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34 <h1 class="title">About Case Duckworth</h1>
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43 <section class="content prose"><p>Case Duckworth is the cowardly but lovable Great Dane who solves mysteries on TV. Maybe you’ve seen him while watching commercials for Pine-Sol or Orange-Glo cleaners. These products dress as monsters to lure only the right kind of venture capitalist, but Duckworth believes in the right of all <a href="love-as-god.html">venture capitalists</a> to invest in products they believe in. His mortal enemy is the evil Old Man Jenkins, who believes that the only venture capitalists that should be allowed to invests are from the Meddling Kids gang of Edo.</p>
44<p>When not being a Great Dane, Duckworth is a Christmas ham, spreading good cheer and pork products to underprivileged gangs of venture capitalists in winter. He keeps them warm with his questionable farming practices and threat of Trichinosis, as well as with his own brand of firestarter called Duckworth Stax. He usually steals his Stax from dog food factories, making him a modern Robin Hood in addition to a Great Dane and Christmas Ham.</p>
45<p>Case Duckworth truly is a jack-of-all-trades. The only thing missing from his repertoire is the ability to begin a word with anything but an “R” sound, although given the fact he is a dog, it’s remarkable he can speak at all. Duckworth was voiced by <a href="http://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/Don-Messick/">Don Messick</a> until his death in 1997, when <a href="http://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/Frank-Welker/">Frank Welker</a> took over, to the dismay of fans everywhere.</p></section>
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43 <section class="content prose"><p><a href="http://man.cx/tr"><code>tr</code></a> has been a part of the Unix toolset since the late 70s. Short for translate or transliterate, <code>tr</code> takes two strings as arguments, and replaces incidences of the first with the second while reading a byte stream. It also supports ranges of characters, in formats such as <code>A-Z</code> as well as the POSIX-compliant <code>[:alpha:]</code>. Although <a href="http://man.cx/sed"><code>sed</code></a> has more options and features, for a quick search-and-replace, <code>tr</code> is more than sufficient.</p>
44<p>The <a href="cold-wind.html">wind blows hard up here</a>—far harder than anywhere else I’ve been. I wonder, at times, if it might <a href="lappel-du-vide.html">pick me up like an angel</a> and carry me into the night.</p>
45<p>The secret to truly great <a href="riptide_memory.html">rolls is mayonnaise</a>. Although I have received looks of disgust at this assertion, I think the explanation is enough to expel doubt: mayonnaise includes the fat, cream and egg content rolls need to be any good, plus in mayonnaise they come premeasured and perfectly blended, which makes for incredibly easy and delicious rolls. After I explain myself, the looks of disgust usually remain.</p>
46<p>My mother used to make me mayonnaise rolls, and hers will always be the best. I had a teacher in college who explained xenophobia as “Mother’s cooking is best.”</p>
47<p>One of my favorite fictional theories is the <a href="http://www.voxday.blogspot.com/2015/02/mailvox-marxism-and-shoe-event-horizon.html">Shoe Event Horizon</a>, an economic truth which states that as a society progresses, shoe stores become more and more prevalent. The demand for shoes raises slowly, almost imperceptibly, causing shoe manufacturers to make more and cheaper shoes. This begins a vicious cycle during which more and more shoes are made, more and more cheaply, causing more shoes to be bought, and thus made, until finally the society reaches the Shoe Event Horizon. This is the point at which it becomes economically impossible for any stores but shoe stores to exist. After the economy collapses, the society’s people invariably turn <a href="statements-frag.html">into birds</a>, never to touch ground again.</p>
48<p><a href="http://man.cx/awk"><code>awk</code></a> is often used as a command-line stream-editing tool, but it is actually an entire interpreted language. It supports multiple variables and logical structuring, and has been the inspiration for <a href="http://www.perl.org/">Perl</a>, which has largely replaced it. It was originally written in 1977, but over the years has evolved, with multiple implementations made for different uses.</p>
49<p>The best shoes I ever owned were Franco Fortinis, a brand I have yet to find anywhere else. Sometimes I wonder if I dreamed the shoes, like in stories where the protagonist buys a powerful object from a mysterious store and try to return it after it backfires in some tragic way, only to find the spot where the store stood is an empty lot, or worse, a <a href="building.html">blank brick wall</a>.</p>
50<p>After having moved to Arizona, I fear I will forget what rain is like. I don’t think it’s sandbags falling on the body, and I believe it is cold. I think <em>Daredevil</em>, that piss of a film, has endeared itself to me forever with its depiction of rain.</p>
51<p>Recent studies have proven eyewitness testimony to be utterly unreliable. It turns out that memory is not a record set down on the tablet of the brain, but rather a series of impressions, emotions, and physical states that changes even with access. One of my students is having a hard time finding arguments in favor of the use of eyewitness testimony for a paper. This is how obvious the workings of memory are.</p>
52<p>And yet. <a href="early.html">Without our memory we are nothing</a>. Memory is the tether to the floor of the ocean of our past, the ocean is our collective subconscious, which we float on, on the inner tube of individual perception, slathering on the suntan lotion of our prejudices, wearing the sunglasses of self-deception, all underneath the sun of technology. The seagulls of death circle slowly, calling to each other the call of their society, secret in its machinations.</p>
53<p>My father told me that once, when swimming, a rip tide pulled him far out to sea. He said it was impossible to tell until it was too late. The shore simply receded too slowly. He never told me how he made it back, but I imagine him, bearded, beached, coughing up saltwater: a new shipwrecked victim.</p>
54<p><a href="http://man.cx/grep"><code>grep</code></a> is a basic search tool for UNIX-based systems. It has a robust syntax, though I’ve had trouble remembering the regex nuances between it, <code>sed</code>’s, and <code>perl</code>’s. There is a POSIX standard, but no one follows standards.</p>
55<p>My mother loves Annie Dillard. She always talks about the praying mantis egg case scene: Dillard could never find a praying mantis egg case, until she finally saw one by accident. After that, she saw them everywhere.</p>
56<p>My mother showed me an egg case once. I haven’t seen one since.</p>
57<p>My friend Steven has over three hundred pairs of shoes. He tells me his goal is eventually to obtain a calendar of shoes, and wear a different one each day of the year. He doesn’t include the forty days of Lent, however. <a href="leg.html">He goes barefoot those forty days</a>.</p></section>
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43 <section class="content prose"><p>I turned off the TV as soon as the end credits began. I stretched in the La-Z-Boy™ I grew up in, pushing its back until I lay horizontal, feet slightly elevated. I stared at the light, at the bugs silhouetted inside it. I relaxed, thought about sleeping in the chair with the light on. I decided against it, pulled the lever to pull the chairback up and the footrest down, stood up, went around the corner, turned off the light, <a href="underwear.html">stripped to my underwear</a>, and got <a href="in-bed.html">in bed</a>. I made sure my alarm was set for 8:00 and lay face-up in the dark. Eventually I slept.</p>
44<p>I still consider this to be the best summer I ever had, in terms of my sleep schedule. Every night I went to bed at midnight, after Stewart and Colbert. Every morning I woke up at eight, took a shower, ate my Frosted Mini-Wheats™, and brushed my teeth. I took my time because I didn’t have to leave for work until 9:30. My shift at Dollywood started at 10:00. It was my second summer there—I worked as Larry the Cucumber™ mostly, though sometimes I would pick up the shift for one of the official Dollywood mascots when they had their day off.</p>
45<p>I went outside when the wall clock read 9:32. The day was already beginning to warm up. I walked across the road to my car, a Saturn®, my first, started it, pulled into the road, and looked up at my window, the only one on the second floor of my house. I said “So long” <a href="hymnal.html">in my head</a> to my room, the house, and my two sisters still sleeping inside, and drove down the road.</p>
46<hr />
47<p>My morning commute was rural, through farms, creeks, hills, and hollows; past tourist cabin resorts and used Christian bookstores; nearly getting to Pigeon Forge but stopping before any of the Strip was visible. Like Las Vegas, Pigeon Forge has a Strip; it was second only to Vegas in terms of marriages performed; it was first in the country including Vegas to feature two Cracker Barrels®. I went into Pigeon Forge only if I couldn’t help it, which was rare; usually it was only if family from out-of-state were visiting, or the one time I and two friends went to the Buy-One-Pair-Get-Two-Pair-Free Boot Store and got a deal.</p>
