writing the tongue coda

two codas, two concluding events to say thank you, to finally cut that tongue off and write this one last full stop with its dripping blood. to stop writing tongues and start to prose ones in ones of prose, in proses of ones in prose of ones.

Coda by Louis MacNeice

Maybe we knew each other better
When the night was young and unrepeated
And the moon stood still over Jericho.

So much for the past; in the present
There are moments caught between heart-beats
When maybe we know each other better.

But what is that clinking in the darkness?
Maybe we shall know each other better
When the tunnels meet beneath the mountain.

Louis MacNeice. Selected Poems. London; Faber, 1988, p.158.

Qu'est-ce qui s'est passé?

Il faudrait plutôt concevoir les choses comme une affaire de perception: on entre dans une pièce, et l'on perçoit quelque chose comme déjà là, venant d'arriver, même si ce n'est pas encore fait. Ou bien l'on sait que ce qui est en train de se faire, c'est déjà la dernière fois, c'est fini. On entend un "je t'aime", dont on sait qu'il est dit pour la dernière fois. Sémiotique perceptive. Dieu, qu'est-ce qui a pu se passer, tandis que tout est et reste imperceptible, et pour que tout soit et reste imperceptible à jamais?

Deleuze et Guattari. Mille Plateaux. Paris; Minuit, 1980, p.238.

N'interprétez pas, machinez

Miller:

When I'm revising, I use a pen and ink to make changes, cross out, insert.[...] Then I retype, and in the process of retyping I make more changes. I prefer to retype everything myself, because even when I think I've made all the changes I want, the mere mechanical business of touching the keys sharpens my thoughts, and I find myself revising while doing the finished thing.

Interviewer:

You mean there is something going on between you and the machine?

Miller:

Yes, in a way the machine acts as a stimulus; it's a cooperative thing.

from: Paris Review, Henry Miller Interview

Rire philosophique de Foucault

A tous ceux qui veulent encore parler de l'homme, de son règne ou de sa libération, à tous ceux qui posent encore des questions sur ce qu'est l'homme en son essence, à tous ceux qui veulent partir de lui pour avoir accès à la vérité, à tous ceux en revanche qui reconduisent toute connaissance aux vérités de l'homme lui-même, à tous ceux qui ne veulent pas formaliser sans anthropologiser, qui ne veulent pas mythologiser sans démystifier, qui ne veulent pas penser sans penser aussitôt que c'est l'homme qui pense, à toutes ces formes de réflexion gauches et gauchies, on ne peut qu'opposer un rire philosophique- c'est-à-dire, pour une certaine part, silencieux.

Michel Foucault. Les mots et les choses. Paris: Gallimard, 1966, p.353-354.

Web by Don Paterson

The deftest leave no trace: type, send, delete,
clear history. The world will never know.
Though a man might wonder, as he crossed the street
what it was that broke across his brow
or vanished on his tongue and left it sweet


Don Paterson. Landing Light. London; Faber, 2003, p.40.

Torre

The rooting apple tree apples rotting
on the wet Somerset earth, their pips dispersing.
It is that pressing time of the year,
when the apples are turned bitter.

The pewtering pulp fed to Cynthia and her Gloucester
old spots, her teat feeding the sucklers, their last meal.
Rolf rabbit clinching on to Flopsy's ears, fathering some little
fiddlers. Jasmin the goat with her coat, an old grey fleece
to keep her from the freeze.
Jack the curious donkey looking
into the tea shop and its customers' chops,
Cynthia's labour from the year before. Crops
still long in the waiting, the harsh winter awaiting.
Love's labour's lost? Heart of the matter.

translation I.Q

First the eye, then the tongue
then another, then
the pen, then the eye again.

Michaux's wise words

Lecteur, tu tiens donc ici..., un livre que n'a pas fait l'auteur, quoiqu'un monde y ait participé. Et qu'importe?
Signes, symboles, élans, chutes, départs, rapports, tout y est pour rebondir...Entre eux, sans s'y fixer, l'auteur poussa sa vie.
Tu pourrais essayer, peut-être toi aussi?


Henri Michaux

Un poema de Carlos Barbarito

No importa en qué idioma se escriba.
Toda lengua es extranjera, incomprensible.
Toda palabra, apenas pronunciada,
huye lejos, adonde nada ni nadie puede
alcanzarla.
No importa cuánto se sepa.
Nadie sabe leer.
Nadie sabe qué es un relámpago
y menos cuando se refleja
en el pulido metal de un cuchillo.
Ahora la noche parece un mar.
Por ese mar remamos,
dispersos, en silencio.

