Author: Nada Gordon

Intractable

I find language so intractable.

(and my vision gets all blurry…)

FAUX NAIVE

Can we talk about the “faux naive”? It’s a ‘tude I can’t seem to shake…

_The Spy (?) Who Learned from Me_

When I was teaching an evening ESL class on the upper east side at a community center, I had a lot of students from the United Nations along with the immigrants who made up the core of the program. I had students from Bulgaria, Venezuela, the Cote d’Ivoire, China, Mexico, Angola, Colombia, Korea, France, Israel, and Brazil. I also had four students from Iraq. They were all delightful.

Two of those students were in my high intermediate class: Saleh and Sa’ad. Douglas Rothschild taught them as well. They worked in the Iraqi mission to the United Nations. There were some unusual conditions attached to their jobs. For one thing, they were not allowed to leave the five boroughs of New York City without special permission. They were also not obliged to pay sales tax anywhere. They showed me a special card they carried that they would flash at cashiers and presumably, be exempted from paying sales tax. I always wondered, did the cashiers believe them? And what was to stop someone from forging such a card?

All of my Iraqi students took every chance they could to mention the deleterious effects of the US sanctions on their country.

The other students used to tease them about their many wives. Actually, I think Sa’ad was the only one who was actually married, and he had just one wife.

Saleh had a wonderful, slightly overenthusiastic manner and a big grin to match. When he got excited or wanted to emphasize something, his eyes would open wide so you could see the whites on all sides of his pupils. He was a biochemist. When he learned that I used to work at Cambridge University Press (before their inhumanly non-ergonomic windowless freezingly drafty computer station mangled my delicate frame), he asked if I could obtain for him some scientific volumes he’d been yearning for. With my worker’s comp case pending (as it still is two years later) I was no longer eligible for free or discount copies, so I wasn’t able to oblige him. Had I done so, I wonder, would John Ashcroft now be breathing down my neck?

The other Iraqi student in the same class, Sa’ad, was over six feet tall and impeccably handsome, with a well-trimmed moustache, square jaw, and very white teeth. Not only did he look like Omar Sharif, but he had old world manners — the perfect diplomat/gentleman. I ran into him by chance one day in Grand Central Station and he said “Hello, Nada. I am very glad to see you. If there is anything you need, please let me know.” I wasn’t sure what he meant by that (I’m still not), but it seemed a very chivalrous thing to say. He was often absent from class, busy with UN matters. He didn’t show up at all the next term.

Then one day I booted up my computer and on my Yahoo start page was a news item saying that an Iraqi named Sa’ad was “asked to leave” the USA because he was suspected of spying. I clicked on the item but couldn’t confirm that it was my student Sa’ad who was under suspicion.

Later I ran into Wissam, another student from the Iraqi mission, by chance (!!) in a wonderful Lebanese store on Steinway St. in Queens. When I asked him about Sa’ad, the worried, furtive look on his face confirmed, before he even uttered his affirmative answer, that it was indeed that handsome gentleman.

That was the closest I ever came to a spy or suspected spy, as far as I know.

Sa’ad, Saleh, Wissam, Ju Ma’a — I’m thinking of you.

I’m interested in the personae we are all generating on these blogs.

I love how people bring flowers on the birthday.

It feels like Bette Davis’ dressing room around here.

Thank you, dear my friends!

Yes, Kasey, a Googlism poem is a real poem.

That state of mind you mention, in which there are no bad poems…. is otherwise known as BLISS.

