HONR 250 BRIGGLE ADAM entries SP2000

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2000 12:22 AM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 1 Rilke // a poet's dog tags

Rilke is obsessed with loneliness, and he often prescribes it as the drug to cure the young Kappus of his various personal ailments. On page 17 he writes, "We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and most important to us." I think he sees aloneness as the way to a personal identity - as a way of answering the most gutteral human question: "Who am I?" Above all, the poet self must be. It must lift itself off of life's chaos. It must be allowed to contract (constrict) and differentiate - to stand apart. This is a need he often speaks of. Needs offer means to survival, and this need for solitude is the means to the survival of the 'inner self'. For instance, Rilke stresses the need for solitude in the case of young lovers: "being no longer able to differentiate, they no longer possess anything of their own. How can they on their own find the escape route that they have already blocked to that inner solitude?" (68). They have betrayed their inner selves, and are lost in a mix of hearts, blood and bones. They have no identity. It is as if they are non-humans, lost in a faceless limbo.

Rilke is advising a young man, not a poet, to turn inward. If he is truly a poet, then that will become apparent through his need to write. "A piece of art is good if it is born of necessity." (11). Rilke uses his creative skills to express what our basic urge is. We must define ourselves and set ourselves apart. Through a "pact with lonliness" we give ourselves the space to emerge and take on an image, to baloon into our unique forms.

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2000 11:06 AM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 26. Ondaatje//The two worlds

In my academic quest the unifying question to all courses i have taken is one of identity, and it is often centered around what characteristics of ourselves we use to define us. We live, I believe, strethced between two worlds: the animal world and the rational world (the actor and the audience, the body and the mind, the unconscious and the conscious, Jung and Freud, Lao Tzu and Confucius, the do and the think...)

Ondaatje's father could never reconcile these two worlds. He struggled with the fact that love needs to exist at both levels, perhaps to unite them: "so that the brain blood moved/ to new compartments/ that never knew the wash of fluid/ and he died in minutes of a new equilibrium" Several things here. One, the brain is moving out and washing into the body, there is a mix of the two worlds, throught the common medium of blood (after all the brain itself is just a part of the body), the illusory separation between his "logic of love" and the bodily expression of that love to his family is destroyed. But, the irony perhaps is this, we need to maintain somewhat of a separation between these worlds to stay alive, that is to be a self. We need this internal contrariness (Blake maybe?) to suspend our identity inside of ourselves. That is, the self as we know it defines itself as twoness, and each part allows the other part to exist by being other than that part. Once there is a mixture, everything blends into one, which is neither body nor mind, because there is no non-body or non-mind to stand against and define yourself.

Thus identity, voice, must come out of the rubbing of these two planes of the human self.

"till he balanced and fell/... the blood searching in his head without metaphor."

A metaphor would salvage the old self, because it is precisely how humans define themselves. We are like this or that but not actually this or that, in other words we define ourselves by what we are not, but if there has been this balancing,blending, mixing, there is no longer a rift between the I and the not I. We only infer ourselves from what we are not, and the negative space left must be us, or roughly so.

Of course, a theist would disagree, and i tend to do the same, and say that there is a kernel or an essence, unchanging and unsplittable that is the trueness of our identity... a soul. Maybe on a deeper level this is true, but at least we need to see that if we had such an internal integrity, no expression akin to a poem would be possible, because there would be no warping of reality as it filters and bends through these two selves. If external images only hit the one self (soul) then it would be a mirror, with no expressive difficulties, no need of metaphor, that is "best fit" imagery/poetry.

There really are two contraties I am talking about here, the external and internal. In the external, the world allows me to exist by being the not me, and i can therefore stand out in a distinct voice and not be washed into uniformity. The internal contrary is the body mind problem of humanness. So many fail to define their voice because they think they need to pick and choose, when in reality it is the existence and interaction of the two that gives us ourselves. Now, an elightened individual maybe integrates these two to become the mirror i spoke of...i don't know.

Example of the academic all pervasiveness of this problem: Poetry (English) the problem of expression and voice, Biology- Epigenetics= the interaction of genes with the environment (nature/ nurture), Psychology- Id, Ego vs Superego Id vs Ego, Philosophy- Nietzsche "Der Mensch ist ein Seil" a rope spread across the Affe und der Uebermensch,

Sociology- communtiy, government...the individual and the state. Math- meaning intrinsic or planned..... ?= WHO ARE WE ?=WHO AM I

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2000 12:55 AM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 25. Whtiman Simic/ a kitchen bleared

Charles Simic "Empire of Dreams" 171 Luminous

Walt Whitman "I am the Poet" 53 Luminous

Whitman is "the poet of reality"

Simic has a halloween mask which he is afraid to put on.

Whitman is dead serious the world is the world is real is real this ain't no joke

Simic, "The houses are all dark"

Whitman is a scientist dissecting for truth

Simic prefers to trust his whistle to find the dogs

Walt is not an apparition

Charles has two faces (one is potential apparition)

Walt is dealing in the positive

Charles "The store-fronts gutted"

Uncle Walt ascribes original will to the earth

Charlie is not here

Whitman declares himself outwardly

Simic is not interested. he's inside dreaming.

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Monday, May 01, 2000 10:48 AM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 24 Ch'ang Yu/Allen Ginsberg//putting you there

In "A Ringing Bell" Ch'ang Yu uses sparse words to represent a place, "Frost gathers under the cold moon" Every line is simple, but constructed so carefully that I immediately saw him in his bed and felt the warm blankets and the cold wind outside. With minimul information, he gives me a maximul image/huge output. He knows just what one word will trip other words and fill in a whole scene in the brain of the reader.

"A Strange New Cottage In Berkely" by Allen Ginsberg also uses plain language and simple lines to portray a rich place full of living and nonliving things. "rolled a/ big tire out of the scarlet bushes, hid my marijuana" I see the sly poet, none too althletic, preparing this secret shrine for his illegal green. But unlike Ch'ang Yu, Ginsberg is always in motion. Yu lies in bed the entire poem and paints the scene for us from a far, Allen jumps into each image and brings a scrap back to us and then runs off to the next, both, i think are effective, but I love Ginsberg's approach here...there's so much to do and see so he tries to get into all of it, the strangeness of the place both increases as we learn of all the things living there, and diminishes as we get to know each nook and cranny through Allen's physical/literary movements. "All afternoon cutting bramble blackberries off a totering/brown fence" He prunes himself, and us right into the poem, cuts us down to fit us in the garden, as well as cutting through each layer to see the next.

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Monday, April 24, 2000 10:14 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: Final copy paper// Tamura

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2000 7:37 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 23. Joanna/ The Journey/ Honest ontology

The Journey

morning sunshine

open land

I think we're out of the city.

three girls

squished together in the back seat

bursting with excitement

my family

explorers of new places

never knowing what to expect

rocky lakeshores

sunny skies

thunderstorms

crashing waves

a soggy tent-

a night in the car

long hikes

foggy roads

shooting stars

fading embers

Mom always said,

"Just think of it

as an adventure."

It is.

~Joanna Stone

The specifics in this poem are what reached out and grabbed me. Also, I like the way you let the images speak for themselves without clouding the readers' heads with your judgements or opinions about "shooting stars" or "long hikes". That is, i like the freedom you leave for the reader to infuse this poem with his or her own meaning. I flashed back to a night in the Colorado mountains with the words "fading embers", even though that is probably not where you saw fading embers.

I think that for a family poem it is important to keep this open language, so the story does not close itself off to the audience. Also, the words "open land" are successful in the same way... maximul information with minimul wording. It suggests or infers a scene that is far more complicated and grand than those two words, yet those words are all you need. This reminds me of some zen paintings (or expressionist works) where the artist uses just a few general brushstrokes to suggest the complex form of a bird or shape of a monk's body under his robe.

