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Post by kymminbarcelona on Jan 8, 2023 9:27:18 GMT -5
In “None Too Soon,” what sort of concept of memory can be discerned from this: “Located in memories without precedent, fine stock of syllabus not yet squandered in pliant affirmation”? And this: “Hard to forget what’s never been known for sure.” Both phrases assume memory to be transient rather than factual, always new and able to be squandered. Hard to forget because memory is constantly shifting in its narrative and often disputed in other narrations, so can never be “archived” as fact.
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Post by afilreis on Jan 8, 2023 9:32:56 GMT -5
In “None Too Soon,” what sort of concept of memory can be discerned from this: “Located in memories without precedent, fine stock of syllabus not yet squandered in pliant affirmation”? And this: “Hard to forget what’s never been known for sure.” Both phrases assume memory to be transient rather than factual, always new and able to be squandered. Hard to forget because memory is constantly shifting in its narrative and often disputed in other narrations, so can never be “archived” as fact.
Thanks for this, Kymm! I agree with your sense of JR's sense of memory. I wonder if there is a definition of (or at least guide for discerning) art in here somewhere. It has to do with the way memory is typically/mostly not fact-based or cannot retrieved the way a perfect archive provides. That "constantly shifting" element is the art of memory, or the art in memory.
Does this make sense?
—Al
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Post by mirandaj on Jan 8, 2023 9:57:03 GMT -5
I love how reading through everyone's thoughts provokes so many more of my own. The true joy of community poetry reading!
Thanks to Paulk for the transcription and close comparison of the two versions of the poem - that was very interesting and useful.
I agree with those who call the poem 'kind,' and I loved Marciacamino's interpretation of the poem as addressing writers. It's funny because in my first reading I somehow missed the sentence 'Don't be scared,' but in subsequent readings it stands out to me as crucial. I can really feel the poet reassuring me with those words!
I'm also interested in the 'yearning minds.' When combined with the comments about blunders, and especially when I consider the spoken version, I want to interpret that line as expressing that one's thoughts/worries about previous blunders, squandered syllables, destroy one's self-confidence and joy - the 'musculature of a smile.' The more I think about it, the more straightforward that version reads to me. Essentially - "it's ok to have messed up, to have wasted your words, no one is judging you - but it's hard to remember that when your inner voice keeps criticising you. It helps to get out of yourself and imagine the wonder of the rest of existence."
But! The written version complicates things hugely, and reveals lines of tension I might not have otherwise considered. For example, the yearning minds seem to be interpreted by many here as similar to the dreamers - yearning minds are creative and wonderful, not self-critical and condemning. Conversely, the most determined smile is more akin to pliant affirmation - maybe the yearners should be deforming it!
And the switch from focusing on the syllables which have been squandered to the ones which haven't is fascinating. Again, this adds to the reassuring tone of the poem - there are always more syllables there, no matter how many you inadvertently squander. Don't be scared to use them.
Cat - as ever I appreciate your reminder to consider the connotations of words! I definitely think that this last sentence hints at a kind of animism, a connection to everything (as encompassed by 'animal, mineral, vegetable'). But I don't see it as a 'sometimes' thing, or a thought experiment in the idle amuesment sense. Rather I see it as an almost desperate 'yearning' for connection, for dreams, for existence in a grounded and yet almost spiritual sense. Indigenous writers that I have come across emphasise that feeling oneself as a part of nature, of the world, rather than separate from, dominating it, is not only crucial to their philosophies but for our very species' survival. It's not something that is sacred and not to be shared, it is something we should all be listening to. For me this last sentence has elements of those ideas.
A couple of other quick thoughts - every time I read 'smile' my brain inserts 'simile.' I love the idea of 'the most determined simile' being deformed by yearning minds! Also -'currently aware' brings to mind Stein's 'what is the current?' and gives awareness a much more active and mobile overtone.
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Post by mirandaj on Jan 8, 2023 10:08:38 GMT -5
Both phrases assume memory to be transient rather than factual, always new and able to be squandered. Hard to forget because memory is constantly shifting in its narrative and often disputed in other narrations, so can never be “archived” as fact.
Thanks for this, Kymm! I agree with your sense of JR's sense of memory. I wonder if there is a definition of (or at least guide for discerning) art in here somewhere. It has to do with the way memory is typically/mostly not fact-based or cannot retrieved the way a perfect archive provides. That "constantly shifting" element is the art of memory, or the art in memory.
Does this make sense?