SPOOGE

spooge is your friend

spooge is pretty much a term that

spooge is a term passed across from the furry domain

spooge is a personal choice

spooge is connected to the following things

spooge is connected to because

spooge is a copper and carbon solvent

spooge is a king’s ransom

spooge is now available on dvd

spooge is not a romantic word

spooge is just a particular instance of a larger

spooge is sprayed on everyone

spooge is one of the most disgusting terms ever

spooge is a perfectly legitimate word

spooge is going to be number one

spooge is

spooge is? 14girl

spooge is wierd or unexplicable computer code or output

spooge is the only thing worth drawing because it’s the only thing fans want

spooge is something which you

spooge is living

spooge is a skin repair cream developed especially for climbers

spooge is a documentary film with a story line and a big payoff at the end

spooge is gonna be all over ya

spooge is prevalent

spooge is slang for spill

spooge is all there is

spooge is for cvs guile

spooge is for you

spooge is kindred

spooge is another

spooge is broke

spooge is spooge

spooge is a squirt gun

spooge is too much? playfur

spooge is just one of many names for the remenants from an adhesive label

spooge is cum you fucknob

spooge is always a lot of fun

spooge is soooo

spooge is involved

spooge is quite tasty

spooge is good for you

spooge is of utmost importance

spooge is more correct date

spooge is more correct 25 apr 2002 re

spooge is combustible

spooge is painful enough to watch in the privacy of your own domicile

spooge is unnecessary and a waste of time

spooge is ranked 369 and has played for 36m in 30 days

spooge is imming me

spooge is spent

spooge is now more favoured than $eep

spooge is much

spooge is cool by me

spooge is find the right hairdresser

spooge is due to a combination of things

spooge is dripping down on the swingarm and getting all

spooge is now a high priestess in the church of satan

spooge is not allowed on it

spooge is too

spooge is to get out of brown workshirts? rj

spooge is a good alternative to armor

spooge is replying to this message

spooge is running down her thighs

spooge is dripping from her bottom and face

spooge is one of my proudest traits

spooge is gelatinous and gooey

spooge is gross schabe

spooge is not

spooge is? do you _know_ what spooge is? have you ever seen spooge?

spooge is a furry term for semen

spooge is just

spooge is everything that you need to get off and on your way

spooge is *not* something that has to be tolerated

THE VISCERAL

Jonathan Mayhew writes:

I guess the urge to eliminate ornament is part of that whole puritanical strain. Like Horace decrying Persian luxury or Antonio Machado rejecting Rubén Darío’s verbal excess. If you try to purify poetry, get rid of its “poetic” and sentimental attachments, you end up with nothing. It seems like these elements are extraneous, but they end up being inseparable from whatever it is you want to preserve.

Maybe I’ll let that be the last word on ornament for a while (except to say that, since I took up this topic, I keep hearing that awful song, “You…you decorated my life” everywhere I go). Now I want to move on to the notion of THE VISCERAL. The ikky, the sloppy, the disconcerting, the horrifying and/or nasty, the blatantly sexshall or the simply gooey.

_The Smear Test_

It was nothing to worry about, for it was not

intimidating, but funny almost, the slurpy sounds

that flapped from her vagina as he cranked it open;

the modesty blanket, that veiled no one’s view but hers,

as though she’d gag to see her sex exposed.

It was comedy, the way she had to splay

her thighs wide enough to welcome a rugby squad.

And it was nothing to worry about, for it was not

painful, but tender almost, the spatula nosing

into her tight hole like a coy mouse, an elfin penis,

a fork gently testing the haddock is cooked through.

No, it was nothing to worry about.

And if her boyfriend hadn’t told her that later,

pissed as a cunt and weeping like a raped whore,

she had hit him and hit him and screamed, ‘Fuck off

and don’t touch me, don’t ever fucking touch me,’

she would never have dwelt on it.

