A review of David Buuck's 'Site Cite City'
“[I]t is precisely a special way of writing that realism requires,” writes Lyn Hejinian in her essay, “Two Stein Talks.”[1] Site Cite City is a book of realism, in the sense Hejinian uses it: realism is the product of a method, of a “special way of writing.” The realism of Site Cite City is directed less at the “pure products of America” than at the infrastructure in which they interact.
“[I]t is precisely a special way of writing that realism requires,” writes Lyn Hejinian in her essay, “Two Stein Talks.”[1] Site Cite City is a book of realism, in the sense Hejinian uses it: realism is the product of a method, of a “special way of writing.” The realism of Read more
On Leslie Scalapino's 'How Phenomena Appear to Unfold/the Hind'
It is difficult to conceive of a literary work spun out of “spatial motion.” To read and consider a poem that defies iconographic metaphor and symbolic interpretation, a poem intrstead composed out of language’s own phenomenal play, is to butt up against traditional values about poetry that still slide toward the pictorially descriptive.
December 30, 2014
Spelling the amulet, the shape, the poem
CA Conrad's 'Amanda Paradise' and Jewish ritual bowls
Magic, bottom line, involves intention and effect. Maybe in that order. “The intentional use of language or of gesture for a desired effect” is a pretty basic definition of communication, too, but maybe I mean that communication is magic. As the contentious Crowley quote gives us in this commentary’s introductory text, magic is aligned with the practice (science or art) of causing an effect aligned with intention. Communication is a default action of humans, if we believe Chomsky, so we might as well imagine, for now, that magic is a practice of intention to create effect; in this case, the practice of language. Crafting poetry is a language practice, and the poem is one location where we may see language magic performed.
By performance, I mean the action of language or of ritual. Language is abstract, necessarily, and really becomes effective when used in speech or in writing. Externalized, language as speech or writing becomes an act. Writing must happen or there is no text.