The only thing i would change in this poem is the ending, but that is just my personal preference. To me, it sounds too formal and it ties up all thos wonderful loose ends you left above with the naked placement of sights and sounds. Or, maybe you are trying to bring the human aspect back into the natural scenes by infusing them with a moral (all part of the journey). But anyway, I am quite impressed with this work, with its openness, clarity, and almost naked imagery.

It read to me like a scrap book, or a collection of bits of memories, which i know is how we remember our childhoods. A flash here a moment there, a feeling, a sense, a few seconds of unmuddled recording and then more static and garbled messages. You find success, i think, in the way you preserve this original style of recollection. You do not (except maybe in the end) give in to the impulse to fill in the gaps that time has left in your memory. I mean, that is all we have (unless you have a photographic memory) just bits of impressions, hints, and suggestions. A childhood is much like a fossil record, incomplete, ambiguous. Yet somehow we have to reckon our current self with all those old selves we once were, because they all added up to create the person in the mirror today. It is a valuable excercise to study our personal ontologies in this honest way. To not glue dinasaur legs to monkey hips to bird skulls... we have to be honest with how it happened that we became who we are today. Understanding who we are, I believe, is the most fascinating part of being a human. This poem carries honesty with it because it is uncertain ("I think we're out of the city") and gappy.

adam

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2000 6:45 PM

To: Williams, Scott G; Solomon, John P; Thamert, Mark

Subject: Scott John Adam Presentation -- paintings and their poems

Fellas,

I would like to do #13 on the sheet, the one about poems and the paintings that inspired them. Or, if not, my second choice would be #8 about identity and voice.

thanks,

adam

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Sunday, April 02, 2000 11:53 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 21.Ravikovitch//Raw green sewage

Surely you remember the refreshing smell of dead fish guts, the way you smell them deeper down, on the tops of your lungs. And you leave the obese, black night to your laboratory where you paste fish tails onto dog heads and neglect the body all together. "Specimen is now more frog-like...amphibious tendencies..." you note into your tape recorder and chomp on a powdered donut.

That's the feeling i got from Dahlia Ravikovitch, as i'm sure you all did as well. To me, "Surely You Remember" is a poem about creating (and re-creating) the self, about the need to be re-made every instant, (to escape boredom), but at the same time, to maintain an identity. The method is called blending in poetics, and cut-ups by William S. Burroughs. You re-shuffle your memories, your instincts, your feelings, your surroundings to create a new self in a new world. This is achieved: "A sun sets at midnight" she is "somebody else".

Incidentally, the line "Only a fool lets the sun set when it likes." is clearly an order to kill yourself. Also, how is this remembered, re-made self attained? Through strict attentiveness and reception..."Sun and moon, winter and summer/ will come to you" After so much pushing away, she now receives and absorbs. She is loyal to treason. more at ten....

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Sunday, April 02, 2000 11:22 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 20.jeff, anne, jen, tim//nasrin (comments)

I agree with most everyone who has written so far, that your debate regarding foolishness vs. bravery went right to a central question regarding Taslima's life. I only wish we had more time to discuss all of the issues that radiate out from this. For instance, her quote from the introductory parapagh "From now on let religion's other name be humanity." Who defines humanity here?

I think maybe you guys tried to bite off more than you could chew, but I know how hard it is to plan a presentation, and it is better to have too much than too little.I think we might just focus more on one poem, because it always seems that time limits us in this class. I also want to say that i was impressed with some of you interpretations of the poems, like the word "men" bringing us back to the left margin, as if restrictive and reactionary, as if holding us back from where we could go.

I think this is a great idea, to focus on a poet through group presentations, and i appreciate all of your thought that went into the presentation. I can't wait for the next batch! Great job, guys and gals!

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2000 11:04 AM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 19. Hirsch//Autopoeisis

Mr. Capra quotes Mr. Maturana in his book The Web of Life: "Living systems are cognititve systems, and living as a process is process of cognition." He can say this because the underlying mechanics of life and consciousness are the same - Autopoiesis - self-making. A living organism creates itself and maintains itself. Each part makes the other parts and is in turn made by the other parts, it is a closed loop of negative feedbacks. Consciousness is the same, it is within the circular organization of our nervous systems, it is how they associate with what is already there to build a world. A truth, not the truth...

Anyway, Life and Poetry seem to be so much the makers, as Hirsch pointed out with his comments on Poiesis. That Poetry is both inspired and transcribed, that it is both already there and created/chanted out. To me, he is saying that the poem has been made in the subconsciouss but we need to transcribe it up a level to voice and word.

But Death is a nothing, it does not make because it is not. It is only defined as an absence of life, but life is not just an absence of death, as i said above. How might a poet connect death with something that makes sense to his art? Can death be a maker, too?

Neruda says no in the first part of his poem...it is only hallow, empty. "A barking where there are no dogs/ a shoe with no foot in it/ a ring with no stone in it, with no/ finger in it" It is hopeless, all this making will end, is doomed to come to an end at the hands of nothingness itself. all of these pieces of consciousness that make and re-make, gone. Pablo Neruda will be ripped and quartered (aka nothing wins) to the ends of the universe never to build another poem.

But then the transition. "Nevertheless its steps can be heard/ and its clothing makes a hushed sound, like a tree." Death is something, if only the unknown, still it is Something. "the face of death is green" Why? because it grows with each death, because it is part of life's cycle? Who knows, who cares...IT has a face!

Now it is something, not nothing, and it is doing. Maybe it is only a broom sweeping, maybe it only dumps us in the garbage, but we can empathize with it because it is doing/making. Death (Absence) cannot escape this poiesis. What a tired universe, with old dead bones, and even death is no rest.

How can death look for dead bodies? Two deaths? It is active, making, completing, finishing what it started. OR is the poet only making it into something it is not? Death happenend, there are dead bodies, now the Maker (poet) has to make something of nothing, and so this whole poem is a wet dream/fantasy of Neruda, and in reality the end is the end, you just can't use poetry to say that any more than you can use the Bible to choke god to death. Right?

Why is death dressed like an admiral? What will be my rank when i go to this admiral, will i outrank it, can i give it orders, or the other way around?? Death only gives one order. "Die" What then...? Neruda wants us to believe it is not the end. He smooshes both images of Christian heaven and Greek Hades into one image, a river (Styx) that goes up not down. Is everyone right about death then, does belief condition reality? Do we all have a piece of the unknown, the entirity of it? Death is the unknown and they are both nothing and something at the same time. We know what they are not, but what are they? Maybe an answer here - when you know something it crosses over from the unknown to the known. The ACT of knowing transforms that which was unknown. Is it the same with death? The ACT of dying transforms death? Death is the one who rides the river over to you? An Admiral is a sailor, right? If the unknown becomes that which it was defined as the absence of (the known) does death become life the moment it is experienced. The admiral sets sail.

Hirsch is right to point out Neruda's confusion within and about his own poem. It is the condition of humanity to be something that you don't understand, and to do things that have meaning, but what is that meaning??? But Hirsch thinks the message is "We are mere residents on earth." I get a different message. We are gods, makers, and when we encounter the very absence of making, well we make something of that too. We are far mor than mere residents, we are builders and movers. Homo Faber.

Nothing wins. Nothing grows. Nothing builds. Nothing changes. Nothing needs me. Nothing is needed by me. Nothing works out in the end. (Do you read nothing as nothing (0) or as something? Might be a hint of your religion here...)