Persons

I could go on,
but first, I would have to begin.
But then, I would have to end.

He, having begun,
must go on.
To His end.

You have begun:
but must you go on,
or end, now, abruptly?

No. Do not leave.
You and I have just met
through the infinite difference
of eternal repetition.

I am He’s orphan.
I belong to no one
but you;
to They who have become
You.

Do not worry about my sex.
I am the result of what He
has made me –
Neuter.

Only you can leave,
I cannot.
Leave me now
To another
To disappear

Recurrences

The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.



Samuel Beckett, Murphy.

Sombre précurseur

Banishment then, through exile then, as love then.

                                                                       Distance for love then.

                     We are distant, we are not close, I must love you then.

Joy

Joie de fatigue de fin de journée
bien travaillée

Rêve, non pas d'un livre avec ses plans-pages superposés
mais de rouleaux infinis en lignes droites qui se croiseraient
ici, là, là-bas.

from lignesdefuites.blogspot.com

'Être comme un étranger dans sa propre langue. Faire une ligne de fuite.'

Gilles Deleuze

from 'The Cell' by Lyn Hejinian

Lyricism- it makes the country
seem far away


Lyn Hejinian. The Cell. Los Angeles: Sun and Moon Press, 1992, p.174.

from 'Crow Tyrannosaurus' by Ted Hughes

Creation quaked voices-
It was a cortege
Of mourning and lament [...]

And the dog was a bulging filterbag
Of all the deaths it had gulped for the flesh and the bones.
It could not digest their screeching finales.
Its shapeless cry was a blort of all those voices.

Qu'importe.

Seul demeure le sentiment de légèreté qui est la mort même ou, pour le dire plus précisément, l'instant de ma mort désormais toujours en instance.

Maurice Blanchot. L'instant de ma mort. Paris: Gallimard, 2002, p.17.

Vers la prose

Voici un lien qui vous conduira tout droit sur le site remue.net et un texte très intéressant du poète/essayiste Pierre Alferi.

http://www.remue.net/cont/alferi1.html

Ebauche d'une traduction de 'Measure'

Mesure

Retours.
Lumière cuivrée de nouveau
hésitante parmi les petites feuilles

d'un prunier Japonais. Eté
et coucher du soleil, la paix
du bureau d'écriture

et la tranquillité habituelle
de l'écriture, ces choses
forment un ordre auquel

j'appartiens seulement dans l'oisiveté
de l'attention. Dernière lumière
borde la montagne bleue

et j'aperçois presque
à quoi je suis né,
non pas dans la lumière du soleil

ni le prunier
mais dans la pulsation
qui forme ces lignes.

Traduit par Tomas Sidoli.

Measure by Robert Hass

Recurrences.
Coppery light hesitates
again in the small-leaved

Japanese plum. Summer
and sunset, the peace
of the writing desk

and the habitual peace
of writing, these things
form an order I only

belong to in the idleness
of attention. Last light
rims the blue mountain

and I almost glimpse
what I was born to,
not so much in the sunlight

or the plum tree
as in the pulse
that form these lines.

Robert Hass. Field Guide. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1973, p.44.

Over the Garden Gate

Look at you nouveau
vine of legumes
kept from growing by the dead
branches bending in;

I will break them off for you
more and more each day
to snap your sweetness

Valyntina Grenier.

from 'Les allures naturelles'

III
1.
quand rien n'entraîne rien
ne s'agite au-dehors l'inertie
se fait agitation entraînement en vue
de rien mais d'un rien qui se fait
obstacle et le moindre contact
inverse le sens de la marche (ignorant
qu'on l'observe à travers deux fenêtres, un inconnu
s'habille, se déshabille, s'assied, se lève, décroche, repose
le combiné) : d'abord l'incohérence
de particules en suspension
puis la période. Un geste quotidien
filmé en vidéo
un geste rejoué, son aire
parcourue en tous sens comme un pas
de breakdance dont l'endroit n'est plus
que l'envers de l'envers, est déjà
autre chose : une forme
cristalline impassible.

Pierre Alferi. Les allures naturelles. Paris: P.O.L, 1991, p.23.

from 'The Fatalist'

in the realm of sensations. Speed has tint, it tilts, it is admittedly
indistinguishable from the sky but do sensations stop in sleep
and merely remember? Is memory a halt? Is the dream
not an orifice belonging to sleep? The sun that lights the obvious
oblivion cannot stop it. That's what fate is : whatever's happened
- time regained.