48<p>I turned left before I got to any of Pigeon Forge, into the employee entrance of Dollywood. I drove down a small road: to my left a hill covered in kudzu; to my right a fence past which I could hear people riding The River Rampage™ or Rockin’ Roadway™. I turned left again, drove past HR and the Dollywood doctor’s office, and checked for parking at the bottom of the hill. There wasn’t any, so I drove up the hill, found a parking spot, and got out of my car. I thought about waiting for an employee shuttle until I realized it was 9:55, so I trotted down the hill and past HR. I crossed the road in front of the gazebo, walked down a little path, and met Tim the security guard as I was crossing the main road. He asked to see my ID, which I had ready for him. I showed it to him, he looked me up and down (I wasn’t in costume, usually a no at Dollywood, but since my costume was green, expensive, and required at least two people to put on, I didn’t have to wear it onto the park), and finally let me through. I walked through the employee entrance and clocked in at 9:58.</p>
49<p>I had only figured out how to clock in my second summer. The first summer I worked at Dollywood was also the first summer I worked a job, and due to the placement of the Atmosphere Characters in the hierarchy of Park management we got paid by the day. This confused me into thinking that I didn’t need to clock in and out, especially since I still got paid. My confusion deepened when I walked onto Park one day with Chance, who also worked Veggie Tales™, and he clocked in, but this was midway through the summer and I was too nervous to ask anyone about what I should do. I was worried that if I started clocking in it would cause suspicion, and I was terrified that my not clocking in would be caught and punished somehow. For about a month I lived in mild terror each morning and afternoon, avoiding my coworkers as they entered or left so they wouldn’t see me walk past the red time clocks, each day wondering if the hammer would fall. I found out later that my manager Charlie had been paying me based on the days he’d scheduled me, clocking me in and out himself from his computer. He said it wasn’t a big deal but to clock in next summer, this summer. So I clocked in and out every day, and these short sessions with the red time clock became favorite moments.</p>
50<p>I walked onto the park, past Jukebox Junction™, over the bridge, under the rope that disallowed guests to visit the area until the Park opened at 10:00, down Showstreet, and into the back of Showstreet Palace Theater, where we characters shared a dressing room with the Veggie Tales™ actors. Our “dressing-room” was a part of backstage partitioned off by curtains, where the empty shells of Bob the Tomato™ and Larry the Cucumber™ lay, inside-out so the sweat inside could evaporate, between shifts. I grabbed my off-brand UnderArmour™ “slicks” from the laundry basket and went to the bathroom to change.</p>
51<p>After I changed I came out of the bathroom and knocked on the women’s dressing room door, to see if Nina or Stacy were in yet. Nina opened the door. “Hey Case,” she said. “How’s it going?” “I’m good. Am I Larry today?” I had been off the day before, so I wasn’t sure of the rotation. “Yeah I think so,” said Stacy, putting on makeup in the mirror. So she was handling with Chance, while Nina and I were the vegetables. I liked this arrangement; I preferred to be Larry™ because I didn’t have to talk to anyone, and I could make faces in the costume while families took pictures. Nina preferred the same thing, although she was slightly too tall to fit comfortably inside Bob™. Stacy actually preferred to handle; her personality was bubbly and talkative; I don’t think Chance liked any part of the job, really, and handling was less hot than being in the suit.</p>
52<p>“When’s our first run?” I asked. “Well, the first show is at 10:20, so we were thinking about 11?” I nodded. “Where’s Chance?” “I think he went out back to smoke,” Nina said. “I’ll go with you.” The actors for the Veggie Tales show were coming in to use their dressing room, so we left Stacy with them. We walked through backstage, behind all the curtains, and through the side door into a sort of garage with ratty couches, a refrigerator, and an old TV mounted high up on the wall. Chance was sitting, smoking, and watching Jeopardy while thumbing through a magazine. “Hi Chance,” I said. “Hey guys!” he flicked his smile, always somewhere between genuine and mocking, at us.</p>
53<p>“Think it’ll rain today?” he asked, indicating the direction of the sky. It wasn’t really visible from within the garage, due to the high fence keeping the guests on the path toward Timber Tower™ and Mystery Mine™, and the tree just outside the garage. “I don’t think there’s a cloud in the sky,” I said, but walked out of the garage and looked up to be sure. There were wisps of cirrus like stray brush strokes on a blue canvas, but that was all. “I think we’ll have to do all of our runs today.” “Damn,” said Chance, and stubbed out his cigarette. We watched Jeopardy in silence for a few minutes. Chance checked his watch. “It’s 10:19,” he said, “we should get inside before the show starts.”</p>
54<p>We went back to the dressing room, behind the curtains backstage, past the skins of Larry™ and Bob™, their feet, and their battery packs, past the water fountain where I drank, and into the women’s dressing room. Stacy had finished applying her makeup and was already in overalls, flannel, boots and cowboy hat. Seeing her, Chance said, “I’d better go put my outfit on.” He left and came back, costumed. We killed time. Nina turned her wrist and looked at her watch. “It’s 10:50,” she said, looking at me and jerking her head toward the door. “Let’s get ready.”</p>
55<p>We went out and down the hall. The Veggie Tales were singing about Mr. Nezzer™ loving the bunny. Nina went to Bob™, and I to Larry™. We set to work pulling them right-side-out. When this was done we put on the backpacks that served as interior shells for the characters and held the battery packs. As Nina pulled on Bob™‘s legs, I pulled on Larry™’s. I put my shoes in Larry™’s feet—a concession made to the forms of us humans inside the suits (Bob™ and Larry™ on the show had no arms or legs). We clipped each other’s batteries into the packs. We put our hands through the vegetables’ arms. At this point, the vegetables’ faces were sagging from our waists, like deflated balloons. We waddled over to the hallway outside the dressing rooms. Chance helped me put Larry’s hands on, which were three-fingered like a cartoon, although in the cartoon the Veggie Tales characters don’t have hands. He snapped them onto the arm. He helped me pull the head up and over my pack, and clipped the battery to the fan inside the suit. He zipped the back zipper, and the suit started to inflate—Bob™ and Larry™ were inflatable to cut down on their weight. Stacy had done the same with Nina and Bob™. She asked, “Ready?” We said, “Ready.” Chance got ahead of us, opening the door. I had to push my hands into my chest to deflate the suit so it could fit through the door. We stepped into the dappled sunlight of Dollywood.</p>
56<hr />
57<p>The first few minutes of the run were fairly peaceful. A few families walking by saw us and walk over, forming a small line for their children to say hello, get a hug and a picture. One of the kids, about three, got about five feet from me, pass some sort of magic barrier, and suddenly become terrified. She screamed and run back to her parents. I tried to get eye-contact (it was hard to tell exactly where Larry™ was looking, since his eyes were about a foot above my head and were fixed forward), get small, and hold out my hand, but she had seen quite enough. She shook her head and hid behind her mother’s leg. I waved with my fingers and stepped back to receive the next child.</p>
58<p>Sometimes, doing this job, I felt like a priest giving some sort of communion. Sometimes I felt like a celebrity, especially when children asked for an autograph (this happened fairly often, and Chance had to guide my hand with the Sharpie™ in it). Sometimes I felt like Santa Claus, or some other mythical creature come to Earth. Mostly, I felt a little hot and slightly bored. The boredom crystallized into stress when the Veggie Tales show let out.</p>
59<p>Showstreet Palace held something like four hundred people, and for a show like Veggie Tales, around half were children. For this run our post was around the side of the theater, so we didn’t get the full press of the crowd, but there were quite a few people streaming out of the side door, fresh from seeing Larry™, Bob™ and friends performing in a show. Of course they were excited to see them giving out hugs in the street. Chance and Stacy became busy trying to form the crowd into some semblance of a line while I and Nina were hugging children, trying to take our time with each but painfully aware of the next in line. This was the worst part of the job—I felt like I was on a factory line gluing widgets onto a product all day. I was always looking ahead, always at the next kid, barely noticing what the ones old enough to talk were saying to me, trying to show me. I felt callous and aloof from humanity, and a deep unease passed over me.</p>