Except for its content, this is a totally normal poem, correct? There’s not even a taste of the semantic or syntactic dislocation we have come to expect from poems nowadays. Neither I nor anyone I know would ever write such a poem as this. And yet I like it very much. If I am going to read a poem that exhibits “control” of the “medium” of language and “mastery” of the “craft” of poetry, this is the sort of poem I want to read — not the “avant-garde” version that basically serves as a ruefully nostalgic, apologetic sort of middle ground for poets who secretly wish that everything really can be made to cohere. Not that I’m referring to anyone in particular here.This poem is sharp and amusing and sad and emotionally devastating all at once, for all its facility and well-schooled rhetorical cleverness. So what, besides its topic, makes it “visceral”? In large part, it’s those verbs: crank, flap, gag, splay — we’re almost in the realm of comic book language. And the bizarre metaphors — the medical spatula a “coy mouse” [why not a gerbil? i think this writer would not have shied away from the larger rodent had it scanned properly], an “elfin penis” [ewww!], or the muscles of the vagina as so much whitefish, prodded by a fork. Or how about that word, “slurpy’? Accurate, isn’t it, yoginis? It’s the divergence between the propriety and control of the form and the violence of the subject matter and diction that makes this poem a kind of sick pleasure to read. Like seducing a Catholic schoolgirl, I imagine.

The poet seems to have learned all her lessons from Auden. Her “Work and Lunch” is an updated version of “The Unknown Citizen.” I won’t quote it, as I’m trying to focus on “the visceral”, and after I quote just one more poem of hers, I will tell you more about her:

My Bed

Tracy Emin lives down the road from me,

and recently’s had notable acclaim

due to a certain bed. As poetry’s

in need of press, I thought I’d do the same —

show you the place I slept and dreamt and came!

Admittedly, it’s not in the best taste,

but self-promotion must be in-yer-face.

The bed’s not strictly mine, more my boyfriends’

given him by his sister, which was nice.

It’s broken, but it’s okay for our ends —

insomnia’s a poet’s favorite vice.

So now the guided tour — just some advice —

don’t sniff too deep, I haven’t washed the sheets

for weeks, and there may be a tang of yeast.

Here is the pillow where my sleepy head

has left an indent, like a world war bomb.

Here’s the wet patch, and here is where I said:

Of you’re getting a drink please get me one,’

the snot that I fished out when he was gone,

and sneaked under the valance; the mishap

where I splodged gravy, eating off my lap.

Here is the duvet, under which I sweat

through many a long, dark night of the heart,

where I wrote “Knowledge’, ‘Post’, and other hits,

the dark and foetal hothouse of my art.

Where bedbugs gnaw my flesh, and cut skin starts

to be repaired. It’s here I get whiny

when it seems football’s always on TV.

Not intimate enough? Here’s a cum-rag

that’s fallen down the side and not been seen —

observe its crisp petals and grubby clag.

Imagine I am wiping myself clean!

And from the tissue box feel free to glean

that I am more concerned with cash than flash —

they are Economy; rough as a rash.

…….

The poem goes on for eight more stanzas, in which she waxes philosophical about the importance of beds. I don’t think they’re as good as these first scene-setting five, so I won’t quote them here. What I would like to know from you, friends and readers, is YOUR opinion of the two poems I’ve quoted. Here’s a little more info on the poet: Claire Pollard, from the UK, born 1978 (biologically speaking, she’s young enough to be my daughter).These poems are from her second book, _Bedtime_, on Bloodaxe Books. (Aren’t they the same publishers who did the Prynne collection? Can you imagine a poet further from Ms. Pollard?) Book cover: famous picture of Marilyn Monroe clutching a pillow. Back cover, author photo of Pollard lying back on a pillow. What do you think, people? Terrible? Interesting? Absolutely unbearably embarrassing? Stupid? Masterful? Let me know and I’ll post your opinions.

I will end with one of my most vaginally visceral poems (from Are Not Our Lowing Heifers Sleeker than Night-Swollen Mushrooms?):

Fleshscape

To make a cape

of flesh, take

the labia minora

between the thumb

and forefinger, s-t-r-e-t-c-h

downwards and back

over the buttocks, then

upward along the ribcage,

curling them over

shoulders. Using palms,

rub the end flaps

onto the pectorals.

They will stick to the body

surface warmly, smelling

of minerals and cream,

their rosy hue ideal

for summer evenings.

To make a column

of flesh, pinch

the labia majora

between the eyelids,

s-t-r-e-t-c-h upwards

to the lilting sky

over rosy hillocks

and further

as an entertainment

for the pantheon.

