westward
> and graveward into Asia"
> wonderful. another favourite line. and from the falling star-hunter we get
> to the radio. such shift. Orion, Nothing; that'd be imagination versus
> sense-able reality? the ending is terrible, just "Fire". very Poetic, very
> annoying. Yvonne Vera does that kind of thing in 'Butterfly Burning',
> horrid. but the cleansing/fire duality is good, all I'm saying is it should
> be played out with a little more flesh, or at least some commas.
>
>
> great work joe
>
> KS
>
> On 06/10/2007, joe green wrote:
> > Point Lobos: 1944
> >
> >
> > In the "heavens" a sword of galaxies burns
> > Against the hunter's thigh: Orion, that "most tall and
> > beautiful of men," strides out, a lion's skin on
> > His shoulders, the star that tips his spear
> > brilliant lilac and ashy.
> > His dog is at his heel. He has left a woman.
> > He is going to find a treasure and
> > Steps off into space -- and falls forever --
> > Westward across the Pacific; the sword burning,
> > The speartip brilliant lilac and
> > ashy.
> >
> > Standing at the edge of
> the sea,
> > standing here you would look up and say "Oh, what poetry this
> > is! What sky-blessed
> > story:"
> > For this is the poem, the story; the hunter -- never mind his
> > name -- Orion, Ulysses, Hercules, his eye on the treasure,
> > the journey always beginning.
> > "A journey to find treasure?"
> > "Oh, the treasure is the journey."
> > "Orion wanted what?"
> > "I disremember. But…"
> > "What?"
> > "Ulysses only wanted to get home."
> >
> > "A good story."
> >
> > I think this story the best our civilization has.
> > Think of the 600 million dead required to create it.
> >
> > Let's say Homer started it, though
> > surely it was another peeled Ape of infinite faculties, clubbed
> > to death somewhere in the steppes of Russia. Let's begin
> > with Homer. Four million years to make large animals, perhaps
> > one million years of various modulations of torment to make
> a Homer.
> >
> >
> After the war
> > They say, his inward eye contracted, he made a poem to draw
> > The starlight from the thighs of the water. A poem about a rest-
> > less man. A poem about a liquidation.
> >
> >
> Is this a story to
> > Tell a woman;
> > A story of killed and killing things, of the gods who
> > kill yet live forever? Is this even like nobility?
> > And… this is the best we have.
> >
> > I mean this: we will not look at the unhuman heaven.
> > We live in slave camps and therefore must have our Homer
> > to sing that the restless man will live forever
> > As a god.
> >
> > Perhaps only Jenghiz could tell the truth.
> > But even he would have his Homer to draw
> > The starlight from the water
> > so that
> > Something human will live forever in the clear dark.
> >
> > O vile enskyement!
> > And Homer
> was the best of the liars
> > Who made a compact with Death.
> >
> > What if we saw the
> actual stars? What
> > if, for one instant, we could leave behind the vulgarity of our
> > consciousness and see the unhuman beauty of reality?
> > But we sicken on what is not even half-real.
> >
> > Greek civilization goes
> under.
> > Another death in the family.
> > Rome degrades itself. A tortured lip twitches. "Give
> > me the hammer." Fire dives from the high
> > air.
> > A tortured god is not the prettiest of stories. Leave it to the
> > poets.
> > "Look at the stars. Orion wants it,
> > Perseus wants it, even the star-eyed
> > dog wants it.
> > But they can't have it --
> > having been born before Christ
> flipped a nickel."
> >
> > Only love can open the sky. There
> is a
> > flower in the heart
> > of the star.
> > The treasure is the
> > flower.
> >
> We have seen it.
> > It loves you."
> >
> > Dante's rose.
> > What extravagant kindness!
> >
> > I think that you will find more kindness
> > in the claws of a lion.
> >
> > Another thousand years
> of self-
> > Importance. The crystal in the granite is a fire wheel.
> > The Calla Lily is a fire wheel.
> >
> Another war and,
> > in complete candor and acutely aware of the writer's freedom
> > the public poets thrust Goebbels and Roosevelt
> > into the
> sky.
> >
> Other poets
> > (Secure in the goat pasture and looking at the stars)
> > Speak of art, of religion, of the never-ending story
> > Of the pure world. Where?
> > Above
> > the torture camp?
> > "You need this," they say. "After the bombings,
> after
> > the battle squalor you will need this also." They say, "This is
> > beauty.
> > This is love."
> >
> It passeth understanding.
> >
> > They say -- the best of them say --
> > Homer, Dante, Shakespeare say, men at the
> > extremest limit say,
> > That this, this hungered emptiness, is beauty.
> >
> Therefore:
> > Civilizations are built on the bones of sleepy children
> > and this winter, under the Pleiades, there die large
> numbers.
> >
> > It is only a trick of deep gravity
> > that makes the hunter fall westward and graveward to Asia.
> > All day I listen to the radio.
> > At night I turn to the nameless stars.
> > Orion is falling into
> Asia.
> > Nothing is falling into Asia.
> > When will we ever be
> clean?
> > Fire.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
> > Fussy? Opinionated? Impossible to please? Perfect. Join Yahoo!'s user
> panel and lay it on us.
> >
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Tonight's top picks. What will you watch tonight? Preview the hottest shows on Yahoo! TV.
>