60<p>With all of this on my mind, of course I didn’t see the teenager running toward me from my left. Chance and Stacy can’t be blamed; they were busy with crowd control. I don’t know what happened to the kid afterward. All I know is what happened to me: suddenly a great weight on my left side, the hiss of air being forced out of Larry™, me almost falling over. The weight fell off. I turned around, too stunned to yell, though Chance had caught it out of the corner of his eye. “Hey! Don’t do that!” he said, his eyes on the fallen teenager. The kid was maybe fifteen, tall, with a white T-shirt and dark hair. He had an indescribable look on his face—surprise, satisfaction, and something else I couldn’t identify. Before Chance could reach him he ran off.</p>
61<p>“You okay?” he turned to me and asked. I said in a low voice, “Yeah I’m fine.” “We’re going in,” he said to Stacy. She checked her watch, said, “Yeah, it’s been twenty minutes.” To the crowd: “We have time for just two more pictures!” A wave of disappointment went through the people there. Most stayed, hoping for an extension of the rule, but we took two more pictures, turned around, and began walking inside. Some family tried to follow us in; Chance hollered over his shoulder, “I’m sorry folks, we have to go in. Bob™ and Larry™ need a break.” The father asked, “When will you be back out?” “After the next show,” Chance said as Stacy opened the door.</p>
62<p>I deflated Larry™’s face again, to get in the door, and was safe in the darkness of the hallway. Chance unzipped me, allowing real, cool air to wash over my body. Nina and I waddled down the hallway to peel the vegetables off ourselves, and to repeat the process of waiting, dressing, and standing again.</p></section>
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43 <section class="content verse"><p>I want to say I take it all back<br />I want<br />I want to take it back I want it none of it<br />to be ever have happened not<br />when I saw you step over the rope<br />when we went to New York for a week<br />but stayed upstate when you punched me<br />hard in the solar plexus in Prague<br />when I looked in your face and <a href="deathstrumpet.html">saw myself</a><br />looking back smiling when we went on another trip<br />and another all the trips I want to have<br />stayed home I want to have seen the clouds<br />drifting past <a href="boy_bus.html">my car window</a> to have listened<br />to that sound the bridge makes driving over it<br />without thinking of you always it was you</p>
44<p>I want</p>
45<p>I <a href="plant.html">want to be fresh</a> I want to roll out of bed<br />as though it were my <a href="collage-instrument.html">first morning in a new state</a><br />I want nothing more than absolution of sins<br /><a href="no-nothing.html">a negation but there is no way to subtract here</a><br />I cannot remove this growth that appeared<br />seemingly overnight I cannot <a href="elegyforanalternateself.html">cut you away from myself</a><br />I cannot forget what has already and will always have been<br />I cannot get out of a <a href="in-bed.html">new bed</a> ever<br />New York will always be as it was when I saw it first<br />with you my breathing will always be labored outside<br />of the cafe I will always see you when <a href="lovesong.html">I look in a mirror</a><br />of someone’s face the reflection of missed thoughts missed<br /><a href="words-meaning.html">words will cease to give meaning</a> the center will come out<br />of me I will make a new center yes I will drag what is<br />your center around with me and <a href="question.html">repeat and repeat</a> again<br />I cannot want cannot want want not</p></section>
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43 <section class="content prose"><p>What is a poem? I think it was Yeats that called a poem “the best words in the best order,” and that isn’t an inaccurate description, but I don’t think it captures all of what a poem is. <a href="prelude.html">Let me start</a> with communication.</p>
44<p>Communication is a transaction, an exchange between two people or entities, in which one (the Speaker/Writer/Communicator) gives the other (the Reader/Listener/Consumer) a<br />set of ideas /<br />a wireframe organization of a concept /<br />a set of reasons/instructions for action. In many kinds of communication, for example speeches, reports, or advertisements, the kind of ideas transacted are generally factual/logical/brain-based in nature. In art, these ideas are emotional/heart-based. In short, Art is to Emotion as an <a href="README.html#fn1">Article</a> is to Information. I think art should strive to transmit the emotion the author feels as efficiently as possible to the reader of that art.</p>
45<p>In order to do this, multiple notation systems have been devised. Music is the most notable example that comes to mind, as it has the most rigid style, but grammar, as used self-consciously in writing, would be another example. Poetry has only a very loose set of rules and assumptions that allow it a sort of notational language, and this is complicated by the fact that when writing poetry, the author writes for a different medium: poetry is meant to be performed aloud. This makes the notation system even more important, but again, it’s hard to come up with a system that will be read mostly the same by most people.</p>
46<p>What I’ve been trying to do since I began writing is develop a personal notation system, or what I think most would refer to as my “voice” as a poet/writer (I personally don’t like the word “poet,” as it sounds pretentious to me; I’m aware I should get over this).</p>
47<p>However, there were some places that still needed improving from my draft manuscript: most notably, my prose in “Rip Tide of Memory” (now only “Rip Tide”) and “AMBER Alert.” I rewrote each to tighten their syntactic and idea rhythm, to make them move more lightly and gracefully.</p>
48<p>The most notable difference in my series is the reordering of poems within it. I think that in my first draft, I spent so much time on getting my individual poems tight and polished that I threw them together somewhat haphazardly, using a loose thematic correspondence with the fake “Table of contents.” With the new order, I hope this has been fixed: the piece consists of six sections, each with three poems (A new one, “Everything stays the same,” makes the totals correct). Each section has a thematic/emotional/personal element that ties the sections together. They are ordered by the order in which I wrote the sestinas at the beginning of each section, which works out to make the series move from identity to memory to a feeling of universal justice, and from there to a discussion of death and (something like) love that culminates in an exploration of the nature of time and cosmology. The piece is bookended by the fake “Table of contents” (provided at the end as an ironic commentary on the rest of the text) and an “About the author” section. I think it works better this way, and I think the “About the author” at the beginning serves as a fair prelude poem to the piece.</p>
49<p>I’m excited to be a writer like I haven’t been before.</p></section>
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43 <section class="content prose"><p>How does one describe a poem?</p>
44<p>A genre is a set of creative outputs that fit a given set of criteria. Genres are useful as a sort of shorthand when describing a thing of art: instead of noting, for example, all of the objects depicted in a still-life that aren’t people or land-features, we call it a still-life and get on to describing how the objects interrelate to each other on the canvas. If you ask me what kind of painting I’m working on, and I say, “a still-life,” you have an expectation of certain elements the painting will contain. If you happen to be an agent and try to sell the painting later, you’ll say to your prospective buyers, “It’s a still-life,” and whether the buyer is over the phone or standing in the gallery, they’ll know whether they’ll like it or not based on whether they like still-lifes. In the same way, they can call you up and ask if you have any still-lifes for sale right now, and get a simple yes-or-no answer for it. This is the first kind of genre, and it applies well within separate types of fundamentally-different media, such as painting, sculpture, film, or the written word.</p>
45<p>A poem, obviously, is in this last category, and for some reason its designation is hairier than others’. People refer to all sorts of art, or even dispassionate events, as poetry; dancing is called “poetry in motion,” for example. I think the confusion is caused in part by the nature of writing as a medium, namely in that it captures thoughts more clearly and communicably than other art forms. While a picture can be “worth a thousand words,” as the old cliché goes, when those words are actually written out they can contain shades of meaning impossible to capture in the picture itself, at least as quickly as they can be absorbed in writing. It seems as though writing is akin to the fundamental nature of thought, or at least of spoken language, which our thought is steeped in.</p>
46<p>So we know what <em>writing</em> is. What is a <em>poem</em>? Especially in a world with such forms as prose poetry, flash fiction, short-shorts, lyrical essays, <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/39/36.html">lyrical <em>ballads</em></a>, et cetera, what makes a poem a poem?</p>