—Al
I love this interpretation, Kymm and Al! 'memories without precedent,' ie memories that are not simple recordings of the past, but a creative interpretation and real-isation of them. Memory is a creative act. That is where our infinite 'stock of syllables' are born from. They are hard to forget, they stay with you the way a poem stays with you, because they are not 'known for sure,' they are made. Although is there also a reference to the flip side of the poem, the afraid side, in the placing of that second sentence? Those 'more non-existent' gods, the ones who track and remember your every blunder, are hard to forget about, exactly because you can never quite be sure whether they exist or not - you can't rule them out entirely. To me the poem more and more is becoming like a hologram, shifting between two (or more!) ways of thinking about writing/art, a hopeful reassuring approach and its converse, a critical pessimistic side. I think the title reflects this - 'none too soon' taken literally could mean a trust that everything will come in its own time, but idiomatically it is more like disaster narrowly averted.
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Post by Ray Schrempf on Jan 8, 2023 13:59:34 GMT -5
From the recorded version to the current version Joan Retallack changes
“all the animals are sometimes dreaming” to “all of us / - animal, vegetable, mineral - are sometimes dreaming”.
[Thank you paulk]
I am not confident that I understand the significance of why an idiomatic expression like “animal, vegetable [or] mineral” is used here - let alone “none too soon”. Maybe this part of why “it’s hard to forget what has never been known for sure”? Are they something like “precedents” that we have never understood? It’s impossible not to take notice of, or to be reminded of, how these idiomatic phrases have been used when they appear in the poem. It’s hard to get away from the fact that , especially in the case of an idiomatic expression, what they mean is partly how they have been used in the past. I can’t help feeling that these are important markers that need to be understood.
Though I am by no means confident, I continue to think this poem is generally about how do you figure things out and how should you express what you know or think you may know - how does the world work and how can it be described. And how do you describe it if you are not sure what it is. Lou Nelson got at this in a lovely way when she said, “How do we construct something that cannot be grasped?”
As others have pointed out, it must also be about not being afraid to write in unconventional ways. But, at the same time, I think it is also about not being afraid to conjure up the next idea of order - or the next idea of how the world works. In this light I am thinking that “animal, vegetable, mineral” is used as an example of an idea of order or of a system of understanding for explaining the world that has been superseded. In the 18th century Carolus Linnaeus established the next world system in Systema Naturae which ordered all things into three kingdoms - animal, vegetable and mineral. It has been discredited or updated but it actually displaced the Great Chain of Being which can be traced in various forms through the Renaissance and right on back to Plato.
Now, of course, Animal Vegetable or Mineral is a parlour game. It has been superseded by the next thought experiment. It’s the one the poet is “currently aware” of. There is no need to be afraid of Plato and Carolus Linnaeus now. They are “the more nonexistent of the gods”. The “only worthwhile thought experiment” she is aware of now is to “bracket” existence in a logical space-time construct. This is evocative of the current conception of existence as a relativistic quantum mechanical structure.
I’m not sure why it is “sometimes” dreaming. We go from “too soon” to “space-time” to “sometime”. Maybe the next thought experiment comes “none too soon” - just in time to save us from the last thought experiment? Just like the next new mode of poetry comes just in time to save us from the last one. It’s just something that happens in time. Every thought experiment ends up being just another parlour game and really nothing to be afraid of. So don’t be afraid to conjure up a different way to be a poet or to see the world.
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adef
ModPo student
Posts: 20
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Post by adef on Jan 8, 2023 14:22:55 GMT -5
In “None Too Soon,” what sort of concept of memory can be discerned from this: “Located in memories without precedent, fine stock of syllabus not yet squandered in pliant affirmation”? And this: “Hard to forget what’s never been known for sure.” Both phrases assume memory to be transient rather than factual, always new and able to be squandered. Hard to forget because memory is constantly shifting in its narrative and often disputed in other narrations, so can never be “archived” as fact. I agree that memories are 'transient rather than factual, always new...' - memories transmute by new associations, each association being personally experienced and hence shifting its narrative. So I have trouble with the idea of 'Squandering' a memory. Is JR not referring to the language being squandered rather than the memory? Suandered by a socially determined conformity.
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Post by vijaya on Jan 8, 2023 15:52:59 GMT -5
Located in memories without precedent, fine stock of syllables not yet squandered in pliant affirmation. I see this 'location' as a repository of memories but also of the human imagination. Our memory and imagination are linked so closely together that we dream and have visions. It is the phrase 'without precedent' that is tricky. What memories are those that are without precedent? And yet the next phrase about a fine stock of syllables seems comprehensible. Is she talking about using language and words in fresh ways? We do squander language in pliant affirmation of so many different purposes- the official use of language, the way words are hollowed out of all meaning by repetition, words used for violent ends or to oppress and control whole populations and countries. I am so taken with: Hard to forget what's never been known for sure' Seems very like the commonplace phrase, ' You do not know what you do not know" But how far back can we travel with the memory? I have vague memories of when I was 4- a couple of incidents. But even those are blurred and not well-defined. So a large portion of our memory is lost to us anyway. I will come back to this. I love this poem.
