BERNEVAL

Inspired by Jean-Jacques Lecercle’s introduction to The Force of Language (by Jean-Jacques Lecercle and Denise Riley) I am about to play an obliteration game (in reverse) with a segment by Lisa Robertson. First, Lecercle’s example generated by dropping one word at a time.

Oh, Sir Jasper, please do not touch me!
Oh, Sir Jasper, please do not touch!
Oh, Sir Jasper, please do not!
Oh, Sir Jasper, please do!
Oh, Sir Jasper, please!
Oh, Sir Jasper!
Oh!

And also inspired by bp nichol and his “Translating Translating Appollinaire” we tackle this from Lisa Robertson’s The Apothecary

I was mobilized during a company thinktank to become
an entrepreneur so by porous analysis I refashioned my
rank altering crude plumbing to unmarred landscape
in one abridged gesture then called my document a
neighbourhood.

Initial step – strip out all but first letters

I w m d a c t t b
a e s b p a I r m
r a c p t u l
i o a g t c m d a
n.

Next step – some restoration

I wa mo du a co th to be
an en so by po an I re my
ra al cr pl to un la
in on ab ge th ca my do a
ne.

More

I was mob dur a com thi to bec
an ent so by por ana I ref my
ran alt cru plu to unm lan
in one abr ges the cal my doc a
nei.

Again

I was mobi duri a comp thin to beco
an entr so by poro anal I refa my
rank alte crud plum to unma land
in one abri gest then call my docu a
neig.

Bear with us More

I was mobil durin a compa think to becom
an entre so by porou analy I refas my
rank alter crude plumb to unmar lands
in one abrid gestu then calle my docum a
neigh.

And a whinny we continue

I was mobili during a compan thinkt to become
an entrep so by porous analys I refash my
rank alteri crude plumb to unmarr landsc
in one abridg gestur then called my docume a
neighb.

Getting there

I was mobiliz during a company thinkta to become
an entrepr so by porous analysi I refashi my
rank alterin crude plumbi to unmarre landsca
in one abridge gesture then called my documen a
neighbo.

Resisting the desire to rush on Getting there

I was mobilize during a company thinktan to become
an entrepre so by porous analysis I refashio my
rank altering crude plumbin to unmarred landscap
in one abridged gesture then called my document a
neighbou.

See what dangles uncompleted

I was mobilized during a company thinktank to become
an entrepren so by porous analysis I refashion my
rank altering crude plumbing to unmarred landscape
in one abridged gesture then called my document a
neighbour.

Only three spots

I was mobilized during a company thinktank to become
an entreprene so by porous analysis I refashione my
rank altering crude plumbing to unmarred landscape
in one abridged gesture then called my document a
neighbourh.

Then there were two

I was mobilized during a company thinktank to become
an entrepreneu so by porous analysis I refashioned my
rank altering crude plumbing to unmarred landscape
in one abridged gesture then called my document a
neighbourho.

Who will be the last?

I was mobilized during a company thinktank to become
an entrepreneur so by porous analysis I refashioned my
rank altering crude plumbing to unmarred landscape
in one abridged gesture then called my document a
neighbourhoo.

In the hood…

I was mobilized during a company thinktank to become
an entrepreneur so by porous analysis I refashioned my
rank altering crude plumbing to unmarred landscape
in one abridged gesture then called my document a
neighbourhood.

I knew upon first reading that “neighbourhood” was privileged by its position and suspected also by its length. The letter by letter reconstruction confirms this. It also reveals the space accorded to entrepreneurial refashioning.

And so for day 1043
21.10.2009

Richard Howard commands us to pay attention to a poetic voice that would argue that all ties to the past are severed. We run over title and epigraph and find opening stanzas set off by indentation on left and right. It’s a sort of narrator’s comment on the more “personal” stanzas that follow and run to more narrow margins.

[…] The dead
take away the world they made
certain was theirs—they die
knowing we never can have it.

And I am led to think that at best we leave behind clear water and pure air. I am reminded that I never attended the Armory Show but have read about its influence. I recall a conversation with someone who did not know either tune or lyrics to Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock.”

Are these pieces of a world that is passing? Like every step is a falling, every breath a dying. And so, Howard ends the poem with an address that belies its beginning, it marks an exception.

The difference, then, between
your death and all those others
is this: you did not take
a certain world away, after
all. After you, because of you,
all songs are possible.

The poem is “Again for Hephaistos, the Last Time October 1, 1973” in Fellow Feelings. There is another Hephaistos poem in the earlier Damages. It too revolves around a relation to W.H. Auden and its penultimate stanza provides a meditation on not the anxiety of influence but the necessity of carrying something broken away.

Wondering, I forgot my words and lost
All presence of mind as you labored past.
And yet you taught me, taught us all a way
To speak our minds, and only now, at last
Free of you, my old ventriloquist,
Have I suspected what I have to say
Without hearing you say it for me first.
Like my old love, I have survived you best
By leaving you, and so you’re here to stay.

Pure water. Clear Light. Parts of a world. Never a whole. Atoms. Always on the go. Gone are the particles I have touched and still others out of reach …

And so for day 1040
18.10.2009

The game is more than just a game and nothing but a game. Richard Howard in Quantities begins “The Old Men Playing Boccie on Leroy Street”

A sense of Fall without the trees
That make their rot so decorous,

And on through the middle of the poem

The old men play until I think
Their laughter is the bravest sport

And I can’t bear it to end. I want to stay with the prime image. As the poet says “Something has been given up / But they are playing” and that is how I choose to remember them. Why? Because I am led to this honouring by the poet. And you may be too.

And so for day 1037
15.10.2009

Almost ringing the changes of the puer aeternus theme, Roo Borson concludes a prose poem “Summer” from The Whole Night, Coming Home with an image that brushes up against melancholy but refreshes the mind with its sparkling originality.

No matter how many nights these boys lie alone on the rough sheets, they still won’t know why autumn will come, altering everything, bringing amnesia of the little they’ve understood, listening dumbly, happily, to the crickets, the sleighbells of summer.

Winter is evoked but subject to a forgetting. Nothing melts.

And so for day 1035
13.10.2009