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Post by Liliana Lopez on Jan 6, 2023 21:16:51 GMT -5
It's my first reading of this poem and poet so I'll just dip my toes in...
Something I noticed is that when she talks about history, it's not in the modern sense but rather in the esoteric sense. Time on other planes is not linear and tends to come unto itself much like fractals do - in this plane, the gophers in your garden are equally relevant to biblical events and scientific advancement.
The opening and closing, "why not?" & "Surely you jest" makes me think that either she's not buying it or that there is a dialogue of sorts with someone who doesn't.
But I don't know.
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Post by Kathy Florence on Jan 6, 2023 22:44:03 GMT -5
My question though is: If the poem is meant to be read aloud by a speaker and listened to an audience - why does it matter how the poem is laid out on the page? Is the Z form, the line splits etc simply indications (like stage instructions) to the speaker? If so, I'm afraid I could not detect any 'Z'ness in the way that Joan Retallack read out the poem. And if the layout on the page is important, then is listening to a reading of the poem, where that page layout is at least to some extent distanced or obscured, then a reduced form of the poem? Is reading the poem directly off the page, or listening to the poem via a human speaker thus two different ways of instantiating the same poetic meaning? Dave, I've thought about this question a lot, as I have been obsessing over doing line breaks "right" for decades. The only conclusion that I have come to is that reading and listening lead to different poetic understandings that stand on their own or combine to form a richer, layered understanding. Much like the ModPo close reading videos, the TAs put forward thoughts, layering one thought on top of another, expanding the meaning without ever feeling the need to declare one as the final meaning. It would have been interesting if Joan, after reading through the enjambed line breaks, had read the poem a second time, speaking the 'Z'ness on the page.
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Post by Rahana K Ismail on Jan 6, 2023 22:49:50 GMT -5
My first instinct is to zoom in, as we are to in fractals, to 'replicating breaks'. Going by the claim of the first line, 'breaks' repeat in fractals and history. So the subsequent white space below urges me to think along the lines of erasure and warps in history, what gets undocumented and silenced, what gets sheared and torn out. Zooming further, the word 'replication' brings to mind DNA replication and the proximity of the word 'break' draws out the picture of a replication fork with the leading strand of DNA getting copied uninterrupted while the lagging strand lurches, pausing continually resulting in temporal lapses or 'breaks' as well as physical breaks in the chain. So in the end DNA Ligase joins together the resultant Okazaki fragments to form a continuous strand of genetic material. Now I am trying to marry together the idea of 'replication' and 'breaks' as in it's the breaks (as in lack or pauses or emptiness) that are getting multiplied and not materiality as such; so we might be looking at what's not written, the white space. The gopher mounds towards the end bring back the same idea of this obliteration; what we end up with is a patch where the 'only things coming up are those dirt mounds'.
The statistical concept of change of scale is illustrated in the list she enumerates. It's interesting that the mundane: returning library books, taking out the trash, and garden work when repeated endlessly as fractals do makes Troy, Illiad and Pi (do they/don't they?). Perhaps the key is to 'keep trying' though 'it's hard not to feel demoralized'.
How history creates crude binaries of men/women (and other distinctions that are based on unimaginably rudimentary ideas)--how does that relate to fractals in history? Sure it's happening in different sociological scales, but I am wondering if there is more to this connection. Also, why is it a shape poem, why 'Z' (the last letter of the alphabet), why the 'hare/rabbit'?
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Post by Laura De Bernardi on Jan 6, 2023 23:11:46 GMT -5
I'm wondering whether it's useful to see the first question as an opening philosophical gambit in a modernist Socratic dialogue: "...we're all in this together, right?" It invites an answer to this question: 'We're all in this together, right or wrong?" How you answer that will inform how you perceive the 'continuation of Western Civilisation' ie "Western Civ cont'd". The Hare, disappearing in a cloud of dust, is in it for himself. The Tortoise presumes otherwise. Bo-Peep lost her sheep - didn't know where to find them - but they all came back anyway. I think the nursery rhyme is important in this context, as it points to another aspect of the gambit. Are you an optimist or a pessimist? That is, will a mistake, an oversight, turn out well or will it turn out badly? Retallack seems to be suggesting that how you perceive human nature - as selfish or altruist - optimist or pessimist - are fundamental perceptual overlays which will underpin how you answer any and all questions about the future of Western Civilisation.