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2000 11:56 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 17. Term Paper // Tamura // How to Forget to Remember the Dead

What a gross link!!! i hope you can just click on it and it will work...

http://www.askjeeves.com/main/metaAnswer.asp?MetaEngine=AltaVista&logQID=32B1613DC6FBD311A94600A0C9FC77A2&qCategory=jeeves&qSource=0&frames=yes&site_name=Jeeves&scope=web&r=x&MetaTopic=The+Alsop+Review&MetaURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.alsopreview.com%2Ffoley%2Fjfryuichi.html&EngineOrdinal=1&ItemOrdinal=1&ask=ryuichi+tamura+metasearch&origin=0&MetaList=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.alsopreview.com%2Ffoley%2Fjfryuichi.html&x=20&y=11

here you go. Thank you so much for dinner and a great talk. I look forward to next time!

adam

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2000 11:43 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 16. Akhmatova// A venutian crater is all you get

http://dybka.home.mindspring.com/jill/akhmatova/akhmat.html

I hope the above inserts work, because Anna's story is truly fascinating and i hope you guys get a chance to read through this site. Wow.

Let's get into Akhmatova's poem "I am not among those who left our land"

(** a special message: I have been a firm believer in exegesis, but here I have had a change of heart, because this poem actually magnified in meaning for me after i had read a brief bio. on Anna.)

Pay attention to the pronouns. (Who is she talking to?)

"I am not among those who left our land

to be torn to pieces by our enemies."

She is speaking on two levels, about two different wars with two different enemies and lands. More obvious is the violent war between countries and rival peoples. Here the enemies are the outsiders and the land is mother Russia (who loves "droplets of blood"). BUT, the other war is one of literary censorship and internal oppression. Her books were banned and she was censored. Now the enemy moves within the countries borders, it is the leaders (Stalin,Lenin). The land that she has not abandoned is literary integrity. She is remaining true to her beliefs. She is not fleeing the country or changing her style like so many of her fellow scholars did in fear.

"I don't listen to their vulgar flattery,

I will not give them my poems."

If we were stuck with the first reading about the physical war, we would have a conflict of pronoun and previous noun, that is "their" and "them" do not seem to refer to "enemies", because why would the Germans be flattering her? The second reading makes more sense. The Bolshevik leaders flatter the people by building their sense of importance as communists in that "mad experiment" following the revolution. Of course, it is vulgar because they achieve flattery through terror. She will not give them her poems, meaning she will not cheapen her art to speak for their causes, she will not betray her trade, she will not be the voice they wanted her to be. (I hope this poem was written post 1917, or else this interpretation sucks!)

"But the exile is for ever pitiful to me,

like a prisoner, like a sick man."

The exile, i think, is the ban of her poetry. She is exiled from her art. She is removed as the voice of her people. She is distanced, though not literally, from the people she wants to help. She is imprisoned. But why a sick man? why not a sick woman?

"Your road is dark, wanderer;"

She is talking to those who have sold out, to those who have gone to the dark side of using poetry to spread tyrranical propoganda, rather than to question it. Darth Vaders of communist Russia...

"alien corn smells of wormwood."

ALIEN - The poets she is addressing have betrayed themselves, they are aliens to their own selves. A strong word (implications of Bertolt Brecht's Entfremdungs-Effekt - meaning: you have died to yourself the moment you neglect to question and challenge the surrounding reality. The world is what you make it.) .

CORN- To me, a hallow nutrient, a filler food, something on the side, no substance. There is no artistic sustenance in the false literature these poets have turned to. This is the empty nutrition, the hallow reality, that the Bolsheviks wanted to feed the masses

SMELLS OF - Smell is the most vulgar of senses, the one most adapted to sense the foul, the rank, the evil, the rotten things that surround us.

WORMWOOD - Heavy implications. Dictionary.com tells us this plant is sometimes refered to as "old man" (see "like a sick man" above). Wormwood is bitter. It is used to make absinthe, and in fact the greek word is "absinthion", meaning "undrinkable", Anna could not stomach a betrayal of her art. Absinthe is toxic, and can produce hallucinations, and is in general a nasty habit. Extremely bad for one's health.

"But here, stupefied by fumes of fire,

wasting the remainder of our youth,

we did not defend ourselves

from a single blow."

Circle the pronouns in this poem and you will switch from "I" to "them" to "your" and now to "we". Who is we? We is those who did not sell out? Note the term stupefied used right below wormwood. Also, i think that "we" did not defend "ourselves" because that would mean succombing to the use of poetry as propoganda. And it is touching to think of "we" as her husband and/or her son, because her husband was executed as an innocent poet and her son was imprisoned three times.

"We know that history

will vindicate our every hour...

There is no one in the world more tearless,

more proud, more simple than us."

These last lines fit great into my theory, because she did outlive her persecuters, and she was vindicated, as she is the most famous Russian poet of her time. Her pure art survived and transcended the whole messy century, that is, she never spoke anything except what she believed in (except for a few poems written for Stalin in an attempt to get her innocent son out of jail.) She has no regrets, she stayed true to her heart. But, although her art survived, did it do any good? This is the question. Marxist, feminist, and Brechtian literary theories would have us believe that art can prevent the greusome tragedies of life, but she seemed powerless to stop Stalin's terror. Her art survived, but did it ever put up a fight? Is it futile, impotent,...? She was vindicated, but history still happened as bad as it did.

p.s.- they named a crater on Venus after her.

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Thursday, March 09, 2000 1:44 AM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 15 April Bernard // A colleague in blue?

I am sorry that it is late (not my fault), and I can't find the name of the poet/author that spoke at the TRC on Tuesday (my fault.) April is her first name�I think.

She was nervous. I hate to disagree, but she was just fine - solid as a rock. She looked young. She talked old. She was mouse like. She swallowed two lions on stage and we applauded diligently.

Her humor was accurate and she made me feel as uncomfortable with Plath as she was, although I know nothing about her. I loved her plan of attack: one. Plath is insane and evil. Two. Plath is a saint.

Most of all I felt relieved by her poetry. It was not perfect - it was too wordy, it was too sentimental, it was obtuse�but I thought it was grand - and I found pockets of wisdom in it. The 14 poems in a row were her best stuff, but I am partial to spontaneity. Most of all I relate to her, because her poems still seem to be inhabiting the edges, that is, orbiting the real thing she's trying to say. Every once and a while she would touch her true word, but then shy away into obscure corners. Don't get me wrong, obscure corners can be the best of poetry (if they couldn't then I should quit), but she doesn't want to be there, those dark places aren't what she wants to own, or where she wants to live. Her style is not yet sure of itself. She is skirting around it, asking - "am I really this good? Can I be that crazy with words and still make a profound statement?" YES!! She can, and she will. I just think she needs to be confident and latch onto her gut, spontaneous explosions. Above all, I saw a frustrated woman (in other words, a true writer). She wants desperately to reflect the world of her mind through her pen, she wants to explain us to us, to provoke us and give us a message. I see her as the bag lady, assembling the parts of a chaotic world. She wants to scream, "Here! Here is how it fits together." But she isn't quite sure herself. I liked her for the honesty of this struggle in her face and her voice. She is my companion in confusion - a life long fraternity/ sorority.

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Thursday, March 09, 2000 1:19 AM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: Reply to Jennifer 14.5 Fontan // Stars of Natural Law

I have attached some more comments below.

-----Original Message-----

From: Lindquist, Jennifer M

Sent: Monday, March 06, 2000 11:35 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 14.5 Fontan // Stars of Natural Law

Las estrellas comportan un h�bito en la noche.

Una ley escrita entre las hojas del oto�o,

en el centro irrevocable de los p�jaros.

Las estrellas comportan un h�bito en la noche.

Aunque pronuncies ahora el adi#s que alimentas.

Y sobre el mar te deshojes,

hacia un mutuo silencio.

The stars bear a custom in the night.

A law written among the leaves of autumn,

in the irrevocable center of birds.

The stars bear a custom in the night.

Though you now say the good-bye you nourish.

And over the sea you shed your leaves,

to mutual silence.

To me, the custom of these stars is to watch over the turning of the clock on our planet and perhaps other planets as well. They are the observers of the natural law, one "written among the leaves of autumn", which are the leaves that are dead upon the ground in shriveled color, or near death, clinging desperately to their individual branches, hoping to survive the oncoming frosts. Death is an "irrevocable" part of life, observable by all who choose to look. The stars are an example of that observant nature, singing in the blackness of night, lighting the laws at work below. These natural laws, though sad and seemingly desperate "nourish" the ground with the nutrients of their dead, saying "good-bye" in order to bring more to life. The leaves return to reinforce the theme of autumn's inevitable death.

Jennifer, I think you are correct to see the natural law in this poem, that is, Fontan is looking to pattern his life around the rules of physics and the ways of living creatures. I wanted to add a couple of my insights. First, the repetition of the first line lends the poem a circular quality, as if it is making two circles, each one beginning with that line. That lead me to think of the Dharma Chakra of Buddhist thought, which is the "Wheel of Life" or the "Wheel of Law". The Buddha set this wheel spinning with his first sermon. (I also noticed the Aboriginal concept of "Dream Time" in the first of these poems, and I wonder how global this poet is and how much I am just putting words in his mouth).

The second point follows along the wheel, and that is death and re-birth. I differ from you in the imagery of the leaves, I see them not as wanting to hold on, but gladly dying and being re-born in the Earth. I think the "you" is the reader, who now understands the cyclical nature of the law and is no longer afraid of death. This has been growing in him or her all along, he has been nourishing this understanding. The good-bye is the release of the self. And at the end, I feel a transcendental touch, as we look far across a sea to see the enlightened figure, who is in a mutual, a shared, a common, and agreeable silence (no more need be said, the lesson is learned) with all of life.

HOWEVER, I don't understand who "you" is in the poem. Is it the reader? The stars? The birds? The law itself? A tree? This part of the poem confuses me and doesn't seem to fit into my interpretation.

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Monday, March 06, 2000 9:08 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: Li-Young Lee// A Story (never comes on time)

For this excercise, I want to focus on the last two stanzas of this poem ("A Story"). I want to speak from my own relationship with my dad, as well as throw in the ideas that hit me when i read this poem.

"But the boy is packing his shirts,

he is looking for his keys."

Is he going to college? We have already confronted the father's impotence, his failure as a medium to bring the world to his son through stories, maybe college will become a surrogate father, a more literate dad. I recall the two illeterate, bumbling dads from Ondaatje and Komunyakaa. I see myself, in my basement bedroom packing my shirts, my cats jump on the bed. This departure is has two fold meaning: from the son, it is a hopeful, nervous adventure. But what does the dad feel from it? Did my dad feel this drenching failure, this regret?

The keys he seeks are not car keys but the keys to the stories his dad could not open for him. "Where do I fit in this story?" He must write that for himself.

"Are you a god"

WOW! What a great twist of accepted father-son relations. The dad is supposed to be a god. I have been allowed to see the father as fallable, as just a man, as a part of a reciprocal relationship. The stories and the personality shaping goes both ways, not just father to son. Sharon Olds also showed this through her eating dad, the mouth is a two way instrument.

"the man screams, that I sit mute before you?"

Did I have such power over my dad? What is the source of his muteness? And, it is curious to note how silence here is bad, how it is a failure. This is in opposition to Rilke and to part 2 of Fontan's poem. Certainly, he knows the stories. Can he just not translate them, through the intervening years, into the language of a boy? My father told me stories, but he pressed most deeply into my experience when he laughed. A bear laugh, huge, enough to erase the world. It was this reaction to the story that I paid most attention to. As if he were saying, "I don't know what this story means, or how it ends, but isn't it funny? Isn't it thrilling to live through that?" Story here means our little lives.

"Am I a god that I should never disappoint?"

He needs his son to answer this question because if he is a god it is only to his son. But he is obviously not a god, he has disappointed. But I get the feeling he has disappointed himself more than his son. Also, this whole stanza is not yet, it is in the future. Maybe he can change the future? Maybe he can defy the Oracle. It seems awkward that so much should hinge on a son's expectations of his father, but his father can never know what those expectations are, because children voice their deep spiritual needs in a forgotten language - in simple gestures and innocent remarks. And they read so much into each tiny action of their father, it is impossible to be perfect under such scrutiny. Inevitable failure.

"But the boy is here."

The same three words as started the last stanza, and we are snapped back into the present. Still, those pleading eyes, still that knot in the throat.

"Please, Baba, a story?"

Baba sounds like a bear noise to me, the great protector. What is this story though? Maybe that is the key. The child just wants a simple tale, but the father has been so corrupted by the complexities of the world, that nothing pure and small yet complete can come out. Only the father has the high expectations. The child is the uncarved block maybe, and the dad is the sculptor who thinks he is perfect already? "The utmost respect for the original material involves doing nothing at all."

***Now the equation:

"It is an emotional rather than a logical equation,

an earthly rather than a heavenly one,

which posits that a boy's supplications

and a father's love add up to silence."

To attack this mathematically: let dad's love = L; let boy's supplications = S

let silence = 0.

so, L + S = 0, or L = -S (L is the inverse of S)

In other words, the boy's supplication (his need) is equal and opposite to the father's love (his ability/desire to give). We could also represent this graphically, with the need being a hole in the ground and the love being the exact amount of dirt that has been displaced. But why then is it so tough for the dad to fill this hole? Maybe it would be best to represent this mathematical relationship in wave form. Maybe the dad's love is a light wave and the son's need is a wave of the same frequency and amplitude, but inverted so as to cancel each other out. The end result is darkness (silence) oblivion - no story. Maybe this speaks to those of you who are too like your dads to ever get anything accomplished. Two positive forces repel each other, and there is always that gap that can't be bridged. Father and son repel each other against their wills, but in accordance with their natures/their intrinsic properties? (just an idea).

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Monday, March 06, 2000 7:56 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: FW: Sharon Olds// Feeding Saturn

Fr. Mark,

here we go again. the part that didn't go through the first time should now be in blue.

thanks,

adam

----------

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Friday, March 03, 2000 10:01 AM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: Sharon Olds// Feeding Saturn

"You would have

seen "

How easily we can see the word "seen". The poem hinges on this word as if it were a pair of jaws, i can almost see the two halves of the poem swinging together - "SNAP!" crunching the reader in its jaws.

"his soil-colored eyes"

Sharon also uses the image of soil in her other poem, a word with an internal struggle here - supposed to be nourishing but attached to such a destroyer.

"and the delicacies of the genitals

rolled back along his tongue."

The father cuts off his own seed, re-ingests the potential for his biological immortality. Once again - "WHY?" this self destruction? Surely he is doing it out of a sheer ignorant passivity but wait...

"In the nerves of his gums and

bowels he knew what he was doing and he could not

stop himself, like orgasm,"

He does know what he is doing! And the imagery here is one of addiction - the inability to stop, the intense pleasure...like Burrough's altered metabolism - he is infected with a self depleting need - why a junkie, mr burroughs? "because he ain't got nothing better to do. A junkie gets hooked by default.

"his

boy's feet crackling like two raw fish

between his teeth."

I wanted to say that the line and the sentence in this poem lend the same chaos and self defeating aspects as the father does. And the fish, are his feet supposed to be food (sushi for daddy), or are they supposed to be swimming free?

"This is what he wanted,

to take that life into his mouth

and show what a man could do - show his

son what a man's life was."

I think that Sharon is tied down by the fact she is a woman writing about two men. She needs to pump meaning and purpose into her dad's actions, or rather, his inaction. But I interpret it as an act of pure laziness, the man is not grown up enough to face responsibility. If that is what a man can do, the boy is already there - childishness, selfishness, irresponsibility.

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Friday, March 03, 2000 11:09 AM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: RE: 13 Sharon Olds// Feeding Saturn

i got it all done, maybe something screwed up in the send though. I will try it later.

adam

----------

From: Thamert, Mark

Sent: Friday, March 03, 2000 10:51 AM

To: Briggle, Adam R

Subject: RE: 13 Sharon Olds// Feeding Saturn

did this send without your being able to complete the ending of it? Thanks.

!1!*E,@@,E*!1!*E,@@,E*!1!*E,@@,E*!1!*E,@@,

Mark Thamert, O.S.B.

Director of the CSB/SJU Honors Program

Saint John's University and the College of Saint Benedict

Collegeville, MN 56321

(320) 363-2394

http://www.users.csbsju.edu/~mthamert/

***************************************************

-----Original Message-----

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Friday, March 03, 2000 10:02 AM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 13 Sharon Olds// Feeding Saturn

<< OLE Object: Microsoft Word Document >>

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Friday, March 03, 2000 10:02 AM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 13 Sharon Olds// Feeding Saturn

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Tuesday, February 29, 2000 10:05 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 12. McCarriston // Cursed Body

Cursed Body

Bill Moyers Interview with Linda McCarriston,

from "The Language of Life," Part Three: The Field of Time

To Judge Faylan,

dead long enough...

A Summons

Your Honor, when my mother stood before you

with her routine domestic plea

after weeks of waiting for speech to return to her body

with her homemade forties hairdo,

her face purple still under pancake

her jaw off just a little

her holy-of-holies healing

her breasts wrung

her heart the bursting heart of someone

snagged among rocks deep in a shark pool

No, not someone but a woman there,

snagged with her babies, by them

in one of hope's pedestrian brutal turns

When, in the tones of parlours overlooking the harbor,

you admonished that, for the sake of the family,

the wife must take the husband back to her bed.

What you willed not to see before you

was a woman risen clean to the surface.

A woman who, with one arm flailing,

held up with the other her actual burdens of flesh.

When you clapped to her leg

the chain of justice

you ferried us back down to

the law--

The black ice eye,

the maw,

the macko that circles the kitchen table nightly.

What did you make of the words she told you

not to have heard her,

not to have seen her there?

Almost forgivable ignorance,

you were not the fist, the boot or the blade

but the jaded corrective ear and eye

at the limits of her world.

Now I will you

to see her as she was,

to ride your own words back into light.

I call your spirit home again,

divest in you of robe and bench

the fine white hand and half-lit Irish eye.

Tonight put on a body

in the trailer down the road,

where your father,

when he can't get it up,

makes love to your mother with a rifle.

Let your name be Eva Mary,

let your hour of birth be dawn

let your life be long and common

and your flesh endure.

--Linda McCarriston

Thanks Stephanie for typing this out!!

My powers of interpretation feel weakened in the face of a woman author. Can I pretend to know what she was writing about. It doesn't matter, being an extreme believer in exegeses, i think the meaning emerges within me.

To me, she is writing to the very core of the authority that justifies, that defines a world where women are treated as unequals to men. He is the "jaded" eye, not the abuser, but the justifier of abuse the maker of RIGHT. He "wills" himself not to see the truth, by defining the truth on legal, intellectual, cultural terms. This willing force is cultural and intellectual, it is justified only through the mind, not the nature of humanity itself. To her the truth is the biological/natural reality of bodies "put on a body", in other words, remember that you are just as i am - an animal, a human. See my "actual burdens of flesh" the same burdens you have, because you have the same flesh. Note how law and justice are constrictive, whereas a body would be educational to the judge. It would bring him the deep empathy that she feels should be the seat of judgement. The golden rule if you will.

It is a beautiful expression of a member of a culture calling others to remember their deeper belonging - as humans. She is asking that we go deeper than law and custom and culture when judging each other - that we simply ask "what would i want in the same situation?" Is such understanding possible between the sexes? Within the "reality" of worldviews defining our culture today?

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2000 11:25 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 11. Roethke// Quickie

Note - "At every step you missed

My right ear scraped a buckle."

The first line faults the father, while the second line argues and places blame on the son - "Your ear is in the way!!!!" In other words, NOT - a buckle scraped my right ear.

Or is "right" meaning correct here... the ear that could hear truth if not so messed up in buckles?

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2000 11:19 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 11. Hayden // We only get one dad

My best friend growing up had two dads, a biological dad and a step dad. And just as surely as he had two different dads, he was two different sons. But, for most of us, and I assume for Hayden as well, we only get one dad. To me, this helps clarify the line in the first stanza, "No one ever thanked him." and in the third, the word "indifferently". Maybe no one thanked dad because he was taken for granted, assumed, just always there. Also in Roethke's poem - "You beat time on my head." we get the image of habit, of familiarity, or regularity to a father-son interaction. However your dad raises you, that is how you are. You can't miss what you never had. This is the Titan like power of the father, he molds your very shape, your father is an a priori fact of your individuality. Before we know ourselves and our outer world, that process of knowing to be (not yet there) is in a large part formulated and programmed by our fathers.

I take the image of the rooms and the house in this poem to mean the future, the boy's future. This coincides with my statements above, in that the father is preparing and altering the very future the son will inhabit. The "chronic angers of that house" are the angers of the outer world and human history, the world p.d. (post dad). To me, through these polishing and warming images, the father is educating his son to experience the world as a comfortable and safe place. He is extending the warmth of the boy's blankets (childhood/home) into the world at large. To me this is the work of a father, to make his child's world home.

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2000 11:57 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 10. Peacock chapter 10 // Peahen flirts with the mafia

Molly starts talking about (dare i say analyzing?) these poems with a sweeping statement of what the poets' intents were, and them jumps into how they went about it. In these cases the key words are "specifics" and "particulars", which correlate roughly to the cerebral cortex in Molly's outlandish poetry anatomy, and which make them so good, in my opinion. She then wriggles into a series of interpreting the imagery in first one poem and then the next. I found myself agreeing and then strongly disagreeing with her, but overall, i like the open mindedness she brought to these works. Z.b. "The boy is sentenced to speech", way to go Molly!, that is a nifty flip of the ordinary....hmm, to be trapped by articulateness, to be too expressive, i like it.

I did not see the circularity of these poems at first, and that will help me in my reading of poetry in the future - to look at the structure of the poem more, to see how the poet has employed his/her words to work in the unit. "Who needs to hear the stories of these men?" Her most brilliant comment is a question, and it will help me the most. I need to ask the simple questions that come before the assumption that this poem exists: Why does it exist? What labored it into shape? Why this need to "memorialize"? Memory and identity....

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2000 11:39 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 9. Michael Ondaatje // That BEAST!!!

http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/Ondaat.html

This is a link to a little blurb on Michael Ondaatje. I think that this poem "Letters and Other Worlds" is the best poem we have read in class.

His images struggle for themselves, and we can watch them wriggle on the page like maggots - he toughs out this poem without resorting to cliches or standards. I get the feeling it all came out in one spontaneous breath, a genius outpouring. For its humour and shock alone it is worthwile, but it also encourages meaning to form within me.

In the first stanza we see the "body" and "logic", and to me, this establishes a tug of war that runs throughout the poem. His body instills fear in others, it is a wreak, it is clumsy, it is rude, but his mind, his withdrawn persona is capable of "the clarity of architects" and writes "Letters in a clear hand of the most complete empathy."

