Thursday, May 10, 2012

A poem from THE MYSTERY OF THE HIDDEN DRIVEWAY by JENNIFER L KNOX

JOHN BLOOMBERG-RISSMAN Reviews

“The Earth Is Flat and So’s My Ass” from The Mystery of the Hidden Driveway by Jennifer L Knox
(Bloof Books, NJ, 2010)


The Earth Is Flat and So’s My Ass


These days, not so much regret. Brute will’s broke
as a petting zoo pony. Funny how it keeps us entranced
by difficult piffle that passed as the whole enchilada.
Bruises always fresh as hothouse violets – they dared
not darken to the ochre that signaled surrender and
whatever came next. We called it not “Death” – more
like “Man Gnaws Off Limb in Tractor Accident.”
[Gavel pounds] But gentlemen, we believe something
has [big time] shifted, that you won’t catch us again
marching stiff and shatterable as stale candy canes
into a taco stand to demand our just potato kugel.
We accept all [llllllll] the limitations. We understand
the work will be [deep sigh] arduous – the toads to be
swallowed [burp], numerous, and [hoo!] it’s gonna get
ugly [er].

*

This reading is double. First, I read the poem, and wrote the following (what you will find between the double asterisks. Then I had the rest of my day. Then I went to sleep. Then the poem got its second reading, because the moment I woke up I got this poem, and all my confusions fell away. How did this happen? I wish I knew. I settle for calling it magic.

This second reading will follow the second set of double asterisks.

**

How could I not want to read a poem with such a great title? I want to think about that title. “The Earth Is Flat”: I parse that as a comment on a past; “And So’s My Ass”: I parse that as a comment on the present, and that the author’s not “of a certain age” as they say. So somehow, past and present are both still present. Or something like that. And it’s funny, too, like a joke I don’t have to quite get to get.

“These days, not so much regret. Brute will’s broke / as a petting zoo pony.” Hmm. The only cure for regret is a broken will, eh? But it’s not just a broken will, it’s a “brute will.” So maybe it’s a good thing We don’t know yet, except that the author / narrator compares the broken will to a petting zoo pony, which is not usually seen as an image of empowerment, to put it mildly, but rather it’s opposite. So, I think there’s a little ambivalence about the lessening regret.

Which fits well with the flat ass thing. Women I know, even those with image problems, seem to see their flattening asses as a sign of aging, which doesn’t please much, especially in this culture of “forever young.” Though this is of course, a massive overstatement. I also know many women who have accepted quite happily their changing bodies, and social statuses; one, to whom I am particularly close, delights in calling herself a crone.

But, of course, I don’t know whether the narrator of this poem is a woman. I just assume it because of the flat ass, which isn’t something guys seem to mention, tho there’s nothing bonier than an old man’s ass.

“Funny how it keeps us entranced / by difficult piffle that passed as the whole enchilada.” To what does the “it” refer? To the brute will, I think, though it could also refer to regret. The two do seem tied together; as the intensity of one diminishes, so does the intensity of the other. At this point I am beginning to think that the author / narrator’s feelings are mixed: I may be broken like a petting zoo pony, but at least I don’t confuse the difficult piffle with anything seriously serious anymore.  More than just mixed feelings are going on her. By leading off with the “Funny how …” I sense that the author narrator sees the self that was so easily entranced almost as another now, an intimate other, perhaps, dearly remembered, perhaps, but no less an other former self.

“Bruises always fresh as hothouse violets – they dared / not darken to the ochre that signaled surrender and / whatever came next.” These lines are complex, and I’m not sure that I can untangle them; but the make me ask questions: was the author narrator abused? Are the bruises metaphorical? I’m guessing metaphorical, since “they dared / not darken to the ochre that signaled surrender and / whatever came next” – which is what I’d imagine an abuser to want, in fact. But if metaphorical, why did the bruises dare not darken? I can’t untangle that. The best I can come up with is: because of the strength of the brute will, perhaps …

“We called it not “Death” – more / like “Man Gnaws Off Limb in Tractor Accident.”” Here, the “it” refers to the “whatever came next.” Like the previous lines, though, I’m not sure I can untangle exactly what’s going on here. On the one hand, these are clearly going to get a laugh in a comedy club. On the other, I would hazard to say that if I’m right about the referent of the it, then “Man Gnaws Off Limb in Tractor Accident” would seem to signify the precise opposite of what follows surrender. Since I’m enjoying the poem to this point, and since I do laugh the comedy club laugh, I’m willing to let this go, to see what comes next.

            [Gavel pounds] But gentlemen, we believe something
has [big time] shifted, that you won’t catch us again
marching stiff and shatterable as stale candy canes
into a taco stand to demand our just potato kugel.

