On acting upon other things

Today was calm. Ah.

There are about 5 of us post-grads in the studio today. Studiously working. Quietly tap-tapping away, or reading.

After our week of isolation, the kid is back at school and I feel like I'm back on track. I've settled on the artist's book as the form for the creative portrait of the manuscript (an eighteenth-century commonplace book) and a creative exegesis which borrows the forms and modes of commonplaces and other comparable forms, including essays written in small portions on particular themes, think Lover's Discourse (Barthes), and small eighteenth-century periodicals such as The Nonsense of Common-Sense (1737-38) written by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: 'such a paper either to ridicule or disclaim against the Ladies . . . ' or 'perhaps only some old Conceits dressed in new Words, either in Rhime or Prose.'

What can be included in the artist’s book: a collection of items. Make it a space for component parts to be assembled. The artist’s book is a composing site. Though not random. It must sing the object of study. Don’t I mean depict? Depict, sing. Depict and sing, might be the work of the artist.

* * * *

Detail from Howe's The Midnight page 59

Detail from Howe's The Midnight page 60

My favourite moment from today was this: I was reading Marjorie Perloff’s essay ‘‘The Rattle of Statistical Traffic’: Citation and Found Text in Susan Howe’s The Midnight,’ where Perloff describes a place where Howe turns ‘oblique,’ where Howe moves into a ’relational space,’ ‘alive with something from somewhere else’ (208). A stick figure is caught in an illustrative image of a book that is the subject of that section of Howe’s book, the whole of which could be described as a long documentary poem. When Perloff quotes from Howe, I move over to Howe’s book, page 59. Howe calls the stick figure ‘more diagram than imp’ and I found myself looking at the image, at this little ‘unintegrated familiar' and, sort of, loving it. And I stayed there. Looking at this published reproduction of a photograph of the object and this work of graffiti, or perhaps illustration, a portrait of the book’s owner. And loving.

And then the close up on the next page with a small responsive riff from Howe on what is called to mind: oral tradition, wilds, mountains, running into the gutter of the book, and indifferent as twilight (whatever that means). The little figure almost moves.

‘Maybe the source of your power’

A question: who does she address?

* * * *

If it isn't obvious, I'm working through Perloff's 'Statistical Traffic' and Susan Howe's The Midnight. With the same method I describe in an earlier post, I'm scrutinising the texts slowly but surely. For those who like their information quantitative, please know that I have scrutinised 19% (fact) of Perloff's essay (81% to go) and potted around in The Midnight as Perloff's text directs me.

* * * *

Some associative contemplations prompted by my scrutinisings: 

Everything is active: is acting upon other things that are surrounding it: either actively or passively.

Think of it this way: every thing performs a task, every thing is acting upon other things that surround it or are proximal to it, at some point of attachment, seen or unseen. Perhaps I don't mean 'point,' perhaps: space. Space of attachment. And that is the 'relational space.'

A question: what is the assignment of a factual paragraph in a poetic text? What task is it performing? This is one of the 23 questions that Perloff poses. 

Many essays are filled with descriptions of what another writer has placed on the page. There is little of consequence, in the sense of ‘and then what?’ What came to you, unbidden? What is your poetry?

And lastly:

The image plays the part of the object it depicts.

Till next time, Void, from your unintegrated familiar

Jx

Howe, Susan. The Midnight. New York: New Directions Books, 2003.

Perloff, Marjorie. “‘The Rattle of Statistical Traffic’: Citation and Found Text in Susan Howe’s The Midnight.” Boundary 2 36, no. 3 (2009): 205–228.