A poem from BLACK SEEDS ON A WHITE DISH by SHIRA DENTZ

JOHN BLOOMBERG-RISSMAN Reviews

“Getting Closer to the Big Bang” from black seeds on a white dish by Shira Dentz

(Shearsman Books, Exeter, UK, 2010)

Getting Closer to the Big Bang

Instead of music, light; instead of sections of instruments, sections

of time. A gamma ray perceptible for 40 seconds that originated

12 billion years ago. A man loses his job after 20 years, the

mailroom guy. And what about ads on the subway saying, You choose

your presidents – why not choose your cable company? The heads of

Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln in stone, like the Sphinx. Who,

exactly, had the vote back then?

Creak in an empty car like cracking knuckles, an ash falling on

the ground; swallows of a clock, the this is a test of the emergency

broadcasting system tone everpresent in the background; soda fizz

twinkling like stars, a man stepping on the floor above.

Pick particles from the sounds, watch phrases rise overhead. When my

brother died I was 8, and wanted to write a requiem to the universe,

even if it lasted only 40 seconds.

*

This is another poem on the death of a brother. But it differs from the Girmay, in that it’s not an ars vivendi / memento mori. It’s more meditative, more all over the place. It’s all over the house in a good way.  House is a mental typo I’m not going to change, because this is a poem of the oikos, as in ecology. Which doesn’t mean it’s a “nature” poem, just that, in its way, it tries to relate everything to everything.

I should note that I can’t tell whether this piece is lineated, or whether it’s a prose poem, due to the space it takes up on the page, and the way it may simply be set ragged right. I’m treating it as lineated. I should not that it doesn’t really matter much to me whether it’s lineated or not, which can be taken as heresy, if you like, and which heresy I’m open to discuss with anyone, any time.

“Instead of music, light; instead of sections of instruments, sections / of time.” Why contrast music and light when describing the beginning of the universe? Perhaps because there are two biblical creation stories (at the very least), one which begins “Let there be light”, and one which begins, “In the beginning was the word.” There are no silent words, so it’s easy to equate the word with music, especially in poetry, and this is a poem’s first line. Additionally, I learn from other poems in the book how important music is to the narrator / poet, how world-forming.

In any case, turn out it’s neither music nor light that’s important here, it’s time. And what happens “in” it. The next lines read: “A gamma ray perceptible for 40 seconds that originated / 12 billion years ago. A man loses his job after 20 years, the / mailroom guy.” That’s history, ain’t it, from the big bang til now? One damn thing after another, as they say.

The gamma ray is only perceptible for 40 seconds; that could be due to the objective nature of things. And the mailroom guy losing his job? We don’t know why, but we can connect it to some inevitability that began 12 billion years ago. But that sense of objectivity and inevitability is destroyed by the poem’s next few lines:

And what about ads on the subway saying, You choose

your presidents – why not choose your cable company? The heads of

Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln in stone, like the Sphinx. Who,

exactly, had the vote back then?

With the ads on the subway we are “in culture” now. Nothing that happens MUST happen: it happens because we’re being manipulated. Worse, we’re being lied to. We didn’t choose our presidents. I suspect in this case that we didn’t choose because we are a woman and didn’t have the vote. But even if we weren’t a woman, even if we had the vote, we didn’t choose. We know that. I’m reminded of Marx’s notion that we can be said to make history, but not under conditions of our own choosing. In this poem, even that seems optimistic.

Why is the president compared to the Sphinx? I can think of several reasons. The Sphinx has been around forever. It makes the pyramids seem young. Also, the Sphinx is the one who had (and has) the riddle, who asked/asked what it means to be human. Regardless of the answer, we didn’t choose it: “Who, exactly, had the vote back then?”

At this point, I begin to wonder whether this poem has broken down the nature/culture divide, and is noticing that we’ve never had much choice about anything. I will quote an old poem of mine called “The Adventure of Wednesday”, because I won’t find a shorter way of saying what I’m trying to say, of asking what I’m trying to ask:

Is a tree the seed’s adventure?
Am I the adventure of the first moment of time?
Big Bang Boy
High stepping
Howling
Time’s arrow sticking out of his ass?

The second stanza has us on different ground:

Creak in an empty car like cracking knuckles, an ash falling on

            the ground; swallows of a clock, the this is a test of the emergency

broadcasting system tone everpresent in the background; soda fizz

twinkling like stars, a man stepping on the floor above.

I am now assuming that, in stanza 1, I’ve been eavesdropping on the poet / narrator’s thoughts as she lies in bed at night, or sits in her chair, unsleeping, just drifting. Now, in this stanza, I am with the poet / narrator as she listens to the universe around her shape itself. I quickly become aware that though time is still an issue (it’s still one thing after another, at least syntactically), it’s sound that’s doing the creating, not light. We are in the myth of the creating word now. As far as affect goes, it seems we’re in “Visions of Johanna”-land:

Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we're all doin our best to deny it …

Which brings us to stanza 3:

            Pick particles from the sounds, watch phrases rise overhead. When my

brother died I was 8, and wanted to write a requiem to the universe,

even if it lasted only 40 seconds.

And we discover that the narrator / poet is not just drifting on her thoughts; she’s not just stranded, nor doing her best to deny it; well, not exactly. She’s composing. She’s composing a poem, a universe, based on somewhat different principles than the universe of the first stanza. This is a universe of the word. It’s not in opposition to the universe in which we live. It combines both creation myths, that of light, that of the word. She picks particles from the sounds (recall the gamma ray particles of the first stanza). Out of them, and out of the sounds of the night, she creates phrases. Why?

Because her brother died, and she “wanted to write a requiem to the universe / even if it lasted only 40 seconds”. It’s as if his death triggered her vocation. She lost something, and she wanted to make something. I think it’s quite powerful that she identifies her brother with the universe (after all, she’s 8). I think it’s quite powerful that she wants to write a requiem for everything. What is a requiem? It’s either a mass, or the music to accompany portions of that mass, for the repose of the dead. And I think it’s quite powerful that she’s well aware that her efforts will be transient, that poetry has a weak power, cannot guarantee anything forever. And yet, and yet … I’d be neither the first not last to argue: it’s all we’ve got.

*****

[Editor’s Note: This is one of 50 reviews written, mas o menos, in 50 days.  While each engagement can be read on a stand-alone basis, there’s a layer of watching the critic’s subjectivity arise in a fulsome manner if the reviews are read one after another.  So if you have insomnia and/or are curious about this layer, I suggest you read the 50 reviews right after each other and, to facilitate this type of reading, I will put at the bottom of each review a “NEXT” button that will take you to the next review.  To wit: NEXT.  And an Afterword on John's reading process is also available HERE!]

 
John Bloomberg-Rissman is somewhere towards middle of In the House of the Hangman, the third section of his maybe life project called Zeitgeist Spam (picture Hannah Hoch painting over the Sistine Chapel) The first two volumes have been published: No Sounds of My Own Making, and Flux, Clot & Froth. In addition to his Zeitgeist Spam project, he has edited or co-edited two anthologies, 1000 Views of 'Girl Singing' and The Chained Hay(na)ku Project, and is at work on a third, which he is editing with Jerome Rothenberg. He is also deep into two important collaborations, one with Richard Lopez, one with Anne Gorrick. By important he means "important to him". Anyone else want to collaborate? He blogs at Zeitgeist Spam.