ModPo 2013 #71 All is Artifice: On Scappettone's "Vase Poppies"

Image from russell-gallery.com

Vase Poppies
BY JENNIFER SCAPPETTONE

Lavenderish dusk
strapped for stays,
pomegranates under the rubberband
chucked for a glass Oz,

letdown
splayed by the pillar-shelves
to page upon the Ottoman:

his talk has wrought suit
amid citrus gapes
and pall dunked in the bowl
and grated sage
or cleaved clear paleo-pines.

Postgeist, upcast
California upon weed,
what banker yields
so fragrant a cant
as this vagrant cant?

Information from PoetryFoundation.org: Jennifer Scappettone, “Vase Poppies” from an unpublished manuscript. Copyright © 2010 by Jennifer Scappettone. Reprinted by permission of Jennifer Scappettone.

Source: Unpublished (2010)
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I found it interesting that Scappettone had to explain that, depending on your class, you pronounce vase differently. I thought that it hinted at the differences between the natural and outdoor quality of H.D.'s "Sea Poppies" and the artificial and indoor quality of "Vase Poppies." And I also caught a tone of disdain for the pretentious "other" pronunciation which she did not use in her reading.

Everything about "Sea Poppies" talks about the virtues of being hardy and out in the harsh conditions of nature. Whereas "Vase Poppies" talks about everything artificial and contrived and urbane. I really did catch the whiff of subject mockery in Scappettone's poem (whereas in H.D.'s poem, it is all praise for the subject).

I was a bit confused. Was Scappettone a) paying an homage to H.D., b) ironizing H.D., c) outright mocking the imagist process?

I appreciated the attempt to find out in the video discussion, although, it seemed to me that even the discussion did not come to a conclusion on this. However, what I did get was that "you can't say it that way anymore." There is always a call to "make it new" in language which Scappettone attempted in her poem.

If I were to follow the pattern in ModPo, it would be to focus on the form and not just on the content. Did Scappettone deliver the message in the medium? She successfully used H.D.'s very form and turned her own poem into the exact opposite of H.D.'s. What is she ultimately saying? I believe it is: All is artifice. Better get used to it, baby.

ModPo 2013 #39 The Disappointed Voyeur: On Kennedy's "Nude Descending a Staircase"

Image from http://www.invisiblebooks.com/Duchamp.htm

Nude Descending a Staircase
BY X J KENNEDY

Toe after toe, a snowing flesh,
a gold of lemon, root and rind,
she sifts in sunlight down the stairs
with nothing on. Nor on her mind.

We spy beneath the banister
a constant thresh of thigh on thigh;
her lips imprint the swinging air
that parts to let her parts go by.
 
One-woman waterfall, she wears
her slow descent like a long cape
and pausing on the final stair,
collects her motions into shape.

© 1985 by X. J. Kennedy. Used by permission of the author.
Source: Poetry (January 1960).
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Uncannily, except for the judgement of the nude as "empty-headed," the poem pretty much depicts Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase: its fragmentation, its discordance in an attempt to portray motion.

It was pointed out during the video discussion that Kennedy's poem was an argument for a "return to normalcy" (traditional, recognizable poetry?) and a rejection of the fragmentation of modernism. It was also argued that his satire falls flat because he ends up satirizing the object of the poem (which is offensive, to say the least!). I agree.

But I can also understand where Kennedy is coming from. Like a Fragonnard waiting beneath the bannister, instead of being greeted with something sensual, the speaker is greeted with "parts." A disappointed voyeur! He might be saying that this fragmentation has reduced the woman into pieces of herself, losing her humanity and any thought that might have been on her mind. It might be a critique of the almost surgical dismemberment of what was once recognizable. At the end of the poem, the speaker collects the woman for us, the readers, "into (one) shape."

In terms of aesthetic, I would rather explore than go back to a "safe" and recognizable form. Well, that's just me. I can appreciate that form, for sure, but I want to seek out a voice that comes from its age and circumstances, its questions and experiences of the world.

ModPo 2013 #24 The Color of Hurt: On Stein's "A Carafe, That is a Blind Glass"

Image from www.lostateminor.com.

Gertrude Stein from Tender Buttons

A CARAFE, THAT IS A BLIND GLASS.

A kind in glass and a cousin, a spectacle and nothing strange a single hurt color and an arrangement in a system to pointing. All this and not ordinary, not unordered in not resembling. The difference is spreading.

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I liked this poem. While in the essay by Perloff she mentions that the carafe is blind because of its contents (perhaps sherry or wine, making the glass opaque), I saw something different. For me the carafe is blind in the sense that a horse has blinders. A carafe is single-minded. It is meant for pouring its content into a glass. It was made for decanting. 

"Hurt color" intrigued me. How could a color be hurt? In Perloff's essay she refers to the color of hurt, the color of blood: red. I think that makes sense. For me the "arrangement in a system of pointing" is referring to its blindness, its single purpose, a pointing towards pouring. In the "ordinary" carafe, the speaker sees the "not ordinary" and there are two negatives to throw off the reader to reflect on the more direct "order in differing."There is an order to differing. And here, I get a clue that the carafe has indeed performed outside of its blindness: the difference is spreading... like wine or sherry spilled on a white mantle, the carafe has not poured, it has spread its content. 

In a sense this is a meta-poem because it talks about form, function, content---the same structures of language. In Filipino, translation is called pagsasalin (in English, this word is pouring or the act of pouring). It refers to the liquid state of language. It doesn't matter what holds it up, the content will still be the same. In Stein's poem the form is rigid, it is single-minded especially when the form serves a certain purpose. However, the content can be set free. It need not stay within its rigid form. And, at the end of the poem, this freedom of content is spreading (like a virus) and going beyond its form. It is a commentary on language. Form serves a purpose but form can also restrict. So, don't adapt to the form. Spread out. Very modernist indeed. 

I like the quote from Wittgenstein in Perloff's essay: "that a poem, even though it is composed in the language of information, is not used in the language-game of giving information."I like the idea of language as game. There are different rules, depending on the game you are playing. The game of poetry is probably one of the most freeing kinds of language games. It is constantly being defined and redefined. And yet, over the centuries, it is a cipher for the kinds of thinking being done in its time. It is story when it needs to be story. It is rebellion when it needs to be rebellion. 

Inspired by this poem, I created something new below, the color of hurt:

First World Stain

"The difference is/ spreading" - Gertrude Stein, "A Carafe, That is a Blind Glass"

Pass me the carafe. The blind, hurt carafe.

Walang carafe dito. Tubig lang. Water.

Tubig lang sa bote. 

White wine bottle, Paul Masson, label peeled off

long ago. No spirits here. Only water, pure unbruised

water with lip waiting to serve. No, di water is from

di gripo. Better drink di coke. Coke is okay

than di water. Buksan mo. Bilisan mo. Maraming nakapila.

The arrangement of the order. I am nosebleed of the 

English. Does not resemble. And now the coke is

spreading. Punasan. Bilis. 

Hmmm. I don't know how I would translate this. For tonight, I won't even try.