Commentaries - May 2013

Diane Rothenberg: 'On the Insanity of Cornplanter' (part one)

One of the recognized problems in research, any kind of research, is the repetition of a single original finding or opinion by other, later researchers as if those others had arrived at the finding or opinion independently.  This, then, may result in an extensive bibliography of secondary sources for a position that, in fact, has only a single source.  Obviously there is no problem with building on the work of others, but there isa problem if the original source was flawed.

Pina Bausch & Clairice Lispector

The poet's novel

Pina Bausch in "Cafe Müller"
Pina Bausch in "Cafe Müller"

When realism isn’t real, where is a writer to go?  Meaning, the sentence is a construction which feels at least as habitable as the bus which carries a poet to an unfamiliar town, and the couch upon which the poet sleeps later that night.  When realism isn’t enough, isn’t authenticated or represents a fractional or purely outward series of events, poets turn to the body of the sentence upon which to recline, repose, deconstruct and reject any sort of frame which insists upon the “real” being limited to finite perceptions.  A sentence may break, with the force of bodily gesture, something more fluid. When I think of the poet’s novel I think of an oblique truthfulness.  The choreography of Pina Bausch comes to mind, as an example of art which echoes  the interior and bodily aspects of the real.  What is the difference between realism and the real? 

Cover versions: Reading outside-in in Erica Baum's 'Study'

from Erica Baum's "Study"
from Erica Baum's "Study"

Erica Baum’s Study is a text rich with texture. With contexture. We read the tactility of the woven page, the richness of the colors and the striking design of the background. Its allusiveness: the allusion to a source text. Its elusiveness: the oblique referentiality and poetry of the words.

Coming to the work without any paratextual context or explanation, a reader might first be aware of the ‘bookishness’ of the piece. To the conventions alluded to. These are ‘pages’ or, at least, parts of a book. Time for your close-up, book. There seem to be source texts that inform the work, even if it isn’t clear what the sources are. And these sources may be real or imaginary texts or contexts. 

Espians: Issue 3 (free pdf)

free pdf of issue three

Editor-in-Chief: Ou Hong
Honorary Editors:
R. D. Gooder; Marjorie Perloff; J. H. Prynne                 
Executive Editor:
Li Zhimin
Board of Editors:
Charles Altieri; Daniel Albright; Charles Bernstein; Craig Dworkin; R. D. Gooder; Daniel Jernigan; Li Zhimin; Julia Lovell; Joyelle McSweeney; Ou Hong; Marjorie Perloff; J. H. Prynne; Claude Rawson; Joshua Scodel; John Wilkinson; Xie Ming; Zhang Yuejun; Zheng Jie.

Contents:

J.H. Prynne
Fragrance and Anger in Milton's Paradise Lost /1

Li Zhimin
On Gu Cheng: Rise and Fall of a Fairy Tale /13