Yearly Archives: 2008

islands redux

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“We always have the ideal image of being on an island but actually being on an island always turns out to be hellish. For what it is worth, Lawrence wasn’t too keen on islands either. ‘I don’t care for islands, especially very small ones,’ he decided on Île de Port Cros. A week later, as if, first time around, he had simply been trying out an opinion, and had now made up his mind he announced, definitively: ‘I don’t like little islands.’

Me neither. All you can think of when you are on a small island is the impossibility of leaving when you want to, either because the island you are on is too big and you want to go to a smaller one or because the island is too small and you want to go to a bigger one.”

(Geoff Dyer, Out of Sheer Rage: In the Shadow of D. H. Lawrence. pp.18–19.)

portrait with a goat

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We were reading to ourselves. Sometimes to others.
I was quietly reading the margin
when the doves fell, it was blue
outside. Perhaps in a moment,
he said. The moment never came.
I was reading something else now,
it didn’t matter. Other people came, and
dropped off their resumés. I wasn’t being idle,
exactly. Someone wanted to go away
altogether in this preposterous season.

(John Ashbery, in As Umbrellas Follow Rain)

ninth poem in fascicle 34

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My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun –
In Corners – till a Day
The Owner passed – identified –
And carried Me away –

And now We roam in Sovreign Woods –
And now We hunt the Doe –
And every time I speak for Him –
The Mountains straight reply –

And do I smile, such cordial light
Upon the Valley glow –
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let it’s pleasure through –

And when at Night – Our good Day done –
I guard My Master’s Head –
’Tis better than the Eider-Duck’s
Deep Pillow – to have shared –

To foe of His – I’m deadly foe –
None stir the second time –
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye –
Or an emphatic Thumb –

Though I than He – may longer live
He longer must – than I –
For I have but the power to kill,
Without – the power to die –

5. in] the –
16. Deep] low
18. stir] harm
23. power] art

(Emily Dickinson, no. 754, about 1863.)

and how often do we need mountains

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“I caught sight of a splendid Misses. She had handkerchiefs and kisses. She had eyes and yellow shoes she had everything to choose and she chose me. In passing through France she wore a Chinese hat and so did I. In looking at the sun she read a map and so did I. . . . In loving the blue sea she had a pain. And so did I. In loving me she of necessity thought first. And so did I. How prettily we swim. Not in water. Not on land. But in love. How often do we need trees and hills. Not often. And how often do we need mountains. Not very often.”

(Gertrude Stein, from “A Sonatina Followed by Another”, quoted in the preface to Davenport’s Sappho.)

43.

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Be bold! That’s one way
Of getting through life.
So I turn upon her
And point out that,
Faced with the wickedness
Of things, she does not shiver.
I prefer to have, after all,
Only what pleases me.
Are you so deep in misery
That you think me fallen?
You say I’m lazy; I’m not,
Nor any of my kin-people.
I know how to love those
Who love me, how to hate.
My enemies I overwhelm
With abuse. The ant bites!
The oracle said to me:
“Return to the city, reconquer.
It is almost in ruins.
With your spear give it glory.
Reign with absolute power,
The admiration of me.
After this long voyage,
Return to us from Gortyne.”
Pasture, fish, nor vulture
Were you, and I, returned,
Seek an honest woman
Ready to be a good wife.
I would hold your hand,
Would be near you, would have run
All the way to your house.
I cannot. The ship went down,
And all my wealth with it.
The salvagers have no hope.
You whom the soldiers beat,
You who are all but dead,
How the gods love you!
And I, alone in the dark,
I was promised the light.

(Archilochos, pp. 18–19 in Guy Davenport’s Carmina Archilochi.)

back to metcalf

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“A unique poem or narrative may have a good deal more than what we call voice; or there may be a good deal more embodied than the term implies. The realized work is an organic animal, impinging itself, possibly, on all the senses, but primarily, of course, on sight and sound: the layout of the language on the page (and here the designer and the printer collaborate with the author) – and the appeal to the inner ear, the way we find ourselves hearing it as we read.

In a curious way, there is verification of what I’m talking about, in the appeal to the eye: I refer to the radical transformations a piece of writing goes through, in the journey from gestation to birth. A hand-written manuscript is one thing; run up on the typewriter it is something organically different. This is not often recognized, or comes to one as a shock: that the mode of presentation may fundamentally affect the substance of what it presented. The next transformation is from typescript to galley proofs; and when these arrive on the author’s desk, he may feel a curious mixture of loss and pride: the work is distancing, but it is coming nearer to its own final realization. The final transformation, of course, is from proofs to book. The work is at last born.”

(Paul Metcalf, “The Eye Hears, the Voice Looks”, pp. 55–56 in From Quarry Road.)