47<p>I read an essay once that lamented the unidimensionality of writing. It posited that prose is really just a long, wrapped line of text that’s bound by time—when you read a novel, for example, you really must start at the beginning and read through to the end, in order. Some newer forms of fiction are changing this, such as the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure genre in the 1970s and 80s, or hyperfiction found online, which raises the question for me if these newer forms could be considered on some level to be poetry.</p>
48<p>This is because poetry has more than one dimension, due to its linear nature—those line breaks are intentional, and the poem can’t just fit into any-sized book or web page. If prose is a liquid, filling any container it’s placed in with a constant volume, poetry is more like a crystallized form of prose, or to put it another way, poetry has between <a href="http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/psychology/cogsci/chaos/workshop/Fractals.html">one and two dimensions</a>. I wouldn’t say that poetry has fully two dimensions, except for some of the more conceptually visual stuff that I’d call a word-picture anyway, because from line to line that unidimensionality of prose remains. Poetry has a higher dimensionality than prose, though, because it’s crystallized there on the page; this fractal-dimensionality of poetry has interesting side effects on the genre itself.</p>
49<p>For one thing, poetry isn’t as bound by time as prose is. It can, as Marianne Boruch writes, resist “narrative sequence,” or “the forward press of <em>time</em> itself,” due to its repetitions and diversions, which are in turn made possible or more apparent by its line breaks. It’s able to meditate on a subject, or expand on it lyrically, exploring the emotions connected with the images in the poem, or the connections between images. Through repitition of sounds, the poem builds meaning through resonance and rhyming, something that’s harder to do in prose. Take, for example, the first lines of “<a href="http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html">The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock</a>:”</p>
50<blockquote>
51<p>LET us go then, you and I,<br />When the evening is spread out against the sky<br />Like a patient etherized upon a table;<br />Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,<br />The muttering retreats<br />Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels<br />And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:<br />Streets that follow like a tedious argument<br />Of insidious intent<br />To lead you to an overwhelming question….<br />Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”<br />Let us go and make our visit.</p>
52</blockquote>
53<p>And here it is again, without line breaks:</p>
54<blockquote>
55<p>LET us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table; let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, the muttering retreats of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels and sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: streets that follow like a tedious argument of insidious intent to lead you to an overwhelming question…. Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” Let us go and make our visit.</p>
56</blockquote>
57<p>The end-rhymes that do so much for the sound of the poem are gone, and so part of the meaning of the poem—its obsessive self-consciousness, its paranoia—are gone as well. Additionally, line breaks act as punctuation in the entirety of this <a href="statements-frag.html">fragment</a>; without them, the meaning becomes obscured in the long first sentence of the poem.</p>
58<p>Perhaps due to this dwelling on scene, or on all aspects of a single scene at one time, poetry tends to be heavy on images, or lyrical. I think this is what’s generally meant when someone describes a dance as “poetic,” or a story or anything else: I think they really mean “lyrical,” or maybe “beautiful.” The images form sort of a narrative as the reader moves through them, as Cesare Pavese says, that’s nevertheless <a href="http://numerocinqmagazine.com/2011/03/07/translation-adaptation-and-transformation-the-poet-as-translator-an-essay-by-richard-jackson/">different than a traditional narrative</a>: this “image narrative” jumps from image to image not by a logical progression but by the resonances between the images that run underneath them, on almost a subliminal plane. Almost without noticing, the reader of a poem is taken on an emotional journey that’s not necessarily connected to the images of the poem, themselves.</p>
59<p>Poetry is a manipulation of emotion, or a communication of it. Prose has the space, the time to describe what’s going on, even if the author stands by the old adage of “show, don’t tell.” <em>Showing</em> in prose inherently involves more telling than poetry does, as poetry communicates a feeling itself. This definition may be broad enough to include certain dance performances or paintings, but that’s okay. I’m of the opinion that the more useful genre distinctions are those which describe the thing technically: <em>verse</em>, for example, or <em>lyrical</em>. <em>Poetry</em> is almost a value judgement, and that makes me a little uncomfortable.</p></section>
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43 <section class="content prose"><p>“My anger is like a peach,” he said. He was trying to show how metaphors could be anything. I thought it worked. I wrote it down in my red notebook.</p>
44<p>In my other class, there was a long discussion about the difference between metaphor and simile as they relate to <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html">Prufrock</a>. I could only think about his peaches. I wonder if he dared.</p>
45<p>A few years ago my friend dressed up as J. Alfred Prufrock for Halloween. Her costume consisted of rolled khaki trousers and a peach. (I wonder where she found that in <a href="axe.html">October</a>.) She was annoyed that she had to tell everyone who she was—“At a writers’ party!” I don’t remember if she ate that peach. I do remember the main meal was spaghetti.</p>
46<p>That party was held in a house in Chattanooga, in the basement. There was a big back yard where people drank and talked and sat in the darkness. Somewhere someone was smoking weed with a visiting writer.</p>
47<p>Earlier that day, <a href="http://www.32poems.com/blog/5158/weekly-prose-feature-an-interview-with-sebastian-matthews-by-justin-bigos">the writer had read a poem about his car accident</a> a year ago, in Georgia, on the interstate. It had broken him pretty badly, and his wife, but somehow their child was unharmed. He said something about the peach pit being the one place Georgia held sacred. He said it was the place where all new things grow.</p>
48<p>I can see how anger could be like a peach: its juice runs out of the mouth and down the chin, dropping onto the pants and staining them. In the same way, I can see how <a href="statements-frag.html">anger is like sex</a>: they are both heightened states of emotional observation.</p>
49<p>In Atlanta, there are something like five or ten <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/place/Peachtree+Rd+NE,+Atlanta,+GA/@33.7779425,-84.3843615">Peachtree Streets</a>. I’m not sure if they all connect at some point, but from what I could see, they would have to do some contorting to get to the same point. I like to think a giant peach tree grows there, like the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.</p>
50<p>I was walking down one of Atlanta’s Peachtrees with my girlfriend when a man in tight pants, a runner, jogged past us. We both agreed he had a marvelous ass. I was annoyed, however, when she confessed that she wished I had one like his. Later, we ate at a taqueria with peach-habanero salsa.</p>
51<p><a href="riptide_memory.html">My mother</a> would read to us as children. The first real books I remember, the first novels, are Island of the Blue Dolphins and James and the Giant Peach. I don’t remember Island of the Blue Dolphins as well, probably because no movie was made of it.</p>
52<p>There’s an independent video rental store where I grew up called <a href="http://popcornvideo.net/">Popcorn Video</a>, one of the only stores I went to in my hometown that wasn’t a chain. Every time we went, my sister would rent two movies: <em>James and the Giant Peach</em> and <em>Home Alone 3</em>.</p>
53<p>I wasn’t allowed to stay home alone, or I don’t remember it, until I was fifteen. I built a potato cannon out of PVC pipe and a barbecue lighter. I would load a potato, spray hairspray into the barrel, and light it. Once, the cannon wouldn’t light. I looked down the barrel and pushed the trigger button to see if I could see a light. I forgot that I had already primed the barrel with hairspray. I singed my eyebrows and bangs.</p>
54<p>In peach season, my father would bring home a bag of the freestones every week or so. He always got the cheap ones, so they were usually dry and pithy, with a stone that fell apart and nearly broke my tooth. I don’t eat them anymore when I go home.</p>
55<p>My mother would always eat canned peaches with cottage cheese. For some reason I didn’t think this was common knowledge. I showed people how good it was when we went to a buffet: they said “I know.”</p>
56<p>To be honest, I’m not even sure what a peach tree looks like. I do know what an orange tree looks like, from a backyard in Phoenix, and a fig tree, from a back yard in Chattanooga. I also know what a cherry tree looks like, or at least a type of them, from my own backyard at home, as well as mulberry and apple. If, for some reason, I find myself lost in a sinister Garden of Eden, I’ll at least know a few of the trees I can eat from.</p>
57<p>I always heard growing up that the Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was an apple. Maybe I’ll luck out: maybe it’ll be a peach.</p></section>
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1about
2case
3duckworth
4case
5duckworth
6is
7the
8cowardly
9but
10lovable
11great
12dane
13who
14solves
15mysteries
16on
17tv
18maybe
19you've
20seen
21him
22while
23watching
24commercials
25for
26pine-sol
27or
28orange-glo
29cleaners
30these
31products
32dress
33as
34monsters
35to
36lure
37only
38the
39right
40kind
41of
42venture
43capitalist
44but
45duckworth
46believes
47in
48the
49right
50of
51all
52venture
53capitalists
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55invest
56in
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58they
59believe
60in
61his
62mortal
63enemy
64is
65the
66evil
67old
68man
69jenkins
70who
71believes
72that
73the
74only
75venture
76capitalists
77that
78should
79be
80allowed
81to
82invests
83are
84from
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86meddling
87kids
88gang
89of
90edo
91when
92not
93being
94a
95great
96dane
97duckworth
98is
99a
100christmas
101ham
102spreading
103good
104cheer
105and
106pork
107products
108to
109underprivileged
110gangs
111of
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113capitalists
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117keeps
118them
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121his
122questionable
123farming
124practices
125and
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128trichinosis
129as
130well
131as
132with
133his
134own
135brand
136of
137firestarter
138called
139duckworth
140stax
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142usually
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145stax
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148food
149factories
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151him
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153modern
154robin
155hood
156in
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160great
161dane
162and
163christmas
164ham
165case
166duckworth
167truly
168is
169a
170jack-of-all-trades
171the
172only
173thing
174missing
175from
176his
177repertoire
178is
179the
180ability
181to
182begin
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184word
185with
186anything
187but
188an
189r
190sound
191although
192given
193the
194fact
195he
196is
197a
198dog
199it's
200remarkable
201he
202can
203speak
204at
205all
206duckworth
207was
208voiced
209by
210don
211messick
212until
213his
214death
215in
2161997
217when
218frank
219welker
220took
221over
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224dismay
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diff --git a/river/collage-instrument.river b/river/collage-instrument.river new file mode 100644 index 0000000..52f7212 --- /dev/null +++ b/river/collage-instrument.river
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1instrumented
2a
3collage
4tr
5has
6been
7a
8part
9of
10the
11unix
12toolset
13since
14the
15late
1670s
17short
18for
19translate
20or
21transliterate
22tr
23takes
24two
25strings
26as
27arguments
28and
29replaces
30incidences
31of
32the
33first
34with
35the
36second
37while
38reading
39a
40byte
41stream
42it
43also
44supports
45ranges
46of
47characters
48in
49formats
50such
51as
52a-z
53as
54well
55as
56the
57posix-compliant
58alpha
59although
60sed
61has
62more
63options
64and
65features
66for
67a
68quick
69search-and-replace
70tr
71is
72more
73than
74sufficient
75the
76wind
77blows
78hard
79up
80here
81far
82harder
83than
84anywhere
85else
86i've
87been
88i
89wonder
90at
91times
92if
93it
94might
95pick
96me
97up
98like
99an
100angel
101and
102carry
103me
104into
105the
106night
107the
108secret
109to
110truly
111great
112rolls
113is
114mayonnaise
115although
116i
117have
118received
119looks
120of
121disgust
122at
123this
124assertion
125i
126think
127the
128explanation
129is
130enough
131to
132expel
133doubt
134mayonnaise
135includes
136the
137fat
138cream
139and
140egg
141content
142rolls
143need
144to
145be
146any
147good
148plus
149in
150mayonnaise
151they
152come
153premeasured
154and
155perfectly
156blended
157which
158makes
159for
160incredibly
161easy
162and
163delicious
164rolls
165after
166i
167explain
168myself
169the
170looks
171of
172disgust
173usually
174remain
175my
176mother
177used
178to
179make
180me
181mayonnaise
182rolls
183and
184hers
185will
186always
187be
188the
189best
190i
191had
192a
193teacher
194in
195college
196who
197explained
198xenophobia
199as
200mother's
201cooking
202is
203best
204one
205of
206my
207favorite
208fictional
209theories
210is
211the
212shoe
213event
214horizon
215an
216economic
217truth
218which
219states
220that
221as
222a
223society
224progresses
225shoe
226stores
227become
228more
229and
230more
231prevalent
232the
233demand
234for
235shoes
236raises
237slowly
238almost
239imperceptibly
240causing
241shoe
242manufacturers
243to
244make
245more
246and
247cheaper
248shoes
249this
250begins
251a
252vicious
253cycle
254during
255which
256more
257and
258more
259shoes
260are
261made
262more
263and
264more
265cheaply
266causing
267more
268shoes
269to
270be
271bought
272and
273thus
274made
275until
276finally
277the
278society
279reaches
280the
281shoe
282event
283horizon
284this
285is
286the
287point
288at
289which
290it
291becomes
292economically
293impossible
294for
295any
296stores
297but
298shoe
299stores
300to
301exist
302after
303the
304economy
305collapses
306the
307society's
308people
309invariably
310turn
311into
312birds
313never
314to
315touch
316ground
317again
318awk
319is
320often
321used
322as
323a
324command-line
325stream-editing
326tool
327but
328it
329is
330actually
331an
332entire
333interpreted
334language
335it
336supports
337multiple
338variables
339and
340logical
341structuring
342and
343has
344been
345the
346inspiration
347for
348perl
349which
350has
351largely
352replaced
353it
354it
355was
356originally
357written
358in
3591977
360but
361over
362the
363years
364has
365evolved
366with
367multiple
368implementations
369made
370for
371different
372uses
373the
374best
375shoes
376i
377ever
378owned
379were
380franco
381fortinis
382a
383brand
384i
385have
386yet
387to
388find
389anywhere
390else
391sometimes
392i
393wonder
394if
395i
396dreamed
397the
398shoes
399like
400in
401stories
402where
403the
404protagonist
405buys
406a
407powerful
408object
409from
410a
411mysterious
412store
413and
414try
415to
416return
417it
418after
419it
420backfires
421in
422some
423tragic
424way
425only
426to
427find
428the
429spot
430where
431the
432store
433stood
434is
435an
436empty
437lot
438or
439worse
440a
441blank
442brick
443wall
444after
445having
446moved
447to
448arizona
449i
450fear
451i
452will
453forget
454what
455rain
456is
457like
458i
459don't
460think
461it's
462sandbags
463falling
464on
465the
466body
467and
468i
469believe
470it
471is
472cold
473i
474think
475daredevil
476that
477piss
478of
479a
480film
481has
482endeared
483itself
484to
485me
486forever
487with
488its
489depiction
490of
491rain
492recent
493studies
494have
495proven
496eyewitness
497testimony
498to
499be
500utterly
501unreliable
502it
503turns
504out
505that
506memory
507is
508not
509a
510record
511set
512down
513on
514the
515tablet
516of
517the
518brain
519but
520rather
521a
522series
523of
524impressions
525emotions
526and
527physical
528states
529that
530changes
531even
532with
533access
534one
535of
536my
537students
538is
539having
540a
541hard
542time
543finding
544arguments
545in
546favor
547of
548the
549use
550of
551eyewitness
552testimony
553for
554a
555paper
556this
557is
558how
559obvious
560the
561workings
562of
563memory
564are
565and
566yet
567without
568our
569memory
570we
571are
572nothing
573memory
574is
575the
576tether
577to
578the
579floor
580of
581the
582ocean
583of
584our
585past
586the
587ocean
588is
589our
590collective
591subconscious
592which
593we
594float
595on
596on
597the
598inner
599tube
600of
601individual
602perception
603slathering
604on
605the
606suntan
607lotion
608of
609our
610prejudices
611wearing
612the
613sunglasses
614of
615self-deception
616all
617underneath
618the
619sun
620of
621technology
622the
623seagulls
624of
625death
626circle
627slowly
628calling
629to
630each
631other
632the
633call
634of
635their
636society
637secret
638in
639its
640machinations
641my
642father
643told
644me
645that
646once
647when
648swimming
649a
650rip
651tide
652pulled
653him
654far
655out
656to
657sea
658he
659said
660it
661was
662impossible
663to
664tell
665until
666it
667was
668too
669late
670the
671shore
672simply
673receded
674too
675slowly
676he
677never
678told
679me
680how
681he
682made
683it
684back
685but
686i
687imagine
688him
689bearded
690beached
691coughing
692up
693saltwater
694a
695new
696shipwrecked
697victim
698grep
699is
700a
701basic
702search
703tool
704for
705unix-based
706systems
707it
708has
709a
710robust
711syntax
712though
713i've
714had
715trouble
716remembering
717the
718regex
719nuances
720between
721it
722sed's
723and
724perl's
725there
726is
727a
728posix
729standard
730but
731no
732one
733follows
734standards
735my
736mother
737loves
738annie
739dillard
740she
741always
742talks
743about
744the
745praying