The recognition that something has shifted goes back to the first lines, so I can ignore my conundrum with the previous lines and continue forward. The breaking of the brute will, which is signaled by the lessening of regret, is reiterated, though more vaguely this time, leading me to believe that the author / narrator doesn’t really know what has changed, just that something has.

The author / narrator has realized that this world will never be just. That the potato kugel we all deserve may well never be ours. These lines too are funny, at the same time they are sad. I’m not sure that the sadness is in the poem, though; it may simply be in my head. I mean, they go against my own sense of political activism, which, simply put, is that one does struggle, especially when all is lost.

I’ll give an example, Eileen, the editor here, is passionate about adoption. She repeats the number of unadopted children frequently and publicly, as a kind of admonition to us all. Now, she knows damn well that not all these kids will get adopted. Some, many of them, will indeed be lost. But she doesn’t stop struggling against that fact.

So I’m bothered by these lines. But again, that isn’t the poem’s problem. There’s no reason that it must share my politics.

            We accept all [llllllll] the limitations. We understand
the work will be [deep sigh] arduous – the toads to be
swallowed [burp], numerous, and [hoo!] it’s gonna get
ugly [er].

[I love the varied use of brackets, by the way]

This, the end of the poem, seems to justify my interpretation of the lines above. But if we have finally surrendered, if we have decide to live in the world as-is, rather than to gnaw our legs off, what’s the work, then? To learn to live in unlivable conditions?

At this point in my reading I recall the way the title begins: “The Earth Is Flat”. And I think: accepting the limitations = accepting that the earth is flat. And I begin to wonder if I might just be missing some sarcasm. Perhaps this is more a dramatic monologue than anything. Perhaps the monologist’s position is one we’re not supposed to entirely accept. I’m not saying that we’re supposed to believe the opposite. Just that we may be led to think that just because my ass is flat I don’t ***have*** to believe that the earth is, too. Perhaps we’re left with a choice to make. We can take our newfound maturity and settle for the status quo, or we can “[march] stiff and shatterable as stale candy canes into [the] taco stand …”

I think one of the interesting aspects of this poem is that Knox may not have made this choice for us.

**

Second reading.

Revelation upon waking: this is a dramatic monologue, like many of the other poems in Knox’s book. But it’s not your normal monologue, it’s what I will call a second-order monologue, it’s meta. It’s the covert message of someone who says, “I’m mature now. I put all that ‘be not content with the way things are’ utopian nonsense behind me, and I accept my grownup lot.” It’s the opposite of Olaf glad and big’s “There is some shit I will not eat.”

These days, not so much regret. Brute will’s broke
as a petting zoo pony. Funny how it keeps us entranced
by difficult piffle that passed as the whole enchilada.

Now someone might actually say the first and third lines. Under certain conditions, they are the actual wisdom of maturity. But no one ever justifies themselves by comparing their mature self to a broke down petting zoo pony. Can you imagine David Horowitz justifying his turning into a petty little fascist that way? 

Bruises always fresh as hothouse violets – they dared
not darken to the ochre that signaled surrender and
whatever came next.

Here I read the bruises as the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. The kind of shit Olaf refuses to eat (no not the specific shit:Olaf is a conscientious objector. This is the general shit that comes with living on one of the 99%-er rungs of society). The bruises dare not darken because they’d give my petting pony status away.

As with the first lines, these are mixed, between first and second order. Someone might say “Bruises always fresh as hothouse violets”, but no one would say, “they dare not darken …” because that gives away that face that “surrender and whatever came  next” is exactly that to which I’m mad myself subject.

We called it not “Death” – more
like “Man Gnaws Off Limb in Tractor Accident.”

These lines confused me first time round. But reading them as second order, what they say is “We called it “Man Gnaws Off Limb in Tractor Accident” because we didn’t want to call it “Death” – which in fact it was. In other words, we quit, and we lied about it.

[Gavel pounds]

The first time round I downplayed this line, simply saying that I loved the varied use of brackets. This time, I believe that this particular bracketed bit truly signifies. It shows the narrator taking up her/his place in the given social order, which is bureaucratic, juridical, and all those wonderful things in which it’s all been decided and one’s place in the food chain is always-already.

But gentlemen, we believe something
has [big time] shifted, that you won’t catch us again
marching stiff and shatterable as stale candy canes
into a taco stand to demand our just potato kugel.
We accept all [llllllll] the limitations.

This is the formal announcement that we will be good little men and women from now on. I don’t think it’s any accident that we are announcing this to a meeting of gentlemen. How many women were present at that recent House of Representatives hearing to discuss women’s reproductive rights? For those who can’t remember, zero. Women weren’t allowed to speak. Whatever else we’ve agreed to, we’ve agreed to the patriarchy.