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Post by kymminbarcelona on Jan 8, 2023 16:28:57 GMT -5
Both phrases assume memory to be transient rather than factual, always new and able to be squandered. Hard to forget because memory is constantly shifting in its narrative and often disputed in other narrations, so can never be “archived” as fact.
Thanks for this, Kymm! I agree with your sense of JR's sense of memory. I wonder if there is a definition of (or at least guide for discerning) art in here somewhere. It has to do with the way memory is typically/mostly not fact-based or cannot retrieved the way a perfect archive provides. That "constantly shifting" element is the art of memory, or the art in memory.
Does this make sense?
—Al
It absolutely makes sense. Imo, art is autobiographical just for this reason. How can we possibly separate art from memory? Every word I write (or type) depends on my remembering the alphabet, is conditioned by the way I remember the words I've read. Also, off topic but close to my heart, this is why machine translation (a perfect archive) will never take my job away. Bwahaha.
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Post by Kathy Florence on Jan 8, 2023 18:53:40 GMT -5
None Too Soon starts broad and then narrows to one idea—dreaming. Because I sometimes understand things better when I go from narrow to broad, I flipped the poem and paraphrased each sentence, starting from the last. I got a wonderful message of hope and encouragement.
Here is one potential paraphrase—last sentence first—
go ahead and dream dreaming is the most worthwhile thing you can do dreams change the rigid pay attention to your dreams when they recur don’t be afraid to act on your dreams, no one is noticing your mistakes where are your dreams? Look inside the thoughts you haven’t had before, the thoughts made with unused pieces of yourself dreams may feel like they cannot be chased, but they can, it is not too soon
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Post by vijaya on Jan 8, 2023 20:35:00 GMT -5
What seems to be the case here is that language itself - arranged in a certain way - can radiate meaning/s - and that the mind can leap from one word to another - and create rich worlds of inquiry, from images, thoughts, feelings etc. The words themselves aren't rich or doing very much at all. But the human mind in action, that's another story. Give it a puzzle, any puzzle - poetry and philosophy can both be described as puzzles, certainly puzzling - give it just a taste of something to puzzle over, and it's like a dog with a bone. Laura, loved what you write about language and Joan Retallack has this amazing ability to 'arrange language' in surprising ways.
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leahs
ModPo student
Posts: 11
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Post by leahs on Jan 8, 2023 21:51:43 GMT -5
I enjoyed the differences between the audio version of this poem and the written version of this poem. It reminded me, helpfully, that things can change and can be in flux. There may be no one best or final version of a poem. Or as Retallack wrote here, "The more nonexistent of the gods are the only ones counting your blunders."
I found this poem reassuring as someone who tries and often fails to write poetry. Also reassuring to read/hear as someone who tends to a depressed or cynical view of life at times. Retallack's phrase "pliant affirmation" resonated with me in this kind of surly-mode way. Especially when paired with "not yet squandered in pliant affirmation." This suggests to me in part a kind of challenge - it's not necessary to affirm the poetic forms that are popular, or to affirm the poetic forms of the past, in one's own reading and writing all the time. Perhaps as well this is why Retallack uses more of a prose-poem form here or suggests the "thought experiment" -- we can experiment with what poems can be, with what accurate views of reality or art can be.
I also enjoy what I experience as the tension or doubling here between articulating thoughts that unbend a smile while also wishing for all animals to be able to occasionally "dream." Here, "dreaming" is made distinct from "happiness" -- whereas in colloquial or pop-culture idioms they are often made one and the same, cf. "Friend, you're dreaming!" "They're dreamy," "What a dreamboat," "Life would be a dream..." -- all of these saying connote dreaming as a fantastical happiness or pleasure or beauty.
Here, however, Retallack poetically argues that dreaming is a space free of a specific mood or tone - it is a place with freedom to imagine and/or think and/or experiment in freer ways. Whether those ways bring happiness/smiles or not.
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adef
ModPo student
Posts: 20
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Post by adef on Jan 9, 2023 4:12:19 GMT -5
'What sort of "thought experiment" is she proposing?'
Perhaps one of which we are not aware. So when Lao Tzu dreamed of a butterfly he was unsure whether the butterfly might be dreaming him. But is uncertainty to which there is no resolution the same as being unaware?