Using balms, rub

the end flaps

onto the goddesses.

They will stick

to the body surface

warmly, in drapes

and folds, smelling

of conflict, their salmon

hue painting the firmament

they wave around in.

Lose the cares

of the flesh. Abstract

the fluid from the eyes.

Rub well into icons,

perfuming those milky

ludic globes. Spread

it as a carpet for

the lovelorn – their

digitalis. Conflict

is the balm of reason –

abstract, gratuitous,

baroque – as this.

Sunset comes with

multiple warnings,

filling the redolent

body with salmon.

And this labor.

The name of the beloved

may suddenly appear

as welts on that

forcibly externalized

internal skin, say “Mary”

or “Harry” or “Larry,”

a lighter whitish-red,

almost pussy ; the discourse

suddenly twangs.

The candle steps out

from behind the eyes,

reveals itself to be

a candle. This is what I mean

by “self as destroyer.”

“Could you just

scoot over a little

bit I don’t have

enough room”

“I have a mean streak

of musicality.”

To make a jailbreak

of flesh, clasp

the larva till it hardens

and tributaries crackle

up. If you are still

confined by the form,

consider the pleasure

of the otters. Your

pheonix will transmogrify

as other sorts of plumage

that may well singe

in sun, waves of heat

rising to begin

disintegration (a kind

of unfolding).

If you are still confused

by the form, invoke

its creator, its secret

prey. Jolly with

composition, she

has stretched

her lower lip up

over her head, and

the lyres (whipped

by a freak wind)’re all

abloom with

this (red light. dis-

tract) caco-

phany.

This country belongs to jackals. They take my breath away.

Who needs a body in this kind of environment?

They’ll only consume it.

Jordan “Blogman” Davis, the only one to respond to my call for questions!, writes:

Nada: vis a vis ornament. Have you read Mary Karr’s attack on ornamental poetics, mainly Ashbery and Merrill as I recall, that ran in Parnassus back before she became Stephen King’s Favorite Memoirist? I guess I don’t think of ornament as a gendered attitude, but isn’t that what everything from The Yellow Wallpaper on has been beating into our thick routines? that the apparently trivial details are the handholds, the judo leverage. What does that mean, I don’t know. I think I learned everything I know about martial arts from Charles Schultz (and Susan M., come to think of it). Anyway I’ve been thinking about that quality that you’re pointing at, and it keeps coming back to me in a negative definition, i.e. including material extraneous to the structure, embellishment, etc — which contradicts my own understanding of this quality, which is to take the most direct existing route to whatever emotion it is I’m following.. to create a filament that loops and coils to give off light, magnetic energy etc.. (blah blah Breton blah blah Soupault blah blah) which may look baroque and in a vacuum, fair enough. And fragile. Not that I can protect anything by changing its name, but the whole ‘ornament’ category sounds a lot more decadent than anything I’d know how to defend. Unless all this ornament is just a decoy, and I’m putting it out to divert attention from a real story, which now that I think of it (I’ve been using that phrase a LOT lately) may be just what I’ve done. So what’s the question. The question is, have you read Mary Karr against Ornament, as printed in Parnassus back when? xo, J

Jordan, I haven’t read the Mary Karr. I don’t think I’ve ever read Parnassus that I can remember. I’ve been so ghettoized in the inno-po world for so long that, well, I don’t think I’ve even ever read an issue of Fence all the way through. Not saying this with any kind of braggadocio, rather admitting the mind-forged manacles of my own cultural lexicon. So that answers your basic question, however abruptly. But to get to what is really interesting in your missal above, that beautiful description of the process of making things (poems) manifest themselves… I was reading today an article about Alan Watts, from which (tho it’s admittedly sorta half-baked)I quote briefly here:

Watts viewed the body as nothing less than a particular flowering of the Universe, frequently stating “You did not come into this universe, you grew out of it, like a leaf on a tree.”… of course the implications are gigantic, as our whole social and economic structure is based on the illusion that float around inside our heads and are “confronted with a world of alien objects,” that we don’t belong here, that we’re a mistake.