746mantis
747egg
748case
749scene
750dillard
751could
752never
753find
754a
755praying
756mantis
757egg
758case
759until
760she
761finally
762saw
763one
764by
765accident
766after
767that
768she
769saw
770them
771everywhere
772my
773mother
774showed
775me
776an
777egg
778case
779once
780i
781haven't
782seen
783one
784since
785my
786friend
787steven
788has
789over
790three
791hundred
792pairs
793of
794shoes
795he
796tells
797me
798his
799goal
800is
801eventually
802to
803obtain
804a
805calendar
806of
807shoes
808and
809wear
810a
811different
812one
813each
814day
815of
816the
817year
818he
819doesn't
820include
821the
822forty
823days
824of
825lent
826however
827he
828goes
829barefoot
830those
831forty
832days
diff --git a/river/dollywood.river b/river/dollywood.river new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e69de29 --- /dev/null +++ b/river/dollywood.river
diff --git a/river/i-want-to-say.river b/river/i-want-to-say.river new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b2a8bc5 --- /dev/null +++ b/river/i-want-to-say.river
@@ -0,0 +1,291 @@
1i
2want
3to
4say
5i
6want
7to
8say
9i
10take
11it
12all
13back
14i
15want
16i
17want
18to
19take
20it
21back
22i
23want
24it
25none
26of
27it
28to
29be
30ever
31have
32happened
33not
34when
35i
36saw
37you
38step
39over
40the
41rope
42when
43we
44went
45to
46new
47york
48for
49a
50week
51but
52stayed
53upstate
54when
55you
56punched
57me
58hard
59in
60the
61solar
62plexus
63in
64prague
65when
66i
67looked
68in
69your
70face
71and
72saw
73myself
74looking
75back
76smiling
77when
78we
79went
80on
81another
82trip
83and
84another
85all
86the
87trips
88i
89want
90to
91have
92stayed
93home
94i
95want
96to
97have
98seen
99the
100clouds
101drifting
102past
103my
104car
105window
106to
107have
108listened
109to
110that
111sound
112the
113bridge
114makes
115driving
116over
117it
118without
119thinking
120of
121you
122always
123it
124was
125you
126i
127want
128i
129want
130to
131be
132fresh
133i
134want
135to
136roll
137out
138of
139bed
140as
141though
142it
143were
144my
145first
146morning
147in
148a
149new
150state
151i
152want
153nothing
154more
155than
156absolution
157of
158sins
159a
160negation
161but
162there
163is
164no
165way
166to
167subtract
168here
169i
170cannot
171remove
172this
173growth
174that
175appeared
176seemingly
177overnight
178i
179cannot
180cut
181you
182away
183from
184myself
185i
186cannot
187forget
188what
189has
190already
191and
192will
193always
194have
195been
196i
197cannot
198get
199out
200of
201a
202new
203bed
204ever
205new
206york
207will
208always
209be
210as
211it
212was
213when
214i
215saw
216it
217first
218with
219you
220my
221breathing
222will
223always
224be
225labored
226outside
227of
228the
229cafe
230i
231will
232always
233see
234you
235when
236i
237look
238in
239a
240mirror
241of
242someone's
243face
244the
245reflection
246of
247missed
248thoughts
249missed
250words
251will
252cease
253to
254give
255meaning
256the
257center
258will
259come
260out
261of
262me
263i
264will
265make
266a
267new
268center
269yes
270i
271will
272drag
273what
274is
275your
276center
277around
278with
279me
280and
281repeat
282and
283repeat
284again
285i
286cannot
287want
288cannot
289want
290want
291not
diff --git a/river/manifesto_poetics.river b/river/manifesto_poetics.river new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ad81294 --- /dev/null +++ b/river/manifesto_poetics.river
@@ -0,0 +1,575 @@
1manifesto
2of
3poetics
4what
5is
6a
7poem
8i
9think
10it
11was
12yeats
13that
14called
15a
16poem
17the
18best
19words
20in
21the
22best
23order
24and
25that
26isn't
27an
28inaccurate
29description
30but
31i
32don't
33think
34it
35captures
36all
37of
38what
39a
40poem
41is
42let
43me
44start
45with
46communication
47communication
48is
49a
50transaction
51an
52exchange
53between
54two
55people
56or
57entities
58in
59which
60one
61the
62speaker/writer/communicator
63gives
64the
65other
66the
67reader/listener/consumer
68a
69set
70of
71ideas
72/
73a
74wireframe
75organization
76of
77a
78concept
79/
80a
81set
82of
83reasons/instructions
84for
85action
86in
87many
88kinds
89of
90communication
91for
92example
93speeches
94reports
95or
96advertisements
97the
98kind
99of
100ideas
101transacted
102are
103generally
104factual/logical/brain-based
105in
106nature
107in
108art
109these
110ideas
111are
112emotional/heart-based
113in
114short
115art
116is
117to
118emotion
119as
120an
121article
122is
123to
124information
125i
126think
127art
128should
129strive
130to
131transmit
132the
133emotion
134the
135author
136feels
137as
138efficiently
139as
140possible
141to
142the
143reader
144of
145that
146art
147in
148order
149to
150do
151this
152multiple
153notation
154systems
155have
156been
157devised
158music
159is
160the
161most
162notable
163example
164that
165comes
166to
167mind
168as
169it
170has
171the
172most
173rigid
174style
175but
176grammar
177as
178used
179self-consciously
180in
181writing
182would
183be
184another
185example
186poetry
187has
188only
189a
190very
191loose
192set
193of
194rules
195and
196assumptions
197that
198allow
199it
200a
201sort
202of
203notational
204language
205and
206this
207is
208complicated
209by
210the
211fact
212that
213when
214writing
215poetry
216the
217author
218writes
219for
220a
221different
222medium
223poetry
224is
225meant
226to
227be
228performed
229aloud
230this
231makes
232the
233notation
234system
235even
236more
237important
238but
239again
240it's
241hard
242to
243come
244up
245with
246a
247system
248that
249will
250be
251read
252mostly
253the
254same
255by
256most
257people
258what
259i've
260been
261trying
262to
263do
264since
265i
266began
267writing
268is
269develop
270a
271personal
272notation
273system
274or
275what
276i
277think
278most
279would
280refer
281to
282as
283my
284voice
285as
286a
287poet/writer
288i
289personally
290don't
291like
292the
293word
294poet
295as
296it
297sounds
298pretentious
299to
300me
301i'm
302aware
303i
304should
305get
306over
307this
308however
309there
310were
311some
312places
313that
314still
315needed
316improving
317from
318my
319draft
320manuscript
321most
322notably
323my
324prose
325in
326rip
327tide
328of
329memory
330now
331only
332rip
333tide
334and
335amber
336alert
337i
338rewrote
339each
340to
341tighten
342their
343syntactic
344and
345idea
346rhythm
347to
348make
349them
350move
351more
352lightly
353and
354gracefully
355the
356most
357notable
358difference
359in
360my
361series
362is
363the
364reordering
365of
366poems
367within
368it
369i
370think
371that
372in
373my
374first
375draft
376i
377spent
378so
379much
380time
381on
382getting
383my
384individual
385poems
386tight
387and
388polished
389that
390i
391threw
392them
393together
394somewhat
395haphazardly
396using
397a
398loose
399thematic
400correspondence
401with
402the
403fake
404table
405of
406contents
407with
408the
409new
410order
411i
412hope
413this
414has
415been
416fixed
417the
418piece
419consists
420of
421six
422sections
423each
424with
425three
426poems
427a
428new
429one
430everything
431stays
432the
433same
434makes
435the
436totals
437correct
438each
439section
440has
441a
442thematic/emotional/personal
443element
444that
445ties
446the
447sections
448together
449they
450are
451ordered
452by
453the
454order
455in
456which
457i
458wrote
459the
460sestinas
461at
462the
463beginning
464of
465each
466section
467which
468works
469out
470to
471make
472the
473series
474move
475from
476identity
477to
478memory
479to
480a
481feeling
482of
483universal
484justice
485and
486from
487there
488to
489a
490discussion
491of
492death
493and
494something
495like
496love
497that
498culminates
499in
500an
501exploration
502of
503the
504nature
505of
506time
507and
508cosmology
509the
510piece
511is
512bookended
513by
514the
515fake
516table
517of
518contents
519provided
520at
521the
522end
523as
524an
525ironic
526commentary
527on
528the
529rest
530of
531the
532text
533and
534an
535about
536the
537author
538section
539i
540think
541it
542works
543better
544this
545way
546and
547i
548think
549the
550about
551the
552author
553at
554the
555beginning
556serves
557as
558a
559fair
560prelude
561poem
562to
563the
564piece
565i'm
566excited
567to
568be
569a
570writer
571like
572i
573haven't
574been
575before
diff --git a/river/on-genre-dimension.river b/river/on-genre-dimension.river new file mode 100644 index 0000000..52bdca0 --- /dev/null +++ b/river/on-genre-dimension.river
@@ -0,0 +1,1166 @@
1on
2genre
3and
4the
5dimensionality
6of
7poetry
8how
9does
10one
11describe
12a
13poem
14a
15genre
16is
17a
18set
19of
20creative
21outputs
22that
23fit
24a
25given
26set
27of
28criteria
29genres
30are
31useful
32as
33a
34sort
35of
36shorthand
37when
38describing
39a
40thing
41of
42art
43instead
44of
45noting
46for
47example
48all
49of
50the
51objects
52depicted
53in
54a
55still-life
56that
57aren't
58people
59or
60land-features
61we
62call
63it
64a
65still-life
66and
67get
68on
69to
70describing
71how
72the
73objects
74interrelate
75to
76each
77other
78on
79the
80canvas
81if
82you
83ask
84me
85what
86kind
87of
88painting
89i'm
90working
91on
92and
93i
94say
95a
96still-life
97you
98have
99an
100expectation
101of
102certain
103elements
104the
105painting
106will
107contain
108if
109you
110happen
111to
112be
113an
114agent
115and
116try
117to
118sell
119the
120painting
121later
122you'll
123say
124to
125your
126prospective
127buyers
128it's
129a
130still-life
131and
132whether
133the
134buyer
135is
136over
137the
138phone
139or
140standing
141in
142the