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Post by cat mccredie on Jan 9, 2023 5:09:28 GMT -5
I love how reading through everyone's thoughts provokes so many more of my own. The true joy of community poetry reading! Thanks to Paulk for the transcription and close comparison of the two versions of the poem - that was very interesting and useful. I agree with those who call the poem 'kind,' and I loved Marciacamino's interpretation of the poem as addressing writers. It's funny because in my first reading I somehow missed the sentence 'Don't be scared,' but in subsequent readings it stands out to me as crucial. I can really feel the poet reassuring me with those words! I'm also interested in the 'yearning minds.' When combined with the comments about blunders, and especially when I consider the spoken version, I want to interpret that line as expressing that one's thoughts/worries about previous blunders, squandered syllables, destroy one's self-confidence and joy - the 'musculature of a smile.' The more I think about it, the more straightforward that version reads to me. Essentially - "it's ok to have messed up, to have wasted your words, no one is judging you - but it's hard to remember that when your inner voice keeps criticising you. It helps to get out of yourself and imagine the wonder of the rest of existence." But! The written version complicates things hugely, and reveals lines of tension I might not have otherwise considered. For example, the yearning minds seem to be interpreted by many here as similar to the dreamers - yearning minds are creative and wonderful, not self-critical and condemning. Conversely, the most determined smile is more akin to pliant affirmation - maybe the yearners should be deforming it! And the switch from focusing on the syllables which have been squandered to the ones which haven't is fascinating. Again, this adds to the reassuring tone of the poem - there are always more syllables there, no matter how many you inadvertently squander. Don't be scared to use them. Cat - as ever I appreciate your reminder to consider the connotations of words! I definitely think that this last sentence hints at a kind of animism, a connection to everything (as encompassed by 'animal, mineral, vegetable'). But I don't see it as a 'sometimes' thing, or a thought experiment in the idle amuesment sense. Rather I see it as an almost desperate 'yearning' for connection, for dreams, for existence in a grounded and yet almost spiritual sense. Indigenous writers that I have come across emphasise that feeling oneself as a part of nature, of the world, rather than separate from, dominating it, is not only crucial to their philosophies but for our very species' survival. It's not something that is sacred and not to be shared, it is something we should all be listening to. For me this last sentence has elements of those ideas. A couple of other quick thoughts - every time I read 'smile' my brain inserts 'simile.' I love the idea of 'the most determined simile' being deformed by yearning minds! Also -'currently aware' brings to mind Stein's 'what is the current?' and gives awareness a much more active and mobile overtone. Thanks, Miranda. Many people, including me, would agree we need to be attending more to our connection to the world in ways that are more aligned to Indigenous worldviews -- but Retallack is not crediting Indigenous worldviews with anything and my unease is around the erasure / appropriation aspect of appearing to reference / appropriate people's beliefs (as a 'thought experiment'? How would Christians feel if a poet proposed the notion of a God with a son who died for all our sins on a cross as 'the only worthwhile thought experiment I'm currently aware of'?) without giving the people credit or recognition. Yes, this is still not sitting well with me.
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Post by Barbara Nilsen on Jan 9, 2023 11:10:09 GMT -5
I appreciate the guiding questions that help me focus on certain aspects of JR's writing: In “None Too Soon,” what sort of concept of memory can be discerned from this: “Located in memories without precedent, fine stock of syllabus not yet squandered in pliant affirmation”? And this: “Hard to forget what’s never been known for sure.”
For me, 'None Too Soon' reads like a warning that points to a solution. Perhaps syllables that are not squandered in pliant affirmations can only be located in memories without precedent--memories that are not grounded in prior precedents or assumptions taken for granted. Precedents become blindly followed laws. Assumptions taken for granted continue to influence even when they are deeply buried--forgotten they become unconscious biases. It's much more difficult to forget what we actively question. Perhaps JR is posing the possibility that we wake up when we allow ourselves to dream, not alone, but with all that is. There are infinite perspectives to draw upon in the imagination; she is interested in a thought project that includes some times when we are able to share dreamtime with 'animal, vegetable, mineral' in a logical space-time bracket where we can access the richness of a multitude of perspectives that include human perspectives but are not limited by them.
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Post by Ray Schrempf on Jan 9, 2023 11:15:44 GMT -5
Vijaya [quote author="@v I am so taken with: Hard to forget what's never been known for sure' Seems very like the commonplace phrase, ' You do not know what you do not know"
I like the way you have revealed another commonplace phrase repurposed in this poem. This will go with the title and “animal, vegetable, or mineral”. Are there others? These seem to be “precedents” newly “conjured” or remembered.
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