 … We understand
the work will be [deep sigh] arduous – the toads to be
swallowed [burp], numerous, and [hoo!] it’s gonna get
ugly [er].

“We understand the work will be [deep sigh] arduous”, can almost be read as first-order, as something a “maturing” person might actually say. Yes, life is hard, my lot is hard, but I accept it. The only possible problem with a first-order reading is the deep sigh. I don’t know whether broken petting ponies sigh, or whether that sigh’s been knocked out of them as part of the breaking process. I think the latter. When someone in power sighs and says, “We need to make tough choices” he/she always means, “You’re screwed, I’m fine.”

It’s with what comes after the dash that we know we are in second-order territory. No one admits that their giving up the just potato kugel means it’s toads, toads, toads from now one. Toads for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even the cakes are toads, really. “Let them eat toads!” “OK, glad to, fine!”

And what they (I go back and forth between they and we, doin’t I?) certainly never admit to is that surrender equals acquiescence in an ugly-heading-uglier life. Its kind of like that old ActUp! Silence = Death slogan stood on it’s head. But not quite. Have we gone third-order here, at the very end. Is our meta meta? Maybe. 

I ended my first reading with, “I think one of the interesting aspects of this poem is that Knox may not have made this choice for us.” I end this reading with “Given my own politics, I think one of the wonderful aspects of this poem is that she has.”


*****

[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.



13 comments:

  1. This is simply amazing. Thank you, John, for exploring this poem so thoughtfully. You took its virginity, for sure. And you certainly showed me where transitions are lacking that could clarify things. I forget that when I'm in my own head.

    After Bloomberg-Rissman's reading, the 1st lines shall now be: "These days, not so much regret; OUR will’s broke/as a petting zoo pony." One follows the other. Brute will, barreling through without grace, was the speaker's old way. In that state, bruises, or slights, were always fresh, and never faded, which the speaker mistook for a kind of wild, animalistic nobility (Man gnaws off limb...) instead of what it really was: death--as in death of actuality, and self actualization, as you can't be self actualized if you're lying to yourself. The speaker was a steadfastly argumentative clown, demanding things where they were not (potato kugel in a taco stand). The gavel pounds to signify order: something has shifted in the old way: to acceptance. "Swallowing toads" is an old expression that means you have to take care of your business, in an adult way, before you move onto the fun stuff. You can't not pay your phone bill and call up to yell at the Verizon lady instead. That doesn't work. Believe me. I tried it for years. One must order one's house in order, and accept responsibility, adulthood, and one's own flat ass.

    Best, Jen

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  2. Jen,
    Aside from the substance of the discussion -- which I appreciate and am happy to have had GR facilitate! -- I have to say that I so admire the self-confidence, nay *maturity*!, and ultimately self-awareness/lucidity required for you to respond the way you did. That is, to listen to someone else and then adjust the poem ... in public ... Many wouldn't have the guts (as they say).

    cheers,
    Eileen

    p.s. I thought it was the widening vs the flattening of the ass that had been problematic. Tho I suppose as the ass flattens it usually widens? Looking at the mirror in a different way. Hm: looking at the mirror in a different way is always ... useful.

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  3. Dear Jen, and Eileen--

    Thank you, which hardly says it.

    As noted in other reviews in this series, I suffer from what's known as Readerly Anxiety. WHich, to summarize here, means something like O'Hara's, "you just go on your nerve." So I'm glad this reading was useful and not entirely wide of the mark.

    I do want to note a few things here. The use of the phrase "whole enchilada" a few lines before the mention of the taco stand and the kugel, which, had I noticed, would have given me more to hmmmm about.

    And the second is my own self-righteous judgmental politics, which were appropriate on the day of the reading (I wonder what horrible thing happened that day, or the day before ..), but which feel utterly inappropriate here, and which led me into a slightly uncharitable reading.

    What I'm getting at, Jen, is that I see MYSELF in this poem, now, as the "steadfastly argumentative clown, demanding things where they were not (potato kugel in a taco stand). "

    There is great wisdom in "acceptance. "Swallowing toads" is an old expression that means you have to take care of your business, in an adult way." For me to have even thought it "surrender" in some kind of negative sense, well, it's inevitable, given me being me, "warts and all" (which is an apt expression given the toads).

    In other words, this poem contains a lesson I need to learn over and over and over and over ...

    I wish we could meet. I'm sure we could laugh over some old war stories.

    PS as for the flattening/widening thing, I never really look at 20 somethings any more. I look at their mothers (and sometimes their grandmothers). They're the ones who make me say wow.

