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POETRYETC  November 2012

POETRYETC November 2012

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Subject:

Re: couple sitting

From:

Patrick McManus <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Poetryetc: poetry and poetics

Date:

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 18:28:15 -0000

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (185 lines)

A shit of fools -just popped into my mind (fools don't relate to present
company hastens to add nor shit niffer!!
P

-----Original Message-----
From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Douglas Barbour
Sent: 28 November 2012 18:16
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: couple sitting

Oh, not offended, Lawrence, & I can see that I took it too severely maybe. I
meant the Swift of some poems, bewailing the meat etc.

So I took it to be inviting something of an 'ugh'  but obviously got it
wrong.

And I do get all that, about the aging body & all....

Guess, I'm still not sure how to take that last word...

So lots of ambiguities in the poem...?

But, I'm sorry to have offended you on this matter...

Doug
On 2012-11-28, at 10:48 AM, Lawrence Upton <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> 
> 
> 	Well that may have to be, Doug, that poem and that judgment, because

> that's what I am able to write, one of a set that have begun to 
> appear.
> 
> 	& I don't think it is Swiftian.
> 
> 	This poem started with a friend telling me, in some distress, of 
> having to deal with the growing incontinence of his terminally sick 
> lover, which recalled for me a similar experience I had some years ago 
> with a friend. Neither of us then much welcomed that less than 
> pleasant intimacy but it needed doing and I did it and she accepted 
> the help.
> 
> 	More recently, I think it's relevant, and we're grown up here, I had

> an infection which required I do not go far from the toilet. I fasted 
> for three days rather than taking the antibiotic route and its 
> destruction of most of my microbial fellow travellers, and remember 
> marvelling at my body's capacity for manufacturing noxious output.
> Which dwindled and my illness passed. Nurses face that all the time.
> 
> 	It is possible nowadays almost to isolate ourselves from the faecal 
> quite as much as we have from the facts of death. Even the country is 
> largely free of the faecal as the beasts we keep in captivity know 
> four walls. But it's there under the dust of artificial fertiliser
> 
> 	The poem started in its mechanics from the phrase "full of shit"
> which brought in the above and added a further dimension which I 
> imagine works in Canadian English.
> 
> 	Both, incontinence and people who are full of shit, tend to isolate 
> those concerned from others, as my illness did, temporarily; as does 
> inability to express themselves clearly, leaving them meaning to mean.
> Others recoil; but there are plenty who can state their meaning well; 
> and we are all full of shit mechanically
> 
> 	I could point to the difference between the depicted behaviour here 
> and that of the Houyhnhnms in Swift. Nor do I think I indicate any 
> revulsion such as that expressed by Lemuel Gulliver.
> 
> 	Far from lustful unclean apes in my fellows, I tried to describe 
> something rather monumental, almost Moore-like maybe though a bit 
> closed in as things are at this time of year - fog and smelly cattle 
> sheds. Try the early morning train for a cleaned up version.
> 
> 	I'm sitting in a cafe with wifi. Looking around I'd say there's a
lot 
> of the dairy herd going on. Chewing the cud, you know. Awareness not 
> quite I and thou. I'm trying to look at it clearly.
> 
> 	Anyway, sorry to have offended.
> 
> 	L
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Poetryetc: poetry and poetics" 
> To:
> Cc:
> Sent:Wed, 28 Nov 2012 09:53:34 -0700
> Subject:Re: couple sitting
> 
> My 'ugh,' seems demanded here, Lawrence. A somewhat Swiftian vision at 
> work...
> 
> Doug
> On 2012-11-28, at 3:57 AM, Lawrence Upton  wrote:
> 
>> 
>> 
>> two bags, proud with shit,
>> 
>> left near to each other,
>> 
>> holding themselves in;
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> neither says much, though
>> 
>> they speak, both; lowly,
>> 
>> silence imposing its damp
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> within each self,
>> 
>> whispering; releasing them
>> 
>> from meaning to mean ,signifying
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> their own tightness; lowing
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
> 
> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
> http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
> 
> Latest books: 
> Continuations & Continuations 2 (with Sheila E Murphy)
> http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=962
> Wednesdays'
> http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-pres
> s_10.html
> 
> Swept snow, Li Po,
> by dawn's 40-watt moon
> to the road that hies to office
> away from home.
> 
> Lorine Niedecker
> 
> 
> 

Douglas Barbour
[log in to unmask]

http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/

Latest books: 
Continuations & Continuations 2 (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=962
Wednesdays'
http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.h
tml

Swept snow, Li Po,
by dawn's 40-watt moon
to the road that hies to office
away from home.
 
            Lorine Niedecker


		

 

                   

	
 

                                

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