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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