Monday, December 1, 2008

Cleaving Eigner



SPASTIC POET

“OK so he ain’t intellectual”
—Robert Duncan


“he is a spastic,
forced to spend
most of his days
in a wheelchair”
—Samuel Chartres,
“Larry Eigner: Another Time
in Fragments,” Some Poems
Poets: Studies in American
Underground Poetry Since 1945

_______


not quite—a revelation
not really—depressing either
i’d been—aware of it
for a—long time
i was—a spastic poet*

i’m—cautious
coming—into things
wary—of exaggeration
used to—understatement
my sotto—voice

resulting in—suppression of words
aversion—to left margins
getting—the distance
between—words immediately
without—punctuation

typing—one letter at a time
letting—my Remington
then—Royal typewriter
enter—immediacy
getting—into it

parodying—Hart Crane
keeping—it minimal
staying—naïve
my way—a bootstrap way
spontaneous=vernacular

so that—pretty soon
my porch—in Swampscott
became—Berkeley
opening—myself up
like a—spastic Maximus

things—words & objects
sometimes it’s—better not to
know—what I’m doing
letting my—“perfect ear”
be piquant—easy-going

not that—his text
is—incomprehensible”
Williams sd—to Creeley
who published—my first book
even tho—it probably was

but—immediacy
without—clarification
is so—compelling
much more—interesting
than the—usual closure

vernacular—speech
follow-the-dots—negative
capability—my imperfect
ear—not really worried
about—being perfect

wordy—salesmanship
crummy—hegemonies
it’s more—like Hart Crane
letting—Melville’s tomb
turn slowly—into Key West

spastic—ad lib
develops—paratactically
from further—readings
spontaneous—textuality
a strip-tease—with words

close—cropping
the—"me" immediacy
spreading it out—on the page
each page—incomplete
vernacular—voyeurisme

my so-called—perfect ear
clearest and—most expressive
when things are—most fragmentary
cerebral palsy—provoking
line-by-line—vagabondage

being—spastic
is being—incomplete
lacuna—randomly indenting
letting myself—vacillate
between lines—words

scanning—the Text
without—idiom or stylish
New Yorker—coffee table hauteur
comfy—like Grandma Moses
American—as apple pie
______

*”Especially before cryosurgery
that tamed my wild left arm and
leg in September ’62—6 weeks after
I turned 35—in order to relax at all
I had to keep my attention partly
away from myself, had to seek a
home, coziness in the world”
—Larry Eigner, “not forever serious,”
Areas, Lights, Heights: Writing
1984-1989, New York: Roof Books,
1989, 25.

No comments: