Last Night, Intoxicated
Transcribed from notebook. Hilarious!
the work that it does
the place it inhabits
the intersection: trying to articulate what cannot be articulated using language that at its core does not work
If I had "something to say" I would say it, and that would be the end of it. Poetry is not a medium I use to try to say something. It is approaching the unsayable, a series of signposts pointing, striving for the understanding that you feel at the back of your brain -- the thing you can't look directly at. It's a way of sliding around to it, of realigning lenses, of adjusting the experience of language -- a way to sidle up to truths without scaring them away. To shift pieces into place -- that sudden clarity. Not a place you can drive logic to -- a place you can arrive at by not trying to get to. I don't know how to describe it: lateral movement, association, song + sound. A different way to situate yourself in relation to the world + to the word.
Acceptance of the shortcomings -- this is the "luminous frame" -- to see what you cannot do and embrace it. Clarity and correctness. You will always fall short but that is part of the pattern, of the truth. I bind myself to the word, the stunted thing, the half-light. Many wheels are turning and at intervals they align, they permit vision. I cannot write what I mean because I cannot mean. But I can write.
To connect yourself to the hidden places, to troll the otherworlds -- underworlds? -- without fearing what you will find -- or expecting to find anything. Letting yourself down, as on a rope. Permitting yourself access.
the work that it does
the place it inhabits
the intersection: trying to articulate what cannot be articulated using language that at its core does not work
If I had "something to say" I would say it, and that would be the end of it. Poetry is not a medium I use to try to say something. It is approaching the unsayable, a series of signposts pointing, striving for the understanding that you feel at the back of your brain -- the thing you can't look directly at. It's a way of sliding around to it, of realigning lenses, of adjusting the experience of language -- a way to sidle up to truths without scaring them away. To shift pieces into place -- that sudden clarity. Not a place you can drive logic to -- a place you can arrive at by not trying to get to. I don't know how to describe it: lateral movement, association, song + sound. A different way to situate yourself in relation to the world + to the word.
Acceptance of the shortcomings -- this is the "luminous frame" -- to see what you cannot do and embrace it. Clarity and correctness. You will always fall short but that is part of the pattern, of the truth. I bind myself to the word, the stunted thing, the half-light. Many wheels are turning and at intervals they align, they permit vision. I cannot write what I mean because I cannot mean. But I can write.
To connect yourself to the hidden places, to troll the otherworlds -- underworlds? -- without fearing what you will find -- or expecting to find anything. Letting yourself down, as on a rope. Permitting yourself access.
posted by stower at 9:22 AM
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