Lyn Hejinian. The Fatalist. Richmond: Omnidawn, 2003, p.83.

Page disparu de L'arrêt de Mort

Ces pages peuvent ici trouver leur terme, et ce que je viens d'écrire, nulle suite ne m'y fera rien ajouter ni rien ôter. Cela demeure, cela demeurera jusqu'au bout. Qui voudrait l'effacer de moi-même, en échange de cette fin que je cherche vainement, deviendrait à son tour le début de ma propre histoire, et il serait ma proie. Dans l'obscurité il me verrait; ma parole serait son silence, et il croirait reigner sur le monde, mais cette souveraineté serait encore la mienne, son néant le mien et lui aussi saurait qu'il n'y a pas de fin à partir d'un homme qui veut finir seul.

Que cela soit donc rappelé à qui lirait ces pages en les croyant traversées par la pensée du malheur. Et plus encore, qu'il essaie d'imaginer la main qui les écrit: s'il la voyait, peut-être lire lui deviendrait-il une tâche sérieuse.

Maurice Blanchot.

Littérature et Vie

Ecrire est une affaire de devenir, toujours inachevé, toujours en train de se faire, et qui déborde toute matière vivable ou vécue. C'est un processus, c'est-à-dire un passage de Vie qui traverse le vivable et le vécu. L'écriture est inséparable du devenir: en écrivant, on devient-femme, on devient-animal ou végétal, on devient-molécule jusqu'à devenir-imperceptible.

Gilles Deleuze. Critique et Clinique. Paris: Minuit, 1993, p.11.

from The Pretty Redhead by Apollinaire

Here I am in front of all, a man full of sense
Knowing of life and death only what a living man can
Having experienced the pains and joys of love
Having sometimes been able to get my ideas across
Knowing several languages
Having travelled quite a bit [...]

I know of old and new as much as one man could possibly know

Translation by T.Sidoli.

from Privilege of Being by Robert Hass

Many are making love. Up above, the angels
in the unshaken ether and crystal of human longing
are braiding one another's hair, which is strawberry blond
and the texture of cold rivers.

Robert Hass, Human Wishes. New York: Ecco Press, 1989, p.69.

Exile Magazine link fixed

I have been getting lots of e-mails saying the Exile link was broken. It is now fixed.

If you do visit the site, the editors have told me that they appreciate your comments. So do not be shy and leave a comment under the 'Your views' section.

It is the publication of English-studying French students in Grenoble, France. Considering English is not their mother tongue, the magazine is of an extreamely good quality. The English is very good, the articles always interesting, and the magazine 'design' astonishing.

I invite you to check it out.

Also, should any of you out there contribute to interesting online magazines, please let me know and I'll do my best to get the word out!

Postcard to the Homeland

«What goes by the name of love is banishment, with now and then a postcard from the homeland, such is my considered opinion, this evening.»

Samuel Beckett, First Love.


When Beckett wrote Premier Amour in 1946 (later translated into English as First Love in 1972) ten years had already elapsed since he had left Ireland. In 1946, he decided to leave the English language and to go towards the «langue sans style» that is French. Beckett had already written in French before, but he had now had his «vision», he now knew that his art was to be one of impoverishment or «appauvrissement» ; hence the switch to French and it’s stylelessness. So in the year of 1946, Beckett had exiled himself from Ireland and his «borrowed» yet native English.

Love or what we call love is banishment. Banishment is love. Here the narrator seems to be saying that exile is a sort of love, a love kept alive by postcards received from the homeland. The narrator of First Love like those of the novellas 'The End' and 'The Expelled', has been thrown out, expelled, banished from home. He is living his first love whilst an exile. It is not surprising therefore that these two feelings, which are new to him, should become one, or at
the very least interchangeable. But maybe we are simplifying matters. Maybe what he means is that to love something is to be far from it, that love is only possible from a distance. And that the postcards from the homeland, or the loved one, are images sent by memory, an imagination of memory, to keep that love going. If we take banishment as meaning exile that is.

For banishment is not only a synonym of exile, it also means «being dismissed from one’s presence or mind.» Love in this case would be the state of no longer being oneself, of dismissing
oneself from one’s presence, from one’s mind. «One is no longer oneself, on such occasions…» This is what the narrator tells us a few lines before. The «occasion» in question is an erection, or the sign of passion, of irrational thought. Love then is banishment from rational thought, the homeland moments of rationality. But what if we pushed our interpretation a bit further (at the risk of going too far?) and considered the phallus as symbol of the pen, the erection as the act of writing? Then, one is no longer oneself when one writes, one dismisses oneself from one’s presence, into another, from one language to another. «Such is my considered opinion, this evening.» To consider an opinion is to be rational. After dismissing oneself from one’s presence through writing, there is the rationality of re-writing, of considering what has been written.

