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Post by Vijaya Maddali on Jan 5, 2023 21:44:11 GMT -5
Joan Retallack's poethics is driven by the recognition of complexity in our contemporary world. According to her, art has to necessarily engage with this complexity. This Z-shaped piece by comparing history to fractal geometry challenges the conventional notion of history. I am fascinated by how she supports the first three lines with the slanted lines, which contain references to ordinary life chores returning library books, and taking out the garbage those fractured words at the end of the lines give an impression of how real life is interrupted. Apart from the ordinary, the commonplace, there are references to archeological finds (these also change the existing narratives of history) and the mathematical work that again buffers our 'real' world. The lower three lines give this image of how the plans for an ordered, neat lawn are disrupted by the gophers! It is such a playful example of the randomness that disrupts our necessity for patterns and order. Those descriptive words to categorize men and women sounds ironic. So much to unravel and so fascinating.
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Post by afilreis on Jan 5, 2023 23:47:55 GMT -5
I can't locate this poetry and what to do now. Judy, here is a link to the poem:
- Al
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Post by Lidia Ostepeev on Jan 6, 2023 1:38:37 GMT -5
I remember taking a course on Aztec history with a well-known Australian historian - Inga Clendinnen. That course and reading Inga's subsequent writings convinced me that good history is working with fragments in a culturally sensitive and ethical manner. Nothing is too large or too small. Sometimes questions are all we have. Sometimes shapes speak to us. Sometimes cross-cultural and cross disciplinary comparisons shed light. Retallack seems to be saying that existing history is also fraught with bias (the male/female characterisations).
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Lynn Maria Minervini
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Post by Lynn Maria Minervini on Jan 6, 2023 2:32:40 GMT -5
What other things? cried Tortoise.
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Post by J G Luz on Jan 6, 2023 4:23:49 GMT -5
This poem reminds me of Not a Cage. The way the different fragments run through a range of registers, philosophical, religious, how to, self-help, popular science— as if they were pulled out of those overdue books. Is the text arranged to make a shape or is it suggesting the recursiveness of fractals in the very act of reading left to right and back again and then the line itself clipped and being pulled incrementally to the left. Minimalist gestures that accumulate to create a tableau more than the sum of its parts. The notion of history as fractal and a geometry of attention makes me think of how mathematical concepts become metaphors for highly complex sociological phenomena, not in the sense of modeling but as a way to sort through or consider such a chaotic, stochastic assemblage, a different kind of meta narrative.
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Post by J G Luz on Jan 6, 2023 4:33:55 GMT -5
These default avatars make us look like a bunch of supplicants on a mountain top!
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Post by J G Luz on Jan 6, 2023 4:49:49 GMT -5
Yes! It challenges a teleological notion of history. The lines visibly regressing. The arc of the moral universe bends toward chaos. Joan Retallack's poethics is driven by the recognition of complexity in our contemporary world. According to her, art has to necessarily engage with this complexity. This Z-shaped piece by comparing history to fractal geometry challenges the conventional notion of history. I am fascinated by how she supports the first three lines with the slanted lines, which contain references to ordinary life chores returning library books, and taking out the garbage those fractured words at the end of the lines give an impression of how real life is interrupted. Apart from the ordinary, the commonplace, there are references to archeological finds (these also change the existing narratives of history) and the mathematical work that again buffers our 'real' world. The lower three lines give this image of how the plans for an ordered, neat lawn are disrupted by the gophers! It is such a playful example of the randomness that disrupts our necessity for patterns and order. Those descriptive words to categorize men and women sounds ironic. I love the richness and the dense piece. So much to unravel and so fascinating.
