Kent Shaw's Blog, page 19

Moving is fluid and everywhere moving without stopping.

Moving is fluid and everywhere moving without stopping.

"THE ELEMENTS=====the universe is popular these daysmay of us don’t know what this..."

“

THE ELEMENTS

=====

the universe is popular these days

may of us don’t know what this means

However, it is clear

that a universe provides for us

we often have a hard time doing it

we cannot control matter

and visions

cannot provide for our story

ideas in this life feed support

But at a certain point, go

in physical form

we can clothe and shelter

a civilization

survives and grows, yet we

struggle, expecting things to turn

to plenty

We must be engaged in survival

ourselves as we are

hunted from the elements.

and when we have done all that we can

collaboration is

because the story created

we can control

the environment of trust

responds to

how hard we try,

We develop

grace that runs partly

with the unfolding universe

”

- "The Elements," by Kaisa Ullsvik Miller (from Unspoiled Air). Miller’s book is full of these kinds of incidental, condensed observations describing things like “A Flower’s Work” or “Pressing Matters.” But how does a description work when the author has put grammar at arm’s length. Not even the period-end-of-sentence is sacred for Miller. Which is fine. It’s OK. It’s great! Because it throws me off my language momentum that I normally bring to my reading. Severely throws me off. And I think about relations between individual words. I get surprised by the inexplicably capitalized word. And I think about all the rhetoric-currents that move me through language. 

"THE ELEMENTS=====the universe is popular these daysmany of us don’t know what this..."

“

THE ELEMENTS

=====

the universe is popular these days

many of us don’t know what this means

However, it is clear

that a universe provides for us

we often have a hard time doing it

we cannot control matter

and visions

cannot provide for our story

ideas in this life feed support

But at a certain point, go

in physical form

we can clothe and shelter

a civilization

survives and grows, yet we

struggle, expecting things to turn

to plenty

We must be engaged in survival

ourselves as we are

hunted from the elements.

and when we have done all that we can

collaboration is

because the story created

we can control

the environment of trust

responds to

how hard we try,

We develop

grace that runs partly

with the unfolding universe

”

- "The Elements," by Kaisa Ullsvik Miller (from Unspoiled Air). Miller’s book is full of these kinds of incidental, condensed observations describing things like “A Flower’s Work” or “Pressing Matters.” But how does a description work when the author has put grammar at arm’s length. Not even the period-end-of-sentence is sacred for Miller. Which is fine. It’s OK. It’s great! Because it throws me off my language momentum that I normally bring to my reading. Severely throws me off. And I think about relations between individual words. I get surprised by the inexplicably capitalized word. And I think about all the rhetoric-currents that move me through language. 

Casa Rodante (rolling home). The picture with the lighting makes...

Casa Rodante (rolling home). The picture with the lighting makes it look very cozy.

"At First Blush," by Ruben Ochoa. Three awkward creatures that...

"At First Blush," by Ruben Ochoa. Three awkward creatures that are just looking for a little love.

Prometheus Strangling the Vulture, by Jacques Lipchitz. I would...

Prometheus Strangling the Vulture, by Jacques Lipchitz. I would say Prometheus has every reason to hold a grudge.

"'Modern critics…have become oddly resistant to admitting that there is more than one code of..."

“'Modern critics…have become oddly resistant to admitting that there is more than one code of morals in the world, whereas the central purpose of reading imaginative literature is to accustom yourself to this basic fact' since 'to understand codes other than your own is likely to make your judgments better.' Williams Empson's formulation, as he seems to have recognized, places the central ethical work of literature largely in prose fiction (and perhaps in the feature film). Modern poetry, unless it rejects Empson's liberalism entirely, then gets to answer the question: what else can imaginative writing do?”

-

from “Without Evidence,” by Stephen Burt (from Close Calls with Nonsense). On one hand, Burt uses Empson to address what I always find fascinating about literature. How does it so possess its reader that the person believes he or she has actually lived the life of this other character, and thus understood that person’s life? At the reader’s peril, of course. For some reason Toni Morrison’s Jazz is the first book that comes to mind. The odd, but understandable morality that I want to empathize with and condemn at the same time.

On the other hand, Burt opens up the strange, elaborate and odd priorities that might attend “imaginative writing.” And though there are any number of applications for this, I imagine the complex role of the lyric, how the lyric voice might inhabit the reader, or keep the reader in a set place, or contort the reader’s imagination. And for what purpose? 

How spectacular to discover there is a world beyond moralistic priorities!!

Jacolby Satterwhite making a whole new Intergalactic!

Jacolby Satterwhite making a whole new Intergalactic!

A proposal for the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry...

A proposal for the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry in 1934. What’s the little robot guy in the lower left corner?

JABBAWOCKEEZ?! Still on!

JABBAWOCKEEZ?! Still on!