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Post by Jim Lynch on Jan 6, 2023 23:53:00 GMT -5
The poem asks “Does fractal geometry really apply to history?” But exactly what history is the poem speaking of? The history of what, or who, and when? The history of a day, the history of money, the history of love, the history of the universe? The history of your body, the history of your fingernail, the history of your idea of history? The history of the past, the history of the now, the history of the future? The history of meiosis (“replicating breaks”) and pollination? I smell breeding in the hare and a tortoise in the dirt mound.
Geometries of attention – the angles of your hair standing up straight at attention, erect and absorbing, an everlasting erotic kiss in which two sets of lips approach each other in exploration and experiment, reaching halfway there, and then halfway again, and yet halfway again, getting closer but never reaching the coastline of conclusion, never the sun actually setting but the foreplay of reflection and color in the merging boundaries of light, air, heat and water. Generating without generation. The eternally pregnant idea.
Geometries of attention – to be able to observe in many different ways at once, to be able to see both figure AND ground at the same time, to hold conflicting ideas together in paradox and overcome cognitive dissonance. Or the attempt. To essay. To see the words within the letters.
The history of everyday life – the “books overdue at library”, the “garbage [that] needs to go out” - THAT WHICH overflows, transgresses boundaries, merging roughly with the turbulent world, the infinity of infinity, how many male-written sutras of REALITY are there, how many real realities, aren't flowers romantic to a bee, how to know the unlike without analogy, are there mounds of dirt rising or is the earth sinking, what's the difference between dawn and dusk and is one male and the other female, at seventh level they found an amusement park admissions gate shaped like a mouse – no joke and no war.
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Post by Jim Lynch on Jan 7, 2023 1:15:40 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 Jim Lynch on Jan 7, 2023 1:19:23 GMT -5
Reply to Prithvijeet Sinha:
Enjoyed your comparison to a Venn Diagram and “history in the present continuous form. Have been watching a Netflix German TV series “Dark” in which they use a Venn Diagram to show the merging of past, present and future – where they all coexist – I suppose in an eternity or a continuous present where past and future as separate is illusion, that it's all connected, like the snake biting it's tail. THAT WHICH IS is perhaps everything, and everything is NOW? And of which you say, “every bit counts.” Thanks!
(Wasn't sure how to quote within post)
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Post by jennifer on Jan 7, 2023 4:59:43 GMT -5
Loking at the poem again this morning I am thinking about the forward slashes and the underlined ands. Perhaps this is one of Retallack's poems using found text, with the slashes between each piece of text and the underlined ands being additions of her own. This analysis make sense while reading the text, which has been put together so skillfully. I love the combination of the humour of the juxtapositions of text, the shape of the poem (might the enjambments be primarily visual, to make the shape work, which would account for her not reading with them?) and the philosophical questions the poem raises. This strikes me as a perfect example of form reflecting content and content reflecting form.
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Post by Kat on Jan 7, 2023 5:11:24 GMT -5
Thanks for sharing all of your thought-provoking and intelligent insights. I am rereading it to look for repeating patterns and rhymes. Also, how is the poem a procedural elegy?
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Post by cat mccredie on Jan 7, 2023 6:22:42 GMT -5
I'm intimidated by this poem and/or by this forum but my response so far is:
'hard not to feel demoralized but try' I'm genuinely taking as poet encouraging the reader to persevere with this poem.
