It Started Rings

Charlie Demuth once told me that he did not like the taste of liquor, for which he was thankful, but that he found the effect it had on his mind to be delightful. Of course Li Po is reported to have written his best verse supported in the arms of the Emperor's attendants and with a dancing-girl to hold his tablet. He was also a great poet. Wine is merely the latchstring.

The virtue of it all is in an opening of the doors, though some rooms of course will be empty, a break with banality, the continual hardening which habit enforces. There is nothing left in me but the virtue of curiosity, Demuth puts in. The poet should be forever at the ship's prow.

An acrobat seldom learns really a new trick, but he must exercise continually to keep his joints free. When I made this discovery it started rings in my memory that keep following one after the other to this day.

WCW, Kora in Hell (Prologue)

To Friends Who Write

Dear Friends (You Know Who You Are),

...in search of recognition...in a world where your work is a "one in many" "face in the midst of the crowd" "still small voice"...you are lost.  In what flows from hot to cold to make engines turn, we are the dissipate leavings.

And it's not surprising, but surely dispiriting.  As I looked at your poems I grew more impressed, more interested.  That is the best I can say.  And the best, really, I think I can do, is to be an eager reader...waiting and wanting more from you. 

That is what I want in a reader...well, just that A READER.  That is the "community" we want.  Appreciation from one reader...and then one more, and then another, and then...well you see the problem.

Imagine...I am only now waking up to Williams as a man of fierce intelligence but also of fierce ambition and fierce need.

As I hold Williams-as-written in my mind, in my ears, in my hands (tangible love) I realize that publishing in 1920 is STILL small.  Still a community.  Still easily divided among small numbers of writers we label members of "schools."  There are poets, great and good, who just want to be loved (and hated) by one another and to stand in time next to other names.  To be named!  And also, bed Mina Loy...who deserves so much more than that from me here now...but there it is.

We have no more great poets because the acquisitive mind has co-opted the world and poetry is CONTENT--and content, really, turns out to be irrelevant.  And that is a warp and weft of its own devising.  Realizing that poets both love and hate Williams, that the public knows one poem and makes gleeful "get it" fun out of another; realizing that the world does not know any of Williams really as you can't know the wheelbarrow outside of its home in its book where it carries a quantity of uncertainty as payload.

As I hold Williams I hold a book Spring and All that is nearly 100 years old.  This corresponds with Williams holding onto Shelley's Triumph of Life.  Or even my holding onto Auroras of Autumn like Williams holding onto the 1850 Prelude or the barbaric Leaves of Grass.  Who is the Ashbery who springs into life at the death of Stevens?  Who is that Ashbery?  He seems volcanic of the undigested being, but who am I to judge?  What is true is that monuments are made while moments are lost.  

We have exploded and are only pieces, are one in pieces, unbounded in our bond.

Trunks like Shelley like Whitman are surely only branches though with great circumference.  You and I are nearly forced to be the ideas of leaves hoping to bud into existence on a fruitful fruiting branch not fruited.  Still to grow juicy and even sweet which is a product of dry seasons so we may fall in the autumn and be usefully dead for the great continuing Yggdrasil.

Or something like that...something more than paper recycled for bodily use.

But if so so.

As ever, your friend,
One/Many

One's Own Possibilities

Yet [Walter] Benjamin’s letters are instructive also in the way in which they show how political commitments are something a bourgeoisie makes for itself, for its own good and its psychic well-being. Maimed as well as privileged, it has an interest in lifting the burdens of exploitation it, too, necessarily suffers (and not only, as at the present time, when capitalism devours its own bourgeois children). Benjamin makes the point in his arguments with Scholem. His Communism is not something chosen independently and somehow added onto his writing and intellectual life, capable, as Adorno thought, of deflecting it in wasteful or deplorable directions. The political choice is motivated by the writing itself: ‘a victorious party’ – the German Bolshevist party – ‘might make it possible for me to write differently.’ This is the crucial issue: under what conditions might a truly ‘literary’ life be lived, in what kind of situation might the vocation of the intellectual be most fully realised?


