Woke early this morning, and had time for an enjoyably civilizing cup of tea. Phoned on the tube by a panicking suit with some micro-crisis that had to be fixed in minutes. Amazing how a piece of junk mail can become a life and death matter.
Close reading of the Jorie Graham poems. She has a way of tentatively testing and flexing the flow of what she is saying, that to some I am sure represents an exciting nearness to the stream of poetic thought. But for me it is just hard work with little reward. A randomly chosen bit... The opening to a poem called Philosopher's Stone shows this off (and is by no means the most extreme example).
It's like this. There are quantities. There's on-
goingness--
no--there's an underneath. Over it we lay
time--actually more like takes and re-
takes by
the mind (eyes closed) then clickings of
its opening-out and the mind fills
with gazes--thousands over some visualizations--or some
places if you wish--I wish--a few or no gazes over some
(because there must be a meadow with just such
grasses
no gaze has touched)--(because it is
touch)--(and other places where millions have laid down
their mental waters in this manner). Above and
below our gaze, I don't know for sure--although I
believe there must be a truth--gravity lays,
is laid... etc. etc.
I am hard pressed to work out what was being discussed here. A meditation on time, and the phenomenology of perception perhaps? None of this is made easy to imagine, and has little in the way of usable images. How do you lay down your "mental waters" for example? I am enjoying her work, but it makes me impatient.
Took another constitutional along the river this lunchtime which was nice. Spoke to MJ in the afternoon. She is lovely. And I am feeling very positive about us.
Left sharpish and managed to avoid travel horrors from Victoria with the trains doomed because there had been a gas leak near the line somewhere. I managed to get home a mere 15 mins late. Reuben called me stranded at Victoria, but at least he had the presence of mind to go to a bar.
Remo has done an excellent job with the toilet. At last the medieval horror of it all is behind me. Also spoke to Diane, who is coming to stay with me this weekend, and will inspect Brighton.
Close reading of the Jorie Graham poems. She has a way of tentatively testing and flexing the flow of what she is saying, that to some I am sure represents an exciting nearness to the stream of poetic thought. But for me it is just hard work with little reward. A randomly chosen bit... The opening to a poem called Philosopher's Stone shows this off (and is by no means the most extreme example).
It's like this. There are quantities. There's on-
goingness--
no--there's an underneath. Over it we lay
time--actually more like takes and re-
takes by
the mind (eyes closed) then clickings of
its opening-out and the mind fills
with gazes--thousands over some visualizations--or some
places if you wish--I wish--a few or no gazes over some
(because there must be a meadow with just such
grasses
no gaze has touched)--(because it is
touch)--(and other places where millions have laid down
their mental waters in this manner). Above and
below our gaze, I don't know for sure--although I
believe there must be a truth--gravity lays,
is laid... etc. etc.
I am hard pressed to work out what was being discussed here. A meditation on time, and the phenomenology of perception perhaps? None of this is made easy to imagine, and has little in the way of usable images. How do you lay down your "mental waters" for example? I am enjoying her work, but it makes me impatient.
Took another constitutional along the river this lunchtime which was nice. Spoke to MJ in the afternoon. She is lovely. And I am feeling very positive about us.
Left sharpish and managed to avoid travel horrors from Victoria with the trains doomed because there had been a gas leak near the line somewhere. I managed to get home a mere 15 mins late. Reuben called me stranded at Victoria, but at least he had the presence of mind to go to a bar.
Remo has done an excellent job with the toilet. At last the medieval horror of it all is behind me. Also spoke to Diane, who is coming to stay with me this weekend, and will inspect Brighton.
Comments