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Lynn Maria Minervini
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Post by Lynn Maria Minervini on Jan 6, 2023 6:08:39 GMT -5
Thank you, Al for the link to the recordings. In Retallack's introduction to her reading of Western Civ Contd. at the Bowery Poetry Club she says "Western has always been global" She is including historical events and concepts from outside of what is usually considered "Western civ" and challenges us to go beyond the limitations of the accepted narratives and how we bring those to our interpretations of what comes from cultures outside of our own in both time and space. One example is the interpretation of male and female at the end of Western Civ Contd. 28. They are from the traditional descriptions of yin and yang, they are completely devoid of value judgement, there is no good and bad included in the pair, no better or worse. In fact they each contain the seed of the other and are constantly shifting and changing one into the other. Very hard for a culture that is based on oppositions and duality to even fathom that.
She says that as she's reading the poem "I'd like to invite you to have a sense of this as moving through the residue that is our present. History is the residue that we are negotiating right now." I love the sense of presentness of the remote historical events pulled together with the details and small dramas of every day. In another part of the poem: "as the world turns uniting commonplace and cosmic I blow my nose." It's all fascinating, intelligent and hypnotic with the marvelous addition of a wonderful sense of humor.
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Marti
ModPo student
Posts: 11
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Post by Marti on Jan 6, 2023 6:26:17 GMT -5
Comparing geometry to history in this visual poem, makes us think about how history can, and sometimes does, replicate itself. I find it interesting that she decided to write this poem in a shaped style, it's almost as if she's suggesting that history is shaped by the many changes within a society and by the current changes of our ecosystem due to the many changes in the various developments of that society.
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Post by Stacy Antoniadis on Jan 6, 2023 8:16:05 GMT -5
It is a Z. It is a profile of running. It is a wave.
My take on 28: Life/history/people go(es) round and round in circles (Joni Mitchell recall?) repeating itself. And while we all agree that the garbage must be taken out, we remain disappointed because the gophers ruined our lawns. A constant universal chatter. Men are light, warm, rare, etc; women are dark, dense, etc.. Really??? HA! What a tease!
I read this twice to make sure of my response :-)
Stacy Antoniadis
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Post by Prithvijeet Sinha on Jan 6, 2023 9:10:36 GMT -5
Reading, reading with intent, then with depth and moreso with feeling has a pointed trajectory of making us well aware of what poetry can produce in us as human beings. That act of reading and re-reading the Joan Retallack oeuvre produces a pronounced appreciation of her worldview which is always pivoted at the practical, the everyday, the universal and the complex.
Poem no. 28 is akin to a veritable Venn Diagram, a gyre of disciplines which bleed into each other for a reader but are observed individually to make us fathom the prism of reality it employs quite well. Here history and its circular, 'tumescent' course is not in service of nostalgia or to broaden the scope of the past. It is very simply about how the way we live, act and define our worldviews as also abide by them that constitutes history in the present continuous form.
Beginning with the mention of 'fractal geometry' and its complex unity of structure, this work is meant to stave off the complacency of how we interpret history or any concept in general. To me, through her idiosyncratic and original voice, she is lending that character to literature as well. True to her oeuvre, the status quo of a proper poetic palette, the form in which we interpret the written word are challenged. Whether it's history/anthropology ("Troy excavations reveal city described in Iliad at sixth level" ), mathematics ("every year another 10,000 decimal points are added to pi") or sociology and gender studies with a wry sense of its ridiculous positioning in a skewed, gendered society ("THAT WHICH IS light warm rare fire is male/ THAT WHICH IS dark cold heavy dense is female/ surely you jest/")
Using these random tidbits, intertextuality and an interdisciplinary ethos reigns supreme. There is an intermingling of form and content in a factual, almost empirical manner, sometimes packing social commentary but retaining a sense of irony, a dark cast of wry humour, rooted in facts, of course. So that earnestness and humour are the two sides which are not in opposition but rather offset each other in the organic placement here. Take the bit about the garden and 'gophers' here to attest to that livening pulse.
Academic earnestness is always liable to be countered by intruding thoughts about the real world. It's a natural human process. A ramble or stray diversion hence can take a 'fractal' form; a random stream of consciousness about multiplicities can take shape. That is the gist here. That try as we may, every bit of information is part of our minutae, every bit counts.