The critique of capitalism is for Benjamin first and foremost a critique of how it affects his own possibilities for writing, the commitment to socialism first and foremost a kind of class interest for the bourgeois intellectual, who suffers under the market and yearns to make fuller use of his intellectual energies. This is why classical right-wing talk about the ressentiment of intellectuals is ignorant and misplaced, and the familiar counter-revolutionary analysis of their role in revolutions and their lust for power an ingenious misconception. True intellectuals want to write, and their deeper political reflections turn on the obstacles a given social system places in the way of that vocation. Hence Benjamin’s allegiance to Brecht, whose ‘essays are the first ... that I champion as a critic without (public) reservation. This is because part of my development in the last few years came about in confrontation with them, and because they, more rigorously than any others, give an insight into the intellectual context in which the work of people like myself is conducted in this country.’


from "An Unfinished Project" by Fredric Jameson, a review essay on the correspondence of Benjamin with Adorno and Scholem.

One of Benjamin's great essays: "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1936)

***

With no son of man do I stand upon any etiquette or ceremony, except the Christian ones of charity and honesty. I am told, my fellow-man, that there is an aristocracy of the brain. Some men have boldly advocated and asserted it. Schiller seems to have done so, though I don't know much about him. At any rate, it is true that there have been those who, while earnest in behalf of political equality, will accept the intellectual estates. And I can well perceive, I think, how a man of superior mind can, by its intense cultivation, bring himself, as it were, into a certain spontaneous aristocracy of feeling, -- exceedingly nice and fastidious, -- similar to that which, in an English Howard, conveys a torpedo-fish thrill at the slightest contact with a social plebian. So, when you see or hear of my ruthless democracy on all sides, you may possibly feel a touch of a shrink, or something of that sort. It is but nature to be shy of a mortal who boldly declares that a thief in jail is as honorable a personage as Gen. George Washington. This is ludicrous. But Truth is the silliest thing under the sun. Try to get a living by the Truth -- and go to the Soup Societies. Heavens! Let any clergyman try to preach the Truth from its very stronghold, the pulpit, and they would ride him out of his church on his own pulpit bannister. It can hardly be doubted that all Reformers are bottomed upon the truth, more or less; and to the world at large are not reformers almost universally laughingstocks? Why so? Truth is ridiculous to men. Thus easily in my room here do I, conceited and garrulous, reverse the test of my Lord Shaftesbury.

It seems an inconsistency to assert unconditional democracy in all things, and yet confess a dislike to all mankind -- in the mass. But not so. -- But it's an endless sermon, -- no more of it. I began by saying that the reason I have not been to Lenox is this, -- in the evening I feel completely done up, as the phrase is, and incapable of the long jolting to get to your house and back. In a week or so, I go to New York, to bury myself in a third-story room, and work and slave on my "Whale" while it is driving through the press. That is the only way I can finish it now, -- I am so pulled hither and thither by circumstances. The calm, the coolness, the silent grass-growing mood in which a man ought always to compose, -- that, I fear, can seldom be mine. Dollars damn me; and the malicious Devil is forever grinning in upon me, holding the door ajar. My dear Sir, a presentiment is on me, -- I shall at last be worn out and perish, like an old nutmeg-grater, grated to pieces by the constant attrition of the wood, that is, the nutmeg. What I feel most moved to write, that is banned, -- it will not pay. Yet, altogether, write the other way I cannot. So the product is a final hash, and all my books are botches.

Melville in a well-known and much-cited letter to Hawthorne (Juneteenth, 1851)

***

While I was intent on improving my language, I met with an English grammar (I think it was Greenwood's), at the end of which there were two little sketches of the arts of rhetoric and logic, the latter finishing with a specimen of a dispute in the Socratic method; and soon after I procur'd Xenophon's Memorable Things of Socrates, wherein there are many instances of the same method. I was charm'd with it, adopted it, dropt my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, and put on the humble inquirer and doubter. And being then, from reading Shaftesbury and Collins, become a real doubter in many points of our religious doctrine, I found this method safest for myself and very embarrassing to those against whom I used it; therefore I took a delight in it, practis'd it continually, and grew very artful and expert in drawing people, even of superior knowledge, into concessions, the consequences of which they did not foresee, entangling them in difficulties out of which they could not extricate themselves, and so obtaining victories that neither myself nor my cause always deserved. I continu'd this method some few years, but gradually left it, retaining only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence; never using, when I advanced any thing that may possibly be disputed, the words certainly, undoubtedly, or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather say, I conceive or apprehend a thing to be so and so; it appears to me, or I should think it so or so, for such and such reasons; or I imagine it to be so; or it is so, if I am not mistaken. This habit, I believe, has been of great advantage to me when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinions, and persuade men into measures that I have been from time to time engag'd in promoting; and, as the chief ends of conversation are to inform or to be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish well-meaning, sensible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a positive, assuming manner, that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to defeat every one of those purposes for which speech was given to us, to wit, giving or receiving information or pleasure. For, if you would inform, a positive and dogmatical manner in advancing your sentiments may provoke contradiction and prevent a candid attention. If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others, and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix'd in your present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation, will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error. And by such a manner, you can seldom hope to recommend yourself in pleasing your hearers, or to persuade those whose concurrence you desire.

