tentative zoetrope

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

October, and I weave my way through
wind and leaf on the path that leads
to the station.

I fish up in a blue-lit room, lagooned
next to Jan, who left her real vocation;
psychiatric nursing, last year, struck dumb
when asked to name her patients ‘throughputs’.
She realised then that language can be needles,
pinpricking veins, threading us through.

The Lecturer polishes the word ‘post-humanism’.
From our distant table, we watch the way
he makes words malleable.

Today, he says, our outputs will be poems -
an edgy rite of passage that hones minds.
To help us focus, he screens a family postcard.
A woman, somewhere lovely, holds a hooked
fish - all surprise and blue-lined scales.

During the break I find that poetry,
like leaves, is out of place within discussion
groups, gets lost in the unsafe readability
of cities.

In the end, we are discharged, outputs
under the sign of the dead fish, walking
back to our stations.

Interesting. S1 connects nature (wind and leaf) with the human (the station, a human artifact--even the concept of October, a human categorization of time).

S2 starts out with "fish" and "blue-lit", images that will reappear. The character of the ex-nurse's profession is shown to have a dehumanizing element, with "throughputs". An interesting metaphor of language as needles is introduced and developed.

S3 the idea of "post-humanism" comes in (a malleable concept, itself), along with the idea of the malleability of words.

S4 "outputs will be poems" seems like a callback to "throughputs" in S2. The fish image returns, along with "blue-lined" vs. "blue-lit" in S2.

S5 the connection between the poetry of S4 and the leaf (leaves) of S1 is made, and a sense of disconnect is made between nature and the human--poetry, perhaps, is figured as a mediator between the two, but is "out of place".

S6 a vision of people (humanity) as dehumanized/discharged "outputs", the fish is dead. TIn the walk back to the station, one seems no longer in communion with nature or the self. A vision of a kind of post-humanism, I would guess.

Very interesting idea, and good handling of the ideas and images.

BrianIs AtYou

PS

It's been wonderful posting with you. Best of luck!

[shaula]

Hello Scrow,
A found poem, what a great idea! Forgive me, I am falling behind in reading, and even farther behind in commenting. If you don't mind, I will bold the bits that jump out:

I pick rosemary and sage in a dust of snow; *should this be 'under a dust?'
carnival as a way to address the primacy of the sacredmountains; long, still, creatures, biding time - *loved that
creating spaces to think *I think of mountains as removing spaces.
as I climb three flights of stairs to an ice-cold office,
a practice-based activist,
where I meet a blacksmith, making coffee - *What is a blacksmith doing on the third floor? Aren't they welders now?
a role you can approve or reject.
Clouds scud over, and the sky clears again. nice

~s

[shaula]

Hello again, Scrow

Some *notes throughout. I enjoyed the walk, thank you.

An inside walk on a rainy day

One wet Friday, bored, with an excuse to explore
* I suggest you re-order these words to lose one comma.
I walked the farthest corridors of college.
* of the college?
I saw dark spots of ivy print the inside walls,
warm ruby reach of vines wrap metal frames.
*I am wrecking my brain with this because I see the ivy growing outside, and I imagine narrator is looking out the window, so how is it printing the inside wall? Is it a shadow? Or is it an indoor plant?
On one stairwell, I saw a cobalt-blue glazed bowl
catch a single drop of rain, changed
*do you think you should move 'catch' up to the end of the previous line?
like opals turned to moss.
*opals to moss is not clear to me
The air smelt sweet and damp.
*distraction. more concrete: the air was sweet ...
Outside, tall stalks, weaving drifts of grass,
*unclear. again, I blame the two commas
like skeins of silk in fairytale, disguised
*could drop 'in fairytale'
a lawn as field, unkempt. The fish pretended
peace in their pond. A recent roof-fall stared
at a lanky rose-garden, beside a van that stubbornly
refused, refused - then started on the last
attempt. My loyalty hangs in the balance, and yet,
*I have to ask, how would it not be the last attempt if it started?
it’s in this choke and clutch of vines, relentless,
and the eventual slow movement of the van
firing up, startling the tranquil fish, that I find
I’m not-quite-yet rewilded,
or at least, not enough to leave this - yet.