I had an overdue library book but was procrastinating about returning it so came here instead to read the poem. What are the chances? Is this why I feel an uncanniness about this poem? Anyway, it made me focus on the library book line. People who live orderly lives don't have overdue library books. There's a certain shame associated with returning a book late to the library. The speaker of the poem seems like a disruptor, maybe like someone undermining the values of Western Civ, which include a love of orderliness, domestication. This poem is not orderly, it doesn't abide by any discernible rules, it's chaotic.
THAT WHICH IS felt to me like a pun, THAT WITCH IS (someone with overdue library books and a messy garden who writes chaotic poetry). Especially so close to 'fire is male'.
Then that FIG brought to mind the fig leaf.
That's all I've got.
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Post by dianeld on Jan 7, 2023 6:47:19 GMT -5
My first thought is to wonder whether there is a comparison to be made between the nature of fractal geometry and metadata? They are both on a microscopic level of investigations into history but particularly in looking at poems. The disjointed nature of #28 and it's seemingly unrelated lines and shape are, to me, a good example of how fractal geometry might look if spoken or drawn. Many historical events have been shown to be at the very least unreliable when investigated at even relatively shallow levels so if put under scrutiny as a fractal geometric query then who knows what would we would be faced with - but my only worry down this particular rabbit hole is how impartiality would be maintained.
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Lou N
Community TA
Posts: 38
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Post by Lou N on Jan 7, 2023 8:45:16 GMT -5
test to see if there is any difference between "Post Quick Reply" and "Reply"
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Lou N
Community TA
Posts: 38
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Post by Lou N on Jan 7, 2023 8:48:19 GMT -5
Test result: Post Quick Reply simply posts your reply immediately, without taking you to the screen where you can add "effects" (bold, italic, colours, etc.) to dazzle up your reply.
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Will B
ModPo student
Posts: 19
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Post by Will B on Jan 7, 2023 9:39:07 GMT -5
My reaction to the poem, at least on the first couple of listenings is I think similar to Vijaya. I get the sense the poem is questioning the certainty that we often assume exists in our world, and is questioning the sense of comfortableness that comes with the (mistaken) assumption that the world is a stable, secure, fixed environment that we can live our lives in. As the poem points out though, the closer you look, the more you find that is similar but new. The harder you look at PI the more digits you find. The closer you look at the fractal, the more sub-fractals you find. The world is neither stable nor unchanging. My question though is: If the poem is meant to be read aloud by a speaker and listened to an audience - why does it matter how the poem is laid out on the page? Is the Z form, the line splits etc simply indications (like stage instructions) to the speaker? If so, I'm afraid I could not detect any 'Z'ness in the way that Joan Retallack read out the poem. And if the layout on the page is important, then is listening to a reading of the poem, where that page layout is at least to some extent distanced or obscured, then a reduced form of the poem? Is reading the poem directly off the page, or listening to the poem via a human speaker thus two different ways of instantiating the same poetic meaning? I think this is a great question, Dave. When Retallack reads the poem, there is virtually no pause between lines, so I also wonder whether the read-aloud poem and the seen-visually poem are different poems altogether. If we never "saw" the poem, we might interpret it quite differently. Thanks for making me think about this. [For an interesting contrast, listen to Gwendolynn Brooks read her own "We Real Cool" here: www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/28112/we-real-cool]
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Will B
ModPo student
Posts: 19
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Post by Will B on Jan 7, 2023 9:44:47 GMT -5
My first thought is to wonder whether there is a comparison to be made between the nature of fractal geometry and metadata? They are both on a microscopic level of investigations into history but particularly in looking at poems. The disjointed nature of #28 and it's seemingly unrelated lines and shape are, to me, a good example of how fractal geometry might look if spoken or drawn. Many historical events have been shown to be at the very least unreliable when investigated at even relatively shallow levels so if put under scrutiny as a fractal geometric query then who knows what would we would be faced with - but my only worry down this particular rabbit hole is how impartiality would be maintained. I especially like this. Thanks.
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