from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (written between 1771 and 1790)

***


I HAVE been considering (my Friend!) what your Fancy was, to express such a surprize as you did the other day, when I happen’d to speak to you in commendation of Raillery. Was it possible you shou’d suppose me so grave a Man, as to dislike all Conversation of[60] this kind? Or were you afraid I shou’d not stand the trial, if you put me to it, by making the experiment in my own Case?

I must confess, you had reason enough for your Caution; if you cou’d imagine me at the bottom so true a Zealot, as not to bear the least Raillery on my own Opinions. ’Tis the Case, I know, with many. Whatever they think grave or solemn, they suppose must never be treated out of a grave and solemn way: Tho what Another thinks so, they can be contented to treat otherwise; and are forward to try the Edge of Ridicule against any Opinions besides their own.

The Question is, Whether this be fair or no? and, Whether it be not just and reasonable, to make as free with our own Opinions, as with those of other People? For to be sparing in this case, may be look’d upon as a piece of Selfishness. We may be charg’d perhaps with wilful Ignorance and blind Idolatry, for having taken Opinions upon Trust, and consecrated in our-selves certain Idol-Notions, which we will never suffer to be unveil’d, or seen in open light. They may perhaps be Monsters, and not Divinitys, or Sacred Truths, which are kept thus choicely, in some dark Corner of our Minds: The Specters may impose on us, whilst we re[61]fuse to turn ’em every way, and view their Shapes and Complexions in every light. For that which can be shewn only in a certain Light, is questionable. Truth, ’tis suppos’d, may bear all Lights: and one of those principal Lights or natural Mediums, by which Things are to be view’d, in order to a thorow Recognition, is Ridicule it-self, or that Manner of Proof by which we discern whatever is liable to just Raillery in any Subject. So much, at least, is allow’d by All, who at any time appeal to this Criterion. The gravest Gentlemen, even in the gravest Subjects, are suppos’d to acknowledg this: and can have no Right, ’tis thought, to deny others the Freedom of this Appeal; whilst they are free to censure like other Men, and in their gravest Arguments make no scruple to ask, Is it not Ridiculous?

from Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1737), "An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour," Lord Shaftesbury.

The Shallows or the Depths?

Perhaps this is why I return to certain books over and over and have given up on many others.

Now a book lives as long as it's unfathomed. Once it is fathomed it dies at once...once it is known, and its meaning fixed or established it is dead. A book only lives while it has power to move us, and move us differently; so long as we find it different every time we read it. Owing to the flood of shallow books which really are exhausted in one reading, the modern mind tends to think every book is the same, finished in one reading. The real joy of a book lies in reading it over and over again, and always finding it different, coming upon another meaning, another level of meaning...It is far, far better to read one book six times, at intervals, than to read six several books. Because if a certain book can call you to read it six times, it will be a deeper and deeper experience each time, and will enrich the whole soul, emotional and mental. Whereas six books read once only are merely an accumulation of superficial interest, the burdensome accumulation of modern days, quantity without real value.

Note here that it's required that you find it different when rereading a book. Or you might say, it finds you different. I have a few favorites that I return to occasionally but only for comfort and when I read them I am the same reader and it is the same book fulfilling an emotional need. But it is not revealing a deeper sounding...rather, allowing me to stay at one level, at my ease, as a kind of pacification (something akin to eating for comfort).

My first experience like this came with Conrad's Heart of Darkness. It was intentionally opaque and perhaps that's cheating, but while its action in the jungle and on the river remained the same, the lines, the words, the telling of it, would slip away in different directions and then sneak back in bearing a cloak of allusion.

I think that writers when deeply read, in any field, use all their experiences as readers when they write. You know the saying "you are what you eat", well this seems applicable to books as well. They are the culmination of the writer's reading history, what he/she has eaten. This doesn't mean breadth of reading...it means reading deeply, repeatedly, being in thrall to the words and meanings and finding them internalized within you and then filtered through you back out into the world through your mouth or pen.

What books keep you sounding, diving and surfacing with fresh depths in your maw?

Lawrence's Apocalypse