Cool. It's lovely now, that I understand the emotional attachment to the place. You should consider putting more personal notes about the place into the descriptions, so I recognize the job, so I better understand the attachment. I saw the bowl catching one drop as a metaphor for the college catching the mind and imagination of the young, and perhaps the moss is the comfort of the realm, or the slow trail of the elders. You see, I can go anywhere if you give me wriggle room.

Hope that helps, thanks for the read.

[lauriene]

We meet half-way down a strained
path, where longer days stare ice-cold lack
of finance in the eye and no children play.


You had me at these lines. It's so engaging and very powerful writing.

Trade Wars and Data Capture read really well. The voice and language in both is strong and powerful (there's that word again). I'd love to see where you take them.

You're a writer for sure. See you back here in March! : )

[Sorella]

I started with the latest poem, and before I could get to where I should be in my commenting, I was
caught up in post-humanism, like Dunc and Brian.
Such a perfect opening:

October, and I weave my way through
wind and leaf on the path that leads
to the station.

Little did I know! No wonder N is disheartened at the end.

I am associating rather strangely today, but Illuminate had me mumbling morning's at seven -- must
have been the snail! Well-crafted tapestry.

Varied and fascinating offerings from you this week, thank you!

Sorella

[Donner]

Hi, Sarah,

"At the post-humanist research group" - Life condensed down to throughputs, poems and hooked, dead fish. Of the many effective lines, I thought these stood out:

She realised then that language can be needles,
pinpricking veins, threading us through.

It's been so good to have you back and to read your work again. Don't you ever make us wait so long again! And thank you for your good thoughts for today, much appreciated.

Donna

[Scrow]

Hi all,

Thank-you so much for your time this week. You're all extraordinary.

Dunc - I think your reading of posthumanism as postal service is a good one! I've probably thought about this far more than is healthy, and my conclusions is that it's one of those really fluid terms which means so many different things that it doesn't really mean anything. Like a riddle, which kind of means but only if you 'get' it, and what you 'get' depends on your perspective. Eek!

I don't have a problem with posthumanism, btw, particularly in some of it's more liberating contexts. But I do mind when, for me, it 'throws the baby out with the bathwater' - ignores a sense of 'humanity' as a potential. And I really minded that lecturer (because this was not run as a discussion group, it was run as a lecture to a small group of people with a task).

BrianIsSmiling- thank-you. I struggle with writing a new poem each day for seven days, and this was no exception. Your careful reading shows that the things (words/themes) I intended can come across, and also suggest ways in which I can make them more cohesive/more open. And also thank-you. As the internet becomes enclosed (and it is becoming enclosed, not common land) it's important, I think, we can keep open spaces where writers and poets meet, by chance, and wonder at each others' work/words)

Shaula - thank-you so much. I appreciate your time and your thoughts - you read me in a way which, for me, balances knee-jerk response and a knowledge of craft, plus the essential differences in who people are. Anyway, I am rubbish at punctuation, if it goes beyond the basics - and your looking at this will help me so much when I revise. Here's a rewilded picture (it's where I work, but I was lucky to fish up there)

Lauriene - I like writing with you. March is busy for me (don't ask), but if you're here, I'll do the thing.

Yay! And Sorella, - I don't have strong associations to Robert, but where I live - place and space - would equally echo. Although I'm not part of the poetry scene where I live (and that's another thing to think about for me).

Donna- yes, and the throughputs is true-life. My research colleague could cope (just) with her fragile patients being classified as 'inputs' and 'outputs' but she balked at 'throughputs' and went back to study to try to find a voice. If work (not poetry work - work, work) takes over again, I will (next time) tell you, rather than leaving it so long that I feel that I can't ever return. Promise. And that means that it won't be five years.

Onwards! Behold, the Ides of March!

Sarah

[Scrow]

March. Lovely super-glitch board is going to be grrr-worthy but I'll cope. It brings an element of change into the digital which is potentially quite exciting anyway. Although I do wish it wasn't using nudge theory to prompt me towards biscuits.

Moving away from first-person narrative straightjacket this month (thankfully) and using this recently-found volume as a prompt which in some way will thread through all drafts this month - image here

[Sorella]

Cool! Can't wait for more maps!

[Scrow]

Thanks Sorella. Good company this March!

