sw00431a-inthefar.beyond

Autobio            (galaxies and avant-garde poetry)


 Earlier I was in the Archive of Astronomy Picture of the Day
 where I looked at a photo of the Globular Cluster M13.  
 In the explanation/ mention was made of a yet more distant 
 galaxy, a presence which moved me to say to myself interiorly:  
 The existence and persistence of the universe obliterates my
 comprehension.
 -
 I then went to Reginald Shepherd's Blog where I encountered
 a piece on the nature of language.  It was posted on Friday,
 May 18, 2007.  It's entitled: "A Few Words About Language".
 
 Reginald Shepherd's Blog is here.  In one sentence he says: 
 ". . . language is not a discrete entity the way sound and 
 color and shape are: . . ."  I agree.  As T. S. Eliot wrote in
 Burnt Norton: 
 . . . .  Words . . . / . . . / . . . slip, slide, . . . / . . . / 
 Will not stay still. 
 -
 Mr. Shepherd indicates that the purview of the poetic
 avant-garde is that space where language is nearest to
 losing its identity as language, but he does not pursue
 this.  Through examples from my own compositions I
 am going to pursue this, but not tonight.  It is nearing
 11:30, and I have other concerns.
 -
 23MAY07:  I am not in general an avant-garde poet.
 I am, however, in my own way, a poet who believes
 as Stanley Kunitz did: that a poem comes to one as a
 kind of blessing.  Therefore, even though I often do 
 chose a form first (such as the sonnet), I tend to allow
 a poem to develop an interior form.  A poem is an it:
 a made thing.  This its construction, however, does not
 need to be predetermined in its form and content.  This
 its construction can issue from the sense and sound of
 its initial word or meta-word or non-word.  The levels
 of formality and informality to which a poem can rise
 (or descend, if you will) are endless.  Poem-making is
 not an exact science, however intensively a particular
 maker is craft-centered.  To begin with, each maker is
 a being who is constantly changing and being changed
 by da-dot-da-dot, da-dot-da-dot, da-dot-da-dot, rigida,
 rigida, ü ee ee ü ah ah ah.  And, in the riddledon-
 going, a foreign object in one's eye can suddenly flip
 "everything".  So, the so-called content of an object
 made with words always engenders an interior form,
 a form which can rigidly mimic an exterior form/ or
 which can so aggressively counter an exterior form it
 replaces that form with the form inherent in itself, or
 exist in some degree between/ wherein it serves as a
 tone master.
 -
 The following are varyingly avant-garde compositions of mine: 
 -
 See 2007/02/25/sw00237s for "Day Five     blue"    from my Birthday Ribbons set
 -
 See 2007/02/13/sw00207tdp for "As the Desk Lamp Flickers"
 -
 See 2007/05/01/sw00357ut for "E v e n i n g"
 -
 See 2007/04/25/sw00348v for "U"
 -
 See 2007/05/10/sw00385jt for "Incantation" (see near bottom of entry)
 -



Brian A. J. Salchert