I even see this mind body dichotomy in the lines "For 14 years of marriage/ each of them claimed he or she/ was the injured party." But of course he is also really talking about man and woman. And i think Peacock is right to say that he sees the woman as the realm of words, of language, of articulate expression.(the mother "pretending no affiliation" walks away. In other words, the mind is grossed out by the body THAT BEAST!!) His father's antics in Ceylon are purely of body, they ARE rude and shameful, but it is strange how they are misinterpreted by the world as something powerful and even honorable. He was jealous of his wife's "articulate emotion", but was his swimming farewell not as articulate? I mean to say, that the poet implys to me that we are all articulate in our own modes of expression (here i differ from Peacock's haughty supremist outlook on poetry). True, the father is not wonderfully adept at translating himself through himself, but i think it is also true that others are not adept at understanding his attempts. For instance, the wife writes that he was not broken hearted but only drunk. But maybe he was drunk BECAUSE he was broken hearted.

But for him to be articulate, he must use a "language" that others can understand, and that is in his letters, in words. Here, in these rooms (letters), he swings fully into his mind, his higher brain that can empathize and love. But it does not last as the body becomes hateful and he balances back, but upon balancing he falls!! He needs Disequillibrium of mind and body, because equity of the two would erase him, would snuff him out, because his life is defined as working at the interface of these two worlds. He needs them to be different in order to express himself one way or the other. His blood is not searching FOR a metaphor at the end, but if it could find one, or if it could be one, he would be saved. Why? Because he needs this tool for binding the two worlds together, for keeping them in open communication, otherwise the blood (body) is in the head (mind) without distinction and he vaporizes - otherwise there is no longer his defining struggle from which meaning may emerge.

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Monday, February 21, 2000 10:49 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 7. Hoelderlin // Just us BRAINS

I hereby postulate a preposterous interpretation of Hoelderlin's "Bread and Wine" part 7. "Oh friend, we arrived too late." "We" in this sense is the poet and the poet, in other words, yes, Hoelderlin is talking to himself. He is too late to partake in the "divine energies" because he is isolated. The irony is that he is isolated from these energies precisely because he is capable of talking to himself, that is conscious. We, in this sense, would always arrive too late, because the existence of We (mental two-ness) destroys communion with those energies. In other words, humans by nature are separated from divinity/(wildness ?). (*** please note: I think this is entirely bullshit, and I can back it up, but won't do so here.)

We can carry the divine "only sometimes", and when is that? At night, in our dreams, when we are only the subconscious again, when we are not divided.

It is sad to note the vast majority of these wildness poems speak of a loss. We have lost our wildness. It is sadder to note that many of them attribute the cause of this loss to being human. It is heartening to see that some of them say we can regain our wildness, and that that is desirable. This poem speaks of wildness as a "Guest" who comes seldom, that we must wait for, that we must be toughened up for, that we may not be strong enough for.

Poets are magical to him�"Who used to stroll over the fields through the whole/ divine night." "Whole" here means complete, the poet could complete the human and bind the human with the divine (the divine in my reading being nature). This process of completion, this binding, is achieved by transcribing the unconscious and making ourselves coherent and unified. Preposterous.

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Monday, February 21, 2000 10:24 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: Response to Jennifer// i liked it!!!!!!!!!

I don't have the copy of that poem "Either get out of my house or conform to my tastes, woman" by Martial with me in this computer lab, but from what I remember from it, I thought it was a grand declaration of wild nature, and a wake up call to a poor woman who had been repressed by her social environment. I would love to discuss it in class.

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Monday, February 21, 2000 10:20 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 8 Holm and Clifton//The source of strangeness

To reply to Stephanie and Sersch.

First to Sersch - Let's note some lines of "Advice" and Clifton's poem:

. "He hasn't noticed yet the woman" from Holm and "There is a girl inside" from Clifton-

I think the key to interpreting these poems is in this "already there quality" of the inner woman. Sersch seemed frustrated that Holm only portrays women as saviors of men because they are exotic/other. But I think Holm is saying they are another part of us, as men, that we just have not taken into account. In this way, the woman is very much familiar because she has been inside all along, the strangeness comes not from encountering a foreign entity, but from remembering, or revisiting a part of the self. Note - Clifton writes, "There IS a girl inside", we don't need to invent her. I think Holm believes there is a girl inside of men too, they just don't listen to her, they don't "notice" her in all the loudness of their manworld.

I enjoyed Stephanie's comment that the source of strangeness in the Clifton poem is in the contrast of religious imagery and the sexual/wild energy of the poem. But what stands out to me is how she reconciles these supposedly opposing forces. She brings us into biological gestation and birth through the image of a nun waiting the resurrection of her god. The harvesting by the lovers only completes the binding of religion and sex/reproduction. She draws such a smooth parallel between these two worlds with the common goal of blossoming - of coming forth, becoming full.

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2000 11:21 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 7 Wildness/Williams/brainsleep (the underwater fungus poet)

Danse Russe

To dance a subterfuge, a ruse, a rose, a rouge road, the cool known handiwork of a man unloosed.

If when my wife is sleeping

Where i should be is not where i am. Already morphing into my secret self. The forebrain rests but i hold on to a moment or a place between here and there, a bedroom, a desk drawer, high summer...gold on my webbed feet.

and the baby and Kathleen

are sleeping

Obligations leave. Responsibility dies. My impulses have bound me, but they can free me. Dumb, thorn run skin, scratched. Injured by my children.

and the sun is a flame white disk

the cancelled eyes of elementary science...arithmitic...no one's watching

in silken mists

sexual skys, need not the wife.

above shining trees,-

the thrust of wood into the empty. space makes matter. i stand forever inside a woman.

if I in my north room

dance naked, grotesquely

Still judging myself on their terms. I am elegant man, muscles in brush strokes, culimination of aeons of evolotion, i am grotesque on my own terms.

before my mirror

the sun grabs the shades and yanks down. no witness would live, but i crouch through and explode into my image, my image self, the imaginary animal portal.

waving my shirt round my head

i have enough skin.

and singing softly to myself:

an old phonograph. picture of my father world war one veteren that he never was. Or was that you William? Travelling doctor. Sing to unconfuse the two of us.

"I am lonely, lonely.

with who do you alone with? There is an ogre transcribing your every word. look in the mirror.

I was born to be lonely

you were born because of the alone. Lonliness is your egg and all the voices that spoke before you.

I am best so!"

you mock the distinction between child and adult. You are best so because you were first so. all things taste best fresh.

If I admire my arms, my face,

my shoulders, flanks, buttocks

against the yellow drawn shades, -

Don't deal in the subjunctive, it only hurts those body parts you list. You can see your old fish fin transmuting into the arm, the monkey droppings in your face, the alligator shoulders, the pure humantiger flanks, the buttocks of the ox, made of rocks

Who shall say I am not

the happy genius of my household?

The waking women. But you don't give them a chance. This question is never asked out loud until you are dead. You both can live in your own reality and die happy.

William Carlos Williams

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Monday, February 14, 2000 10:44 AM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 5 Hirsch chapter 1// The Sexual post-poem

I have recently seen that words are viruses, that communication is manipulation, and that poetry is indeed sex. Why sex? It is the mating of two minds (the poet and the reader), and before that it is the mating of two worlds (the poet's conscious and unconscious worlds). The offspring, I think, is MEANING, and it seems to me that Hirsch wrote this book to justify his promiscuity. He wants to point out that we need meaning, and that it comes from a "relational process." It's o.k. to go into bed with these strangers, it is an inner urge that we ought not deny ourselves.