143gallery
144they'll
145know
146whether
147they'll
148like
149it
150or
151not
152based
153on
154whether
155they
156like
157still-lifes
158in
159the
160same
161way
162they
163can
164call
165you
166up
167and
168ask
169if
170you
171have
172any
173still-lifes
174for
175sale
176right
177now
178and
179get
180a
181simple
182yes-or-no
183answer
184for
185it
186this
187is
188the
189first
190kind
191of
192genre
193and
194it
195applies
196well
197within
198separate
199types
200of
201fundamentally-different
202media
203such
204as
205painting
206sculpture
207film
208or
209the
210written
211word
212a
213poem
214obviously
215is
216in
217this
218last
219category
220and
221for
222some
223reason
224its
225designation
226is
227hairier
228than
229others
230people
231refer
232to
233all
234sorts
235of
236art
237or
238even
239dispassionate
240events
241as
242poetry
243dancing
244is
245called
246poetry
247in
248motion
249for
250example
251i
252think
253the
254confusion
255is
256caused
257in
258part
259by
260the
261nature
262of
263writing
264as
265a
266medium
267namely
268in
269that
270it
271captures
272thoughts
273more
274clearly
275and
276communicably
277than
278other
279art
280forms
281while
282a
283picture
284can
285be
286worth
287a
288thousand
289words
290as
291the
292old
293clich
294goes
295when
296those
297words
298are
299actually
300written
301out
302they
303can
304contain
305shades
306of
307meaning
308impossible
309to
310capture
311in
312the
313picture
314itself
315at
316least
317as
318quickly
319as
320they
321can
322be
323absorbed
324in
325writing
326it
327seems
328as
329though
330writing
331is
332akin
333to
334the
335fundamental
336nature
337of
338thought
339or
340at
341least
342of
343spoken
344language
345which
346our
347thought
348is
349steeped
350in
351so
352we
353know
354what
355writing
356is
357what
358is
359a
360poem
361especially
362in
363a
364world
365with
366such
367forms
368as
369prose
370poetry
371flash
372fiction
373short-shorts
374lyrical
375essays
376lyrical
377ballads
378et
379cetera
380what
381makes
382a
383poem
384a
385poem
386i
387read
388an
389essay
390once
391that
392lamented
393the
394unidimensionality
395of
396writing
397it
398posited
399that
400prose
401is
402really
403just
404a
405long
406wrapped
407line
408of
409text
410that's
411bound
412by
413time
414when
415you
416read
417a
418novel
419for
420example
421you
422really
423must
424start
425at
426the
427beginning
428and
429read
430through
431to
432the
433end
434in
435order
436some
437newer
438forms
439of
440fiction
441are
442changing
443this
444such
445as
446the
447choose-your-own-adventure
448genre
449in
450the
4511970s
452and
45380s
454or
455hyperfiction
456found
457online
458which
459raises
460the
461question
462for
463me
464if
465these
466newer
467forms
468could
469be
470considered
471on
472some
473level
474to
475be
476poetry
477this
478is
479because
480poetry
481has
482more
483than
484one
485dimension
486due
487to
488its
489linear
490nature
491those
492line
493breaks
494are
495intentional
496and
497the
498poem
499can't
500just
501fit
502into
503any-sized
504book
505or
506web
507page
508if
509prose
510is
511a
512liquid
513filling
514any
515container
516it's
517placed
518in
519with
520a
521constant
522volume
523poetry
524is
525more
526like
527a
528crystallized
529form
530of
531prose
532or
533to
534put
535it
536another
537way
538poetry
539has
540between
541one
542and
543two
544dimensions
545i
546wouldn't
547say
548that
549poetry
550has
551fully
552two
553dimensions
554except
555for
556some
557of
558the
559more
560conceptually
561visual
562stuff
563that
564i'd
565call
566a
567word-picture
568anyway
569because
570from
571line
572to
573line
574that
575unidimensionality
576of
577prose
578remains
579poetry
580has
581a
582higher
583dimensionality
584than
585prose
586though
587because
588it's
589crystallized
590there
591on
592the
593page
594this
595fractal-dimensionality
596of
597poetry
598has
599interesting
600side
601effects
602on
603the
604genre
605itself
606for
607one
608thing
609poetry
610isn't
611as
612bound
613by
614time
615as
616prose
617is
618it
619can
620as
621marianne
622boruch
623writes
624resist
625narrative
626sequence
627or
628the
629forward
630press
631of
632time
633itself
634due
635to
636its
637repetitions
638and
639diversions
640which
641are
642in
643turn
644made
645possible
646or
647more
648apparent
649by
650its
651line
652breaks
653it's
654able
655to
656meditate
657on
658a
659subject
660or
661expand
662on
663it
664lyrically
665exploring
666the
667emotions
668connected
669with
670the
671images
672in
673the
674poem
675or
676the
677connections
678between
679images
680through
681repitition
682of
683sounds
684the
685poem
686builds
687meaning
688through
689resonance
690and
691rhyming
692something
693that's
694harder
695to
696do
697in
698prose
699take
700for
701example
702the
703first
704lines
705of
706the
707love
708song
709of
710j
711alfred
712prufrock
713let
714us
715go
716then
717you
718and
719i
720when
721the
722evening
723is
724spread
725out
726against
727the
728sky
729like
730a
731patient
732etherized
733upon
734a
735table
736let
737us
738go
739through
740certain
741half-deserted
742streets
743the
744muttering
745retreats
746of
747restless
748nights
749in
750one-night
751cheap
752hotels
753and
754sawdust
755restaurants
756with
757oyster-shells
758streets
759that
760follow
761like
762a
763tedious
764argument
765of
766insidious
767intent
768to
769lead
770you
771to
772an
773overwhelming
774question
775oh
776do
777not
778ask
779what
780is
781it
782let
783us
784go
785and
786make
787our
788visit
789and
790here
791it
792is
793again
794without
795line
796breaks
797let
798us
799go
800then
801you
802and
803i
804when
805the
806evening
807is
808spread
809out
810against
811the
812sky
813like
814a
815patient
816etherized
817upon
818a
819table
820let
821us
822go
823through
824certain
825half-deserted
826streets
827the
828muttering
829retreats
830of
831restless
832nights
833in
834one-night
835cheap
836hotels
837and
838sawdust
839restaurants
840with
841oyster-shells
842streets
843that
844follow
845like
846a
847tedious
848argument
849of
850insidious
851intent
852to
853lead
854you
855to
856an
857overwhelming
858question
859oh
860do
861not
862ask
863what
864is
865it
866let
867us
868go
869and
870make
871our
872visit
873the
874end-rhymes
875that
876do
877so
878much
879for
880the
881sound
882of
883the
884poem
885are
886gone
887and
888so
889part
890of
891the
892meaning
893of
894the
895poem
896its
897obsessive
898self-consciousness
899its
900paranoia
901are
902gone
903as
904well
905additionally
906line
907breaks
908act
909as
910punctuation
911in
912the
913entirety
914of
915this
916fragment
917without
918them
919the
920meaning
921becomes
922obscured
923in
924the
925long
926first
927sentence
928of
929the
930poem
931perhaps
932due
933to
934this
935dwelling
936on
937scene
938or
939on
940all
941aspects
942of
943a
944single
945scene
946at
947one
948time
949poetry
950tends
951to
952be
953heavy
954on
955images
956or
957lyrical
958i
959think
960this
961is
962what's
963generally
964meant
965when
966someone
967describes
968a
969dance
970as
971poetic
972or
973a
974story
975or
976anything
977else
978i
979think
980they
981really
982mean
983lyrical
984or
985maybe
986beautiful
987the
988images
989form
990sort
991of
992a
993narrative
994as
995the
996reader
997moves
998through
999them
1000as
1001cesare
1002pavese
1003says
1004that's
1005nevertheless
1006different
1007than
1008a
1009traditional
1010narrative
1011this
1012image
1013narrative
1014jumps
1015from
1016image
1017to
1018image
1019not
1020by
1021a
1022logical
1023progression
1024but
1025by
1026the
1027resonances
1028between
1029the
1030images
1031that
1032run
1033underneath
1034them
1035on
1036almost
1037a
1038subliminal
1039plane
1040almost
1041without
1042noticing
1043the
1044reader
1045of
1046a
1047poem
1048is
1049taken
1050on
1051an
1052emotional
1053journey
1054that's
1055not
1056necessarily
1057connected
1058to
1059the
1060images
1061of
1062the
1063poem
1064themselves
1065poetry
1066is
1067a
1068manipulation
1069of
1070emotion
1071or
1072a
1073communication
1074of
1075it
1076prose
1077has
1078the
1079space
1080the
1081time
1082to
1083describe
1084what's
1085going
1086on
1087even
1088if
1089the
1090author
1091stands
1092by
1093the
1094old
1095adage
1096of
1097show
1098don't
1099tell
1100showing
1101in
1102prose
1103inherently
1104involves
1105more
1106telling
1107than
1108poetry
1109does
1110as
1111poetry
1112communicates
1113a
1114feeling
1115itself
1116this
1117definition
1118may
1119be
1120broad
1121enough
1122to
1123include
1124certain
1125dance
1126performances
1127or
1128paintings
1129but
1130that's
1131okay
1132i'm
1133of
1134the
1135opinion
1136that
1137the
1138more
1139useful
1140genre
1141distinctions
1142are
1143those
1144which
1145describe
1146the
1147thing
1148technically
1149verse
1150for
1151example
1152or
1153lyrical
1154poetry
1155is
1156almost
1157a
1158value
1159judgement
1160and
1161that
1162makes
1163me
1164a
1165little
1166uncomfortable
diff --git a/river/peaches.river b/river/peaches.river new file mode 100644 index 0000000..533ada7 --- /dev/null +++ b/river/peaches.river
@@ -0,0 +1,773 @@
1peaches
2my
3anger
4is
5like
6a
7peach
8he
9said
10he
11was
12trying
13to
14show
15how
16metaphors
17could
18be
19anything
20i
21thought
22it
23worked
24i
25wrote
26it
27down
28in
29my
30red
31notebook
32in
33my
34other
35class
36there
37was
38a
39long
40discussion
41about
42the
43difference
44between
45metaphor
46and
47simile
48as
49they
50relate
51to
