Post by cat mccredie on Jan 20, 2023 6:41:18 GMT -5
I wrote yesterday that I had not yet given an adequately close reading to the beginning and middle of section 2. Whether or not you felt my "hopeful" interpretation of the ending of section 2 had merit, you may find the following analysis of Retallack's re-shuffling of her lines, and the resulting enjambments, helpful for your own exploration of the poem. For me, it is a start on a close reading of all of section 2. Some of it is similar to what Lou did.
*
The rearrangement of the lines in section 2 is not random but systematic. That is, it has method.
Note that section 1 has 26 lines. Section 2 has 35, of which nine are used twice. All lines in section 1 are used in section 2. No new lines are introduced in section 2.
This may be a good way to visualize the pattern. Begin by numbering the lines in section 1 as lines 1 through 26.
Section 2 then proceeds as follows, with the indents only a visual cue to seeing the pattern:
1
10
2
11
3
12
4
13
5
14
6
15
7
16
8
17
9
10
18
11
19
12
20
13
21
14
22
15
23
16
24
17
25
18
26
Notice that lines 10-18 (the middle lines of section 1), are each used twice in section 2, occurring in both the first half and second half of section 2. As others have observed, section 2 has the same first line and same last line as section 2.
It is up to us to discern whether this method of interleaving the lines is arbitrary, employed only to give "a new throw of the dice," or whether it is more tightly used. That is, Retallack, knowing the method of her shuffling in advance, could have written her lines intending for them to read both in the order of section 1 and quite specifically in the order of section 2.
Some observations:
Keeping the first and last lines unchanged from section 1 must assuredly be intentional.
At the turn or midpoint, we get lines 9 and 10 in their section 1 order. This is the only instance of two lines remaining together from section 1 to section 2. It reads:
in your empty apartment
yes truth is a strange experimental fiction
They are followed by 18 and 11:
a message we can't make out
something for which the past has left you
Taken together, these four lines seem central to the theme(s) of the poem.
The repeated lines (10-18) carry, perhaps, extra weight to the reader's imagination:
yes truth is a strange experimental fiction
something for which the past has left you
unprepared like the figure who appears
in your dark bedroom and sneezes
before he puts his hand over your mouth
the fans are screaming
high above the lights
a blimp flashes
a message we can't make out
The enjambments created by the reordering, and the flows, contrasts or disruptions of sense created, might test the question of whether Retallack designed the lines of section 1 with the precise reordering of section 2 in mind.
As one step towards attending to these enjambments, I have tried giving punctuation (denoting sentence structure) to the lines:
This is a game where the players have forgotten, yes, truth is a strange experimental fiction. The rules, something for which the past has left you no use, telling sleeping dog lies--unprepared, like the figure who appears, as you move about the blazing green and white grid in your dark bedroom, and sneezes,d trying to look purposeful, occasionally hopping, before he puts his hand over your mouth to keep from burning up.a The fans are screaming. A Miss Pasta, high above the lights, has left another ominous message on the machine. A blimp flashes in your empty apartmentb (yes, truth is a strange experimental fiction) a message we can't make out, something for which the past has left you. We are dazed, unprepared, like the figure who appears from the glare of the lights--but in your dark bedroom--and sneezes,d "This is all beginning to sound highly metaphysical!" before he puts his hand over you,c mouth, "--and suspect!" The fans are screaming like a god dividing Light from Dark.e High above the lights (or the Light of Reason) a blimp flashes (or the Light at the End of the Tunnel) a message we can't make out: " 'You are the light of my life,' he whispers."
Some alternative readings occur to me.
One might as easily read at superscript a, To keep from burning up, the fans are screaming.
At superscript b, we might read a quotation rather than (in part) a parenthetical: A blimp flashes in your empty apartment: "Yes, truth is a strange experimental fiction, a message we can't make out, something for which the past has left you."
At superscript e, we could instead read, The fans are screaming. Like a god dividing Light from Dark, high above the lights (or the Light of Reason) a blimp flashes, "Or the Light at the End of the Tunnel"--a message we can't make out. "You are the light of my life," he whispers.
Certainly other readings are possible, as well.
It could be that reading section 2 aloud, focusing on different possible sentence structures, could be as or more useful.
Note that at superscript c I have retained the spelling you, as printed, rather than your, as in section 1. Assuming this is not a typo, it is the only change in a word from section 1 to section 2.
Two of the oddest (perhaps forced) readings are around "and sneezes." These are both marked superscript d. The constructions become even more comical, as it seems to me, than in section 1. In fact, I become tempted to read the whole of section 2 in a comic vein. But perhaps comic in the way Melville was in Moby Dick: comedy with irony, fellow-feeling, and seriousness behind it.
A final question: What is the hoped-for product of close reading and analysis--an interpretation (of meaning, sonority, method or more) or a performance--a reading (aloud) that makes the poem live for yourself and others?
-Paul
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