In one sentence, Beckett manages to sum up his feelings on his exile from Ireland, his exile from English, and his love of both. And maybe to love them both is only possible by banishing himself from them. So that the postcards from the homeland can keep arriving, now and then, and make him go on. So that he may continue writing postcards to the adestination that is the imaginary
homeland. In 1946 Beckett was only beginning to write his postcards in French, hence «What goes by the name of love is banishment, with now and then a postcard from the homeland, such is my considered opinion, this evening.» Today, with all the postcards he has written, I believe it is safe to say that «What goes by the name of exile is love, with now and then a postcard sent to the homeland, such is my considered opinion, this evening.»

Anton Derridovitch. from 'Exile', Issue 1, November 2004.

À un ami

Ici, le printemps est arrivé, les choses se meuvent. Les branches ne sont plus nues, de petites tiges vertes les recouvrent désormais. Le ciel dégueule de grosses pluies sans fin. Le soleil se cache ; ses rares apparitions font voir les couleurs aubergine des huiles mélangées à l’eau des pavements gris. Les brins d’herbes se noient dans la boue.

Nous croyions à un matin de dimanche paisible, non à celui d’un lendemain de beuverie.

J.M.Maulpoix's site has reopened.

J.M.Maulpoix has reopened his site. We thank him, whilst deploring the unfair judgment of this sorry affair.

Aidons Jean-Michel Maulpoix

If you wish to know the whole story before deciding to circulate this message, click on the Maulpoix link to the right. You will find all the facts. You can then make your own mind up.


2. Une lettre de Jean-Michel Maulpoix :

Chers amis,Je vous remercie de vos messages de soutien. Le mieux que l'on puisse faire est de donner quelque publicité à cet insensé verdict. Il faudrait que des écrivains, des libraires, des éditeurs, des animateurs de sites internet ou de blogs, et de simples lecteurs, protestent contre l'absence de discernement et de mesure de l'aveugle machine judiciaire qui met en cause la liberté d'expression qui nous est chère.Je vous transmets, à ce propos, le texte d'un communiqué rédigé par mes avocats. Si vous en avez la possibilité, aidez-moi à le répandre...Bien amicalement à vous,JM.Maulpoix

3. Communiqué des avocats de Jean-Michel Maulpoix :

L'écrivain Jean-Michel Maulpoix, également professeur à l'Université de Nanterre et Président de la Maison des écrivains, vient d'être condamné par la Cour d'appel de Montpellier à 5000 euros d'amende et de frais de justice pour avoir relayé sur son site web personnel un témoignage relatif à des violences policières. Par la même décision, la Cour relaxe le poète Brice Petit, auteur de ce récit largement diffusé sur internet.Il n'y a eu aucune instruction du dossier. Jean-Michel Maulpoix n'a jamais eu affaire à la justice. Il ne connaissait ni Brice Petit ni les personnes visées par ce texte. Personne ne lui a jamais demandé le retrait de ce texte de son site, ni de la quinzaine d'autres qui l'ont également publié sans être inquiétés. Il a seulement accompli un geste de solidarité citoyenne sur internet.Dans son texte Brice Petit reprochait aux agents de police de l'avoir brutalisé et mensongèrement accusé d'outrage. Il a été relaxé de l'accusation d'outrage par la même décision qui condamne Jean-Michel Maulpoix. Il a aussi été relaxé des poursuites engagées contre lui pour avoir affirmé que les policiers l'avaient brutalisé. C'est donc qu'il disait la vérité et c'est donc la vérité que le texte publié sur internet dénonçait.Mais Jean-Michel Maulpoix, simple internaute solidaire, a lui été condamné grâce aux règles procédurales de la diffamation qui lui interdisent de démontrer qu'il a dit la vérité et qu'il était de bonne foi. On lui a appliqué à la lettre une loi obsolète au bénéfice de policiers dont les mensonges et la brutalité ne sont pas démentis par la même décision de justiceExiste-t-il une liberté d'expression si elle ne protège pas une personne qui dit la vérité et est de bonne foi ?

Possibility of Being

'fiction et poésie visent l’être, non plus sous la modalité de l’être-donné, mais sous la modalité du pouvoir-être.'