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  4. I prefer "brute will"--keeps the universality--my will, your will, our will. I see this as a comment on the death of modernity and its project of scientific-rational progress, with proud feminist overtones. B-R was right to invoke the 99%. The 1% has won and declared the world flat. No longer demanding our kugel or gnawing off our arms (as in some echo of the 60's), we accept our limitations. The bank won't give you that loan, and the revolution may be a devolution. Still, not so much regret. My ass, the economy, and all prospects are flat, and we're living with it. Brute will is broke, and it's gonna get uglier, but we'll eat our toads. There's a defiance of our parents here, leaving us their waste and regret. And a resilience. Jen, you are a voice of our generation.

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  5. Dear Traveler, one thought, which comes with the whole ass-flattening and acceptance thing. I'm not saying this as if you don't already know this. I just want to say it. You write "There's a defiance of our parents here, leaving us their waste and regret." Your kids will say the same about you, of course. And their kids about them ... Every generation in history has left their kids waste and regret. It's one of life's great sadnesses. Maybe we'll eat our toads, but it pains us to realize that our kids will eat them too.

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  6. I'm not so sure. I think our parents had a profoundly different relationship with their parents than we have with them. They saw their elders toughened by resolution and sacrifice--felt burdened by it all and decided to party (Crumb). We saw our parents softened by pharmaceuticals and therapy, and have tried to withstand the decrepitude (running with scissors). These are easy tropes and it's truly pathetic how we throw them around as if they're true. Still, some generations leave their children more proud legacy than waste and gloom, and vice versa. But I think Jen's poem says much more than this--in fact, if it had been a comment on our parents it would've been trite. Its trickster profundity and prophetic-ness comes from expanding and enriching the metaphor of flatness. Perhaps that's what we need to do--fill out the flatness of our times.

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  7. Dear Traveler --

    Each generation since about 1760 has been rebelled against by the next precisely because of the failures it left in its wake. You can see this in the arts, you can see this in politics, you can see this in everything.

    I see no reason to think that your generation's running with scissors will please your children when they are left to face, say, all the effects of climate change and peak oil, and no pensions, etc. any more than you were pleased by what your parents left you (tho I think Crumb is quite poor or partial witness for what that generation was all about - I mean, how does Crumb explain, e.g., 2nd wave feminism, or Stonewall, or Paris or Chicago 68?)

    Which doesn't mean you shouldn't run with scissors, of course! As a poet and reader I am utterly in love with the running-with-scissors generation. In spite of - no, because of, no, because of and in spite of that generation's shortcomings. Every generation is beautiful in its own way.

    We totally agree that Jen's poem is about much more than this. If you are interested at all in expanding and enriching the metaphor of flatness, you may want to look into object-oriented philosophy (Bryant, Morton, Harman, Meillassoux, Bogost, etc) for whom flatness looms large in some very interesting - and surprising - ways.

    Cheers,

    John

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  8. I wasn't talking about acceptance on a political level, so much as personal and interpersonal. I don't accept what I see politically. I hate it, but I accept that money is the only thing that will change it. When things, like factory farming and Guantanamo, become too expensive to continue operating, they will die. How we spend our money can change things. But when your uncle tells you he will not go to a nursing home and he needs to be in one, you have to accept it. He gets the death he wants, or you blow a blood vessel trying to make him do it your way. And then feeling indignant and wasting your life on that. People don't act the way I want them to, and I have to work not to talk myself into my ego's stories. Ta da!

    Thanks, John. And thank you, Eileen. You should see my ass, though. Flat as a wide screen TV.

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  9. Dear Jen-

    You write: "When things, like factory farming and Guantanamo, become too expensive to continue operating, they will die." We can only pray.

    I can relate to the uncle thing. My mother was an alcoholic, and it wasn't pretty.

    Today I went to see Suzanne, my Somatic Experiencing therapist, and worked on just what you're talking about. How I can learn NOT to carry the weight of the world, political, familial, etc. (not that the world ever asked me to carry it, but, hey ...) Where you write "I have to work not to talk myself into my ego's stories" she might say that those stories are also carried at a lower (i.e. not conscious) level in the body. I carry them both places, and frankly, it's slowly killing me.

    So the more today went on, the more your poem became its theme song. What I am working on is "swallowing my toads" gracefully. A huge step. And then going beyond that. Suzanne assures me that there's a place beyond that, w/in the wisdom of the body. At this point I will have to take her word for it.

    Thank you for helping me on my way.

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  10. Good luck to you, and to us all, John. We'll always have poetry.

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  11. Don't know what happened, but you can certainly keep posting comments. Comments are moderated so there may be a very brief time lag before your posting and appearance of comments,
    eileen

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