If we transpose Watts’ idea onto the body of the poem, the negative idea of ornament as extraneous unnecessary embellishment evaporates. That is, poems are not abstracted out of the world but are of the world (c.f. my letter to Brenda about the ornamental quality of the many things that can hang off a tree — apples, dewdrops — and her response) (cf also what is culture? what is nature? termite hill? skyscraper? what’s the diff? why do we loathe ourselves so?) (cf also a naked body — even naked we’re decorated, right? and our “parts” are hardly useless embellishments. I’m really talking about SUFFICIENTLY CAPTIVATING FORM) . And therefore, there are no objects (words) alien to a poem’s *potential* [an important qualification — and duchampian at heart — that is, ANYTHING can be material for art] microcosmic universe. However, if the objective, in making a poem, is to create or follow or trace back or spin out a particular emotional (or rhythmic?) filament (and I agree that it is), and to limn or fabricate its inherently necessary-to-its-being loops and coils and tendrils, then surely there are words, phrases, grammatical constructions, lineations and phonic patterns that either do or do not contribute to said creation or following or tracing back or spinning out. And that’s why we have editing. And that’s one reason why certain poems do not for certain readers allow more than a glimpse (if that) of that luminosity you allude to. Of course, those very impediments can also be part of what makes the poem compelling. Let me always admit impediments!

But I ask you all, whence the “decadent” association with ornament? And isn’t it egregious? There is no human culture whose members do not decorate themselves and their surroundings. Even the puritans had their buckles, did they not? I am in the possession of a zen priest’s summer over-kimono — it’s black and sheer like a negligee. As a child, did you or did you not play dress-up? So why, why, why do we punish ourselves for something we seem to be hard-wired into doing, namely manipulating the forms of our selves and surroundings into shapes that please and stimulate us?

It’s true that ornament may be the wrong word for what I’m talking about, too. I may have chosen it for the sake of polemic, because I was feeling limited by something or someone and I don’t like that feeling. It makes me want to argue, kick out, and ululate.

I don’t know if ornament “divert[s] attention” from the “real story.” Couldn’t ornament actually be the real story? Would there be any art(ifice) in that real story, if it could be proven to exist? At any rate, I don’t think poetry is about a real story. Do you? If you were really hot for the real story, wouldn’t you be doing something else?

Here are some more “think” questions:

Are anklets extraneous to a kathakali dancer?

Or false eyelashes to a drag queen?

Wouldn’t we all be less ornamented if we had no names?

Isn’t language itself the ultimate ornament?

Can you imagine yourself living inside a perfect white box?

Aren’t even “whiteness” and “boxiness” decorative qualities in contrast with NOTHINGNESS?

I’m feeling all heady with abstractions. Thank you for the question, Jordan. Do you have a copy of that Parnassus you could lend me (or as my students say “borrow me”)? More fuel for the polemic is (as the Japanese say) also good.

It’s my birthday in one hour and one minute!

I love Laura Elrick’s tough, frustrated poem in The Poker.

Other things I have been reading lately that I really like:

Nick Piombino’s Theoretical Objects (awesomely observant & permissive)

Clare Pollard’s Bedtime (really adept audenesque rhymes that just miss being doggerel!)

Sparrow’s Yes, You ARE a Revolutionary(hee. hoo.)

Jules Boykoff’s poems (the ones beginning with lines from other contempoets)in the new Combo

Barbara Cole’s poem in the new Combo

Alexei Kruchenykh’s Suicide Circus (inventor of ZAUM! — trans. Jack Hirschman)

It’s 3 in the morning! I drank too much black sesame-flavored tapioca tea in Flushing. Must try to sleep. And perhaps, just perhaps, I will get around to talking about some the works I just listed.

But I feel like answering some questions.

I will take questions now.

Oyasumi nasai!