Paul Ricoeur, Du Texte à l’action.

Wordsworthian blank verse

In terms of stress, almost everything is medium to light. The verse is quiet in sound. While it moves, it seems scarcely to be moving. It is like the picture of a cloud in motion rather than that cloud above us in the sky. One is driven in describing this, as so often in poetry, in terms not so much of stress as of voice. It is a quiet voice, the quietest of all voices.

Philip Hobsbaum.

Love

What goes by the name of love is banishment, with now and then a postcard from the homeland, such is my considered opinion, this evening.

Samuel Beckett. First Love and Other Novellas. London:Penguin, 2000.

On Lyricism.

Lyricism, like the term ‘voice’, is one of those all-englobing terms that we often find in literary criticism. Since its origins go back to the lyre, that instrument found in ancient Greece which the Oxford Modern English Dictionary describes as, ‘an ancient stringed instrument like a small U-shaped harp, usually accompanying the voice’[1], it is not surprising that, since then, the term has acquired all sorts of meanings. Indeed, at some stages of its long history, the term as either been used to praise the exalted language of poets, or on the contrary to condemn the over blown style of poets who maybe went a bit too far over the top. The poet indulging in the art of the lyric is always walking on a tight rope. He tries to balance himself by reaching a just equilibrium, but falls flat on his face as soon as he elevates himself too much. What is common to these two views of lyricism is their sense of elevation. We shall not concentrate on the pejorative aspects of the term here, but rather on what the Oxford Dictionary of Modern English calls the ‘songlike’[2] quality of lyricism. For over the years the musical instrument has surrendered its place to the voice of poets. If lyric poems have often been thought of as the expression of the poet’s subjectivity, they are, nevertheless, much more than that.

We still have not defined what we mean by ‘lyricism’, and maybe to define it is very difficult, if not impossible. Maulpoix, who has written an insightful study on the subject of lyricism, gives the following definition:

J’appelle aujourd’hui lyrisme cette en allée qui ne va à proprement parler nulle part, mais durant laquelle le marcheur connaît avec exactitude son poids et son vertige.[3]

Lyricism is language aspiring for height, trying to reach what Gerard Manley Hopkins named ‘heightened language’. Hopkins was referring to poetry when he used the expression. By ‘heightened language’ it seems that he was trying to describe what made poetry different from everyday language. The ‘heightened tongue’ tries to elevate itself above the ordinariness of day to day communication. One of the aspects of poetry which enables this heightening is its lyrical quality. It is the poet’s old dream of chanting as high as the bird, of elevating his song to the gods.
[1] Julia Swannell, ed. The Oxford Modern English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992, p.637.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Jean-Michel Maulpoix, Du Lyrisme. Paris : José Corti, 2000, p.10. English Translation:
Today, I call lyricism this forward leap which does not really go anywhere, but during which one knowns one's weight and vertigo with precise exactitude.

from Tomas Sidoli,Writing the Tongue: A Study of Seamus Heaney's Electric Light. Grenoble: T.E.R, 2005, p.17.

A un ami

Ici, le printemps commence déjà à arriver. Des boutons de fleurs blanches peuplent les extrémités des branches nues. Le soleil, n’ayant pas le choix, se lève de nouveau et les brins d’herbes, caressés par le vent, scintillent comme le large poudroie sous la lumière des beaux jours.

Il y a encore quelques jours, nous ne croyions plus au printemps mais seulement en la nuit.

Littleblood

O littleblood, hiding from the mountains in the mountains
Wounded by stars and leaking shadow
Eating the medicinal earth.

O littleblood, little boneless little skinless
Ploughing with a linnet’s carcase
Reaping the wind and threshing the stones.

O littleblood, drumming in a cow’s skull
Dancing with a gnat’s feet
With an elephant’s nose with a crocodile’s tail.

Grown so wise grown so terrible
Sucking death’s mouldy tits.

Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.

— Ted Hughes

Good News for the New Year

Faber has just published its 2006 Poetry catalogue. Things to look forward to this year include Seamus Heaney's new collection 'District and Circle' in April, and in May, Muldoon's Oxford poetry lectures under the title 'The End of the Poem'.

There must be other goodies in there too, but I am only much concerned with our two fellow Irishmen! 'Til April 2006, I can only advise those who have not, to read Heaney's Electric Light. The critics were harsh on this collection. What many failed to notice was that Heaney's poetry is changing direction, for the better I feel. Let us not judge a new road using old standards. In other words, let us not be afraid of change!