[Scrow]

British Regional Geology
[found poem - the elements in italics quote from different aspects of the book}

Sold for six shillings net
this small pamphlet shares long
unfolding stories.
Important work
caught between two world wars -
found in a mossy sea of silks
and tapestry wool in a New Radnor
charity shop, suspended,
like seeds, or hill-feathers or
FIG. 32 Ludlow, Downtonian and Old Red Sandstone -
fossils found in the Ludlow beds;
lost ancient inland lakes.

Further down the borderlands
the Pre-Cambrian rocks of the Malvern
range are refound by Boulton,
Garwood & Goodyear, Cobbold, Stubblefield,
Bulman, Groom.

The main physical features of the Welsh Borderland
Mapped in careful diagrams, drawn
in a time where the old names grew silent,
their tongues lopped
like eroded paths. Voice memories
skew perspectives, fore-shorten
a scientific drawing of the past.

In the present, caught by the torrents
of water-once-roads, tiny pockets
of tarmacadam break their long fast
to surface-skitter downstream leaving puddles -
deep ruts in the link roads, the fault-lines
of the borderlands cracked and fading
like old photographs.

Like the one falling from the pamphlet.
A woman - the geologist’s wife? She’s running
-traversing the axis of the Malvern fold
downhill in wet shoes,
her footprints filling up fast
with rainwater.

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

On the first quick read, I noticed Radnor and Malvern, which are two Pennsylvania towns nearby (named after UK towns). There are other borrowed names around here, including some names made up to sound or look like Welsh, and some based on actual Welsh (like Bryn Mawr). Those names were the first things to pique my interest.

Second, the listing of names and maps brought to mind Denise Levertov's "A Map of the Western Part of the County of Essex in England"
See https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-ma...ex-in-england/

I fell in love with "tarmacadam"--such lovely sounds! (That say what they mean, and mean what they say!)

And "surface-skitter"!

I can see the cracks in the photographs making fault lines.

Earlier, the mention of Pre-Cambrian makes me think of ancient fossils, the Burgess Shale, and more.

I wonder if the "geologist's wife" was responsible for more of what we see that we are led to believe.

BrianIs AtYou

PS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radnor...,_Pennsylvania
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malvern,_Pennsylvania
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryn_Mawr,_Pennsylvania

[Dunc]

Sarah

Lovely engagement with the words and the ideas ─ unfolding stories, hill-feathers, Downtonian, the Ludlow beds, Cobbold, Stubblefield, the geologist's wife in dripping shoes, with a rolling unfolding feel to it.

A pleasure to read.

(Those glitches of DiamondsTM - if you use Windows, it might help if you put a paste a copy of the poem onto Notepad, and then copy that copy to post here. Otherwise I can only suggest putting in uncurvy apostrophes from ASCII by hand.)

Regards / Dunc

[Scrow]

Thank-you BrianIsSmiling and Dunc for reading,

Brian - those links are fascinating - also your link to Levertov much appreciated. I recognise surnames from 'big' families around here in the Wikipedia links and wonder if half-Radnorshire emigrated to Pennsylvania (that is exciting - like place-links to other places which renew ideas of what 'home' is). And thank-you - I was trying hard to hint that the geologists wife did some, if not more, of the hard work. It's so difficult to trace, as our dominant narratives of past are male-dominated official books (not wholly the choice of the men involved in making them, I'm sure), but underneath those 'official' narratives lies a seam of women drawing, making, thinking, discovering, too. The Herefordshire Pomona was illustrated by two women (Alice Blanche Ellis and Edith Bull), for example.

Dunc- thank-you for the sensitive read and for the tech support. I'm glad you like the words - there are loads in this book, it's like a whole banquet of them - and the illustrations are exciting in an odd way, too - all those hills, presented like a 'planned cow' in a recipe book.

Sarah

[Scrow]

British Regional Geology:
FIG.1 12. Cambrian Fossils

Brief, half-visible, a filament
spins a ripple,
breaks the shallow sea’s surface
in a tendril-flick
like a mermaid’s
tail.

In a bed of very green sandstone
coral forests lift their jade-gold gaze
as the land-weight presses down,
exhales
shale.

From 1906 to 1936 Cobbold worked almost continuously at the fauna of these sandy limestones

Minerals flack under the fingernails
of the geologist, exposing histories
in a snick of green sandstone;
like a bite on a bone
that sounds like the snap of a drawer
as it shuts on a row of stones.

What’s left? Rows of creatures.
Patterns dry as paper.
The ink drawn lines are regular,
still and well-defined.