"The reader actively participates in the making of meaning through metaphor, in thinking through the relation of unlike things." This is true, even on a more fundamental level, because it could be said that all of literature is metaphoric. That is, even a straight up image requires the reader to connect two unlike things. For example, "The brown horse whinnies.", factual, yes, but you as a reader must supply your own mental associations to this foreign image i have created and introduced into you via words. The words go into you from me, but the associations come from you. The meaning in this way emerges from my words and your memories (the source of associations.) Are we seeing the sexual connotations(?), but i never said sperm and egg, that was your own child. What this book really is doing so far is dispelling the illusion that meaning is able to exist disembodied, immortal, unchanging on a page in a bottle. But meaning morphs, changes, and is pliable. It must be, because the words squeeze into a new mind and encounter a new mental landscape/context. The meaning that will arise is dependent on the associations that mind binds to those words. "The brown horse...", what do you see? Meaing does not exist outside of relation and communication. "There is no art except for and by others", Sartre says. The same is true of meaning.

In this way, the poet is only conjuring pieces of yourself up and teasing them together. The joy is found in this creative process of the reader/ the receiver. I personally read poetry because it is telling MY story with different words - words i have to expand or sqeeze into. Reading makes me. This me that is made is the product of a sexual encounter with the poet. A new self arrives every time, until i am a whole country of myself. Expansion and division....pure bio-imaginary impulses.

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Monday, February 14, 2000 12:20 AM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 6 Anacreontea // Poetic response to "Drinking"

"They drink and dance by their own light"

So says Anacreontea about the stars and the moon. Although this is true of stars, the moon of course does not emit its own light, but only reflects the light of the sun. The author then goes on to posit the question of humans. Why are we any different, or are we any different than all of nature? Other things need to drink (to take in and assimilate themselves), but are we of a purer stock?I decided to write a poem in response to this one. It is in the style of this author, which i hardly ever write in, so it may be rough. But the point i wanted to make is that we are not fundamentally different than nature. And, in fact, countless groups of humans have lived and still live deeply in tune with this rhythm of drink and be drank. But, if we do differ, it is in our brains' abilities to manufacture identities. Some people, I fear the great majority now, have got it in their heads that they are different, separated, and above all other forms of life, and maybe all other forms of existence. We are the pinnacle, this group says. So, my poem is a response to that group who is inclined to set themselves above. Ultimately it is a deception and a lie that has destructive consequences on those "lesser" creatures that group dominates and exploits.

To Those Who Would Drink

I hesitate to fill your bowl,

to fill it high, to fill it full -

because I wonder what your brain

will chance upon to name the rain.

Other creatures simply know

that from others they did grow-

from stuff that has been tossed around -

from stuff that has been handed down.

I'll tell you why you must not drink,

it is because you stop to think

that drinking you have overcome-

that from some cleaner well you've sprung.

That in your morals you overlook

that clear and humble brook

that sings your name across the rocks

and sings the keys to all your locks.

I tell you that you should not drink

if you feel justified to think

that all this drinking ends with you

or that you are among the chosen few,

because the plants will suck down in your grave

and wear those morals you would save.

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2000 11:39 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: reply to ryan #2//Spinning images

Ryan (and Kevin),

You have both struck a chord in me with the mention of Jack Kerouac, and i delight in your ability to associate him with Dante. We are, perhaps, not scholars yet, but we can see that to get somewhere you have to start from somewhere. In fact, my favorite phrase is "you can't get there from here", which is the same as saying that "you just plain can't get there." But we see these poets and authors who clearly have somewhere to get, or do they? You both are right to emphasize the journey itself, and i would like to furthur that thought. The poet begins with one word, and if he or she is good, simply listens to the words that follow that initial word, those words that associate themselves with each other. A poem builds, but unlike a road that is already laid, the poem just travels over the terrain presented to it, that is, it does not follow a well worn path, it does not need to be sure there is something at the end of it, a destination. The poem itself will become a place you return to, it does not go anywhere. If anything, the reader goes somewhere, but only to a make believe place somewhere between him and the poet. The images collide and remake themselves. To quote from Jim Harrison in "The Theory and Practice of Rivers":

"It is not so much that I got

there from here, which is everyone's

story: but the shape

of the voyage, how it pushed

outward in every direction

until it stopped: ..."

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2000 11:23 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: Reply to Ryan #1// Birthing a poem

Ryan,

First about your reply to me. "What is the what?" A well phrased question!

An attempt to answer must start with a brief personal philosophy. That is, there must be two (at least two) for there to be anything at all. I mean that there is no such thing as one. One is zero, because to exist, we must exist relative to something else. There must be borders to ourselves and then something else outside of those borders. (note the biological beginning is a split, a division).

Now this leads us to poetry as a listening (Empfaenger/ receiver). There is a speaker, and a listener. (Note Allen Ginsberg - "America, I'm talking to myself again.") I postulate that the "myself" in "i am talking to myself" is the who. The "I'm" is the what. (Please don't draw dichotomies here, true we are in need of distinctions, but let's not forget we are still a single being - We don't casually saunter up to our food in the refectory and all of a sudden morph into a beast to devour it, and then switch back to mild mannered Clark Kent.) In other words, the what is that which is to be listened to, that which can be translated into poetry, if you will. Maybe it is the sponge that has soaked up the images of a lifetime (including dreams) and will give them back to you, if you listen for them. The what is the gut self, the instinct, the unthinking mind, the shearness of reaction. Poetry is possible because there is now a listener to copy this animal noise into words. I think another great question is "who is the who?" Who are we, listening, recording, absorbing, interacting....?

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2000 10:57 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: Link to my favorite poet, Jim Harrison

http://www.cstone.net/~poems/shapehar.htm

Sorry that i don't know how to make it so that you can just click on the address above and it will take you there. But, Jim Harrison is a raw poet who finds rhythm by not looking for it, who pulls you tight to his images, who speaks freely and honestly. i think it would be worth the time to check him out.

thanks,

adam

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Monday, February 07, 2000 9:13 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 4 Mallarme and Michelangelo// Blowing smoke and dripping skin

Michelangelo at last of these four poets gives us some images we can sink our eyes into. "A goider/... cats from stagnant streams/...my breast bone visibly/ grows like a harp/...my skin grows loose and long" I can see the old Italian man dripping from the ceiling. His body dissolves with each brush stroke, but his art is resolute, robust, indestructible. He seems maladapted (physically) to create art. Why does he paint this image of a human whose body must go if the art wants to come? Is it mearly the tough conditions of painting in a humid, looming anti-gravity chamber? I almost see Michelangelo morphing into an alien existence, solving the suffering of humanity and rocketing off into space through the chapel roof in a silver art-machine. His art no longer opposing his body, no longer the struggle within, becoming lucid expression itself. A MEANING standing alone, without the previously necessary body to discover, translate, and express that meaning. Pure art. "Are you awake?", the Buddhist asks. But Michelangelo is beyond questions. He is before them. He is. And by that I mean, he is a stark naked screaming space llama... or something in that ball park at least.

I use Mallarme here as if evidence from the fossil record (disregard the time scale, we are working in poet-time here). If we postulate (and we do) that Michelangelo brought the theme of artistic maladaption to fruition, we can see the trace beginnigs of that in Mallarme's poems. Rather like seeing the jaw bones of reptiles swim into the inner ear of mammals - we notice here a transition. Mallarme notes that wind is often used poorly, its potential goes mostly untapped. "A lace curtain/ dashed against a wan pane." It is a sad image of a curtain attempting to do something with the wind, like a child mouthing the word "gargantuan" and only spitting out a meak "goo-ga".

Ah, but the lute (phallic imagery here?), now there is a potential key to the wind's lock. If only it is turned towards a window, it could "give birth". In other words, it can create! The wind is given a voice. Michelangelo took this further by incorporating the human instruments of expression, the throat, the hands, etc. But, let's give Mallarme credit for noting the prevelent tragedy. Namely, that creativity largely does not happen when it could. Michelangelo perhaps unveils the other half of the tragedy: to create one must also be destroyed. But they both acknowledge the ultimate reward. The progeny, the son, the art itself. A picture, of the dying artist, true, but a picture nonetheless - immortality.