Thoughts of mundane diurnal tasks are overpowered by the intersections of history, social roles and even mathematics, positing an unconventional geometry of images that eschews sentiment or effusive poetic presentability. That's why this work 'works' to produce an unique effect on us.
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Post by jennifer on Jan 6, 2023 9:34:54 GMT -5
What a wonderful start to the year Al, thank you. I expected Retallack might be way beyond me. Instead I am entranced. The way it sits on the page, the immediate challenge of fractal geometry, the way it moves through what Retallack describes as ‘the residue of our present'. Two comments/questions from the beginning of the poem: Might the title perhaps be a riff on Thomas Noble's 1990s school textbook Western Civilization: The Continuing Experiment? And might fractal geometry be usefully be applied to tumescence of the male member? I like the other definition of tumescence I found too: pompous or pretentious (of literary style) which might so often be applied to history books.
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Post by Darcy on Jan 6, 2023 10:51:05 GMT -5
Joan Retallack's poethics is driven by the recognition of complexity in our contemporary world. According to her, art has to necessarily engage with this complexity. This Z-shaped piece by comparing history to fractal geometry challenges the conventional notion of history. I am fascinated by how she supports the first three lines with the slanted lines, which contain references to ordinary life chores returning library books, and taking out the garbage those fractured words at the end of the lines give an impression of how real life is interrupted. Apart from the ordinary, the commonplace, there are references to archeological finds (these also change the existing narratives of history) and the mathematical work that again buffers our 'real' world. The lower three lines give this image of how the plans for an ordered, neat lawn are disrupted by the gophers! It is such a playful example of the randomness that disrupts our necessity for patterns and order. Those descriptive words to categorize men and women sounds ironic. I love the richness and the dense piece. So much to unravel and so fascinating. I did not see the hare or revolver or 2 until it was pointed out - thank you. The word "fractal" brought to mind "fractured" and this is reflected in the line breaks in the middle of words. The ending of her poem, referencing male/female, angered me as she probably intended. Who determines what characteristics are male, female, or other? Who says geometry doesn't apply to history? I think Joan is questioning it all, and invites us to do so as well.
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Post by Siobhan on Jan 6, 2023 10:57:07 GMT -5
Slope. Like this poem. Seeing the definition of fractals above, which I did not know, I love the way she compares them to history; repetition but more than that. I kind of envelopment. I love the thought of 'bees seeing runways on flowers. I could not get either of the text links to work so I could only listen to her reading which I like very much. I'm computerless right now (new charger coming tomorrow) so I can only do this on my phone which is a little tedious. I need to listen to the poem some more to make further comment. I too liked the references to everyday reality of returning overdue books and taking out the trash, and how these are repetitive.
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Post by Sylvia Matas on Jan 6, 2023 11:28:03 GMT -5
It’s interesting that this poem say FIG.28 at the bottom. That suggests to me that what appears on the page is both a poem and also an image/ diagram. The middle section twists and bends, breaking words. It looks like a tornado between the ground and sky. What is described shifts in scale in both time and space. She describes the very small (bees and flowers) and the infinite (pi). The topics in this section include nature, the quotidian/personal, math, and archaeology. She places “important events” in history (like Troy) in the same space as an individual’s need to return their library books.
My impression is that she is critiquing the idea of Western Civilization which presents itself in universities as the central narrative of human history. This narrative centres white Europeans and does not tell the whole story. She is asking us to consider whose story does history tell? From what perspective? She seems to question also what is considered “important” enough to make the history books- the excavation of Troy or the return of an individual’s library books?
I wonder what others think about the capitalization of THAT WHICH IS. Those last 3 lines seem to be critiquing the oversimplification of history to reduce things to binaries male/female or other binaries like East/West which create and us vs them mentality. The capitalization seems to give those words some kind of authority that she is rolling her eyes to (surely you jest).
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