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Monday, February 07, 2000 8:39 PM

To: Thamert, Mark; Walters, Anne M

Subject: 3 Reply to Anne about Khlebnikov // Beware the hypnotist

I hope this is the right way to reply to someone's comments.

I want to respond to your questions: "How many times do we feel trapped in situations?" and "Do we listen to ourselves or to the voices of others?"

This poem uses a mind numbing repetitive pattern, and I think that it is trying to show the danger inherent in words. How they can trick or trap us! I actually did not like this poem, but your response to it put me in mind of an idea. Communication is manipulation. Every time we speak, we are doing so in order to elicit a reaction from the other person. We are hoping to get them to react the way we want them to. It may be something slight, like a shift in intonation, a slight whine in the voice of an impatient child. Or it may be a forceful argument, trying to persuade the listner into joining your side (as I am doing now). The point is, that communication is two fold. We chant (talk), but only to enchant (influence the listner). I don't believe speech would have evolved if it did not benefit the speaker. Speech is a technology, a means of manipulating the outer world, the listener. In this way, "he" (and "she") cannot recant once the enchantment is heard. Like you said, the receiver is already changed, inevitably, by the message. It is too late, he and she are corrupted by the charm of the word, the enchantment. "Why can't he uncant?", because the successful enchanter will inject you with an image that cannot be erased, or an idea that must somehow make room for itself in your inner world.

Just briefly on who's voice we listen to. I think we listen to the speaker's voice, but as heard from the filter of our ears. That is, we listen to what we are told, but in the subjective context of who we are. We are prone on both sides (like the Germans and those pesky two-front wars), to two sets of instructions - what we are told, and who we are (what we have accumulated). When they don't cooincide we sense these traps that you spoke of.

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From: Walters, Anne M

Sent: Sunday, February 06, 2000 9:37 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Cc: Walters, Anne M

Subject: Alighieri, Khlebnikov // I Wish I Had a Flying Ship

After reading Dante Alighieri's "Sonnet: Dante Alighieri to Guido Cavalcanti (Pinter, 36)," I am wondering who these two people are and what is their relationship. Is it one of friendship? A deep working relationship? Soulmates? The poem mentions other names:

Guido, I would that Lapo though, and I,

Led by some strong enchantment, might ascend

A magic ship, whose charmed sails should fly ..." (Alighieri, "Sonnet: Dante Alighieri to Guido Cavalcanti," in 99 Poems in Translation, 36).

Dante mentions other names in the poems, close friends. Who is Lapo? Vanna? Bice? I feel drawn to this poem which seems a wistful dream. Dante wants to escape from reality for awhile in a magical ship that flies away to a place where time is suspended and there is no evil. "So that no change, nor any evil chance Should mar our joyous voyage" (36). What is Dante trying to escape from? He wants to bring his friends with him on this journey. I would do the same thing, gather the people closest to my heart and depart. He wants to share the moment with them and engage in meaningful talk. He wants to build community, which is similar to those in our poetry class. "Companions of our wandering, and would grace with passionate talk, wherever we might rove, Our time, and each were as content and free" (36). Dante is hitting on a desire many people have to fly away to a place where there are no worries, only good companionship and thought. I can almost see the flying ship.

In addition, I want to comment on Velmir Khlebnikov's poem, "We chant and enchant," found on page 56 of Pinter's 99 Poems in Translation. This poem has a rolling rhythm and beat to it. I like the alliteration and slight spelling shifts of the words. I am unsure of who the speaker is because "We" is mentioned two times and then the narrator refers to "He" and "She." The narrator/speaker is at first one of the chanters and then the speaker is observing a situation, warning another person.

At first, the narrator seems drawn into the spell of the enchantress. "This ranting enchantress has cast her enchantment--We see what her chant meant!" (Khlebnikov, "We chant and enchant," in 99 Poems in Translation, 56). But then the narrator's wits are recovered and he (?) seeks to rescue another male enchanter. "Cast our her enchantment, Uncast it, uncant it." Once the words are put forth, they cannot be taken back. It is too late, the two enchanters are caught together. They both cannot free themselves from each other. The narrator wonders why: "Why can't she recant? Why can't he uncant?" Perhaps it is love that draws them together, or they are two souls, too alike to want to leave each other. This poem does mystify me, so if anyone has any other comments ..... :-)

How many times are we drawn to people/experiences and find ourselves feeling trapped? Or, sometimes, what at first seems like an unfamiliar situation is actually the beginning of something wonderful? Do we listen to ourselves or to the voices of others?

Anne Walters

"Seek not so much to be understood as to understand..." Francis of Assisi

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2000 9:46 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 2 Rag and Bone Shop // Stafford and Eskimo

The Eskimo poem on page 160 most closely approximates my own thoughts about poetry. I especially like these lines, " a person could become an animal if he wanted to and an animal could become a human being." Of course, we are animals, but I think the poet is referring to a connection with the WHAT that underlies our WHO. In other words, the biological self and its needs, the uncivilized self, the self who shares common ancestry with all life. The who is our identity in social life, our job, our hobbies, our friends. They are both connected, and I think the author is saying that poetry is a vehicle for bringing one to the other.

I think this idea is mirrored by William Stafford on page 181. He speaks of a receptivity, much like the common theme of the Empfaenger in Rilke's work. Perhaps when he goes "fishing" in the morning, his who identity is calling out, or summoning up, his what identity. They will meet at the interface of water and air. It is this meeting point that can be photographed with poetry. He is very much like William Burroughs (a mentor to Kerouac and a wonderfully vivid writer). Burroughs says that writing is "transcribing the subconscious" - a skill requiring empty receptivity. Stafford also mirrors the Eskimo poem in his recognition of the potential words have to surprise. "And if I let them string out, surprising things will happen." This surprise is the rediscovery of the child self, that is, seeing old things in new ways. It is also the discovery of the great CONNECTION, what I like to call a personal epoch. The fishing line is all too apt of a symbol, but it issues forth from the actual body of the poet, and touches every moment of his life. The interfaces of poet and moment bring about the possibility of poem. Twoness potentiates existence.

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2000 8:52 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 2 Peacock // How to kill a poem

Molly Peacock is performing surgery on perfectly healthy people, namely -- poems. To extrapolate on her bodily symbolism for poetry, she is carving into the guts with a hack saw and a wrench. Upon removing an organ, she dupes herself into thinking she understands its function, and that it functions just as well out of context. The amputated limbs are playing frisbee in the hospital halls and harrassing the nurses - or so she believes. For instance, she writes, "the line is like a skeletal system, the sentence is like a circulatory system, and the image is like a central nervous system. That's all." That's all!!!??? Well aren't you a genius. It is ludicrous to think poetry could be summed up into one image. I could say (and I think this is closer to the truth) that poetry is the animal talking through the layers. But, this is also just one image. Poetry is not to be defined, but only to help us define ourselves. Which, by the way, Peacock acknowledges, "poems...are about defining a self." She also contradicts a statement she made earlier, which I agree with. "Poetry was becoming my religion," she writes. Religion, coming from the base ligare, to bind and connect, means that poetry is a connector. Poetry is a place to tie your being together, not a lab rat to be dissected. Poetry only lives in relation to the reader, it has no life outside of a human context. Its anatomy (if there is such a thing) completes itself through the human mind (and to get sappy) the human heart. Those are my thoughts. I am dissappointed that she is pulling the wings off of poems, despite her supposed hatred of such a practice.

From: Briggle, Adam R

Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2000 12:22 AM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 1 Rilke // a poet's dog tags