52prufrock
53i
54could
55only
56think
57about
58his
59peaches
60i
61wonder
62if
63he
64dared
65a
66few
67years
68ago
69my
70friend
71dressed
72up
73as
74j
75alfred
76prufrock
77for
78halloween
79her
80costume
81consisted
82of
83rolled
84khaki
85trousers
86and
87a
88peach
89i
90wonder
91where
92she
93found
94that
95in
96october
97she
98was
99annoyed
100that
101she
102had
103to
104tell
105everyone
106who
107she
108was
109at
110a
111writers
112party
113i
114don't
115remember
116if
117she
118ate
119that
120peach
121i
122do
123remember
124the
125main
126meal
127was
128spaghetti
129that
130party
131was
132held
133in
134a
135house
136in
137chattanooga
138in
139the
140basement
141there
142was
143a
144big
145back
146yard
147where
148people
149drank
150and
151talked
152and
153sat
154in
155the
156darkness
157somewhere
158someone
159was
160smoking
161weed
162with
163a
164visiting
165writer
166earlier
167that
168day
169the
170writer
171had
172read
173a
174poem
175about
176his
177car
178accident
179a
180year
181ago
182in
183georgia
184on
185the
186interstate
187it
188had
189broken
190him
191pretty
192badly
193and
194his
195wife
196but
197somehow
198their
199child
200was
201unharmed
202he
203said
204something
205about
206the
207peach
208pit
209being
210the
211one
212place
213georgia
214held
215sacred
216he
217said
218it
219was
220the
221place
222where
223all
224new
225things
226grow
227i
228can
229see
230how
231anger
232could
233be
234like
235a
236peach
237its
238juice
239runs
240out
241of
242the
243mouth
244and
245down
246the
247chin
248dropping
249onto
250the
251pants
252and
253staining
254them
255in
256the
257same
258way
259i
260can
261see
262how
263anger
264is
265like
266sex
267they
268are
269both
270heightened
271states
272of
273emotional
274observation
275in
276atlanta
277there
278are
279something
280like
281five
282or
283ten
284peachtree
285streets
286i'm
287not
288sure
289if
290they
291all
292connect
293at
294some
295point
296but
297from
298what
299i
300could
301see
302they
303would
304have
305to
306do
307some
308contorting
309to
310get
311to
312the
313same
314point
315i
316like
317to
318think
319a
320giant
321peach
322tree
323grows
324there
325like
326the
327tree
328of
329the
330knowledge
331of
332good
333and
334evil
335i
336was
337walking
338down
339one
340of
341atlanta's
342peachtrees
343with
344my
345girlfriend
346when
347a
348man
349in
350tight
351pants
352a
353runner
354jogged
355past
356us
357we
358both
359agreed
360he
361had
362a
363marvelous
364ass
365i
366was
367annoyed
368however
369when
370she
371confessed
372that
373she
374wished
375i
376had
377one
378like
379his
380later
381we
382ate
383at
384a
385taqueria
386with
387peach-habanero
388salsa
389my
390mother
391would
392read
393to
394us
395as
396children
397the
398first
399real
400books
401i
402remember
403the
404first
405novels
406are
407island
408of
409the
410blue
411dolphins
412and
413james
414and
415the
416giant
417peach
418i
419don't
420remember
421island
422of
423the
424blue
425dolphins
426as
427well
428probably
429because
430no
431movie
432was
433made
434of
435it
436there's
437an
438independent
439video
440rental
441store
442where
443i
444grew
445up
446called
447popcorn
448video
449one
450of
451the
452only
453stores
454i
455went
456to
457in
458my
459hometown
460that
461wasn't
462a
463chain
464every
465time
466we
467went
468my
469sister
470would
471rent
472two
473movies
474james
475and
476the
477giant
478peach
479and
480home
481alone
4823
483i
484wasn't
485allowed
486to
487stay
488home
489alone
490or
491i
492don't
493remember
494it
495until
496i
497was
498fifteen
499i
500built
501a
502potato
503cannon
504out
505of
506pvc
507pipe
508and
509a
510barbecue
511lighter
512i
513would
514load
515a
516potato
517spray
518hairspray
519into
520the
521barrel
522and
523light
524it
525once
526the
527cannon
528wouldn't
529light
530i
531looked
532down
533the
534barrel
535and
536pushed
537the
538trigger
539button
540to
541see
542if
543i
544could
545see
546a
547light
548i
549forgot
550that
551i
552had
553already
554primed
555the
556barrel
557with
558hairspray
559i
560singed
561my
562eyebrows
563and
564bangs
565in
566peach
567season
568my
569father
570would
571bring
572home
573a
574bag
575of
576the
577freestones
578every
579week
580or
581so
582he
583always
584got
585the
586cheap
587ones
588so
589they
590were
591usually
592dry
593and
594pithy
595with
596a
597stone
598that
599fell
600apart
601and
602nearly
603broke
604my
605tooth
606i
607don't
608eat
609them
610anymore
611when
612i
613go
614home
615my
616mother
617would
618always
619eat
620canned
621peaches
622with
623cottage
624cheese
625for
626some
627reason
628i
629didn't
630think
631this
632was
633common
634knowledge
635i
636showed
637people
638how
639good
640it
641was
642when
643we
644went
645to
646a
647buffet
648they
649said
650i
651know
652to
653be
654honest
655i'm
656not
657even
658sure
659what
660a
661peach
662tree
663looks
664like
665i
666do
667know
668what
669an
670orange
671tree
672looks
673like
674from
675a
676backyard
677in
678phoenix
679and
680a
681fig
682tree
683from
684a
685back
686yard
687in
688chattanooga
689i
690also
691know
692what
693a
694cherry
695tree
696looks
697like
698or
699at
700least
701a
702type
703of
704them
705from
706my
707own
708backyard
709at
710home
711as
712well
713as
714mulberry
715and
716apple
717if
718for
719some
720reason
721i
722find
723myself
724lost
725in
726a
727sinister
728garden
729of
730eden
731i'll
732at
733least
734know
735a
736few
737of
738the
739trees
740i
741can
742eat
743from
744i
745always
746heard
747growing
748up
749that
750the
751fruit
752of
753the
754tree
755of
756the
757knowledge
758of
759good
760and
761evil
762was
763an
764apple
765maybe
766i'll
767luck
768out
769maybe
770it'll
771be
772a
773peach
diff --git a/river/walking-in-the-rain.river b/river/walking-in-the-rain.river new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a49acac --- /dev/null +++ b/river/walking-in-the-rain.river
@@ -0,0 +1,104 @@
1walking
2in
3the
4rain
5i
6can
7walk
8through
9the
10rain
11that
12rare
13occurrence
14and
15never
16be
17hit
18by
19a
20drop
21there
22is
23a
24space
25around
26me
27that
28refuses
29to
30be
31penetrated
32by
33weather
34of
35any
36kind
37be
38it
39rain
40or
41snow
42or
43sunshine
44is
45it
46cold
47i
48hear
49you
50asking
51in
52your
53voice
54soft
55as
56a
57breeze
58no
59it
60is
61not
62particularly
63cold
64if
65i
66were
67to
68describe
69it
70as
71warm
72i
73would
74be
75lying
76as
77well
78if
79i
80were
81to
82pretend
83i
84heard
85you
86far-off
87mirage
88breeze
89on
90the
91horizon
92no
93truth
94would
95ever
96be
97said
98to
99have
100come
101from
102my
103frozen
104lips
diff --git a/river/what-we-are-made-of.river b/river/what-we-are-made-of.river new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9d4ee56 --- /dev/null +++ b/river/what-we-are-made-of.river
@@ -0,0 +1,730 @@
1what
2we
3are
4made
5of
6there
7is
8a
9cave
10just
11outside
12of
13flagstaff
14made
15from
16ancient
17lava
18flows
19we
20went
21inside
22it
23to
24where
25the
26darkness
27was
28a
29presence
30it
31walked
32with
33us
34like
35a
36christ
37our
38footsteps
39fell
40dead
41on
42its
43walls
44we
45learned
46what
47space
48felt
49like
50and
51drowning
52and
53being
54crushed
55and
56going
57blind
58and
59deaf
60we
61made
62up
63words
64to
65push
66the
67feeling
68away
69to
70goad
71it
72like
73mockingbirds
74fighting
75hawks
76we
77called
78it
79creepy
80to
81its
82face
83it
84stared
85back
86dispassionate
87in
88a
89bathroom
90i
91know
92there
93is
94a
95low
96thrumming
97that
98comes
99from
100the
101air
102ducts
103in
104the
105ceiling
106it
107comforts
108me
109in
110the
111same
112way
113the
114smell
115of
116toilet-water
117calms
118my
119stomach
120it
121is
122a
123sound
124so
125close
126to
127quiet
128so
129close
130to
131the
132porcelain
133whiteness
134of
135the
136toilet
137it
138pushes
139all
140other
141noise
142away
143it
144is
145deafening
146quiet
147in
148its
149most
150real
151form
152its
153most
154realizable
155form
156the
157eggs
158on
159the
160floor
161broken
162not
163the
164eggs
165in
166their
167journey
168to
169the
170floor
171or
172from
173the
174farm
175or
176from
177the
178hen
179on
180the
181farm
182in
183the
184cage
185glowing
186under
187fluorescent
188lights
189its
190neighbors
191pressed
192to
193its
194body
195rotten-smelling
196grotesque
197not
198the
199fateful
200meeting
201with
202the
203floor
204not
205the
206long
207wait
208in
209darkness
210for
211the
212fluorescent
213dawn
214cacophonous
215with
216pain
217and
218smell
219none
220of
221this
222the
223sunlight
224on
225the
226kitchen
227tile
228the
229refrigerator
230softly
231humming
232the
233eggs
234on
235the
236floor
237the
238yolks
239glistening
240i
241compose
242with
243music
244best
245under
246its
247meaninglessness
248i
249am
250able
251to
252hear
253the
254silence
255a
256different
257meaninglessness
258a
259somehow-deeper
260meaninglessness
261the
262inverse
263of
264repeating
265a
266word
267until
268it
269is
270only
271sound
272i
273can
274hear
275the
276taboo
277the
278never-spoken
279unacknowledged
280i
281write
282to
283drown
284its
285sound
286with
287the
288scratching
289of
290my
291pen
292silence
293lies
294underneath
295us
296all
297in
298the
299same
300way
301the
302nile
303has
304a
305river
306underneath
307ten
308times
309as
310large
311though
312this
313is
314an
315urban
316legend
317apparently
318i
319threw
320a
321party
322in
323my
324dream
325and
326went
327to
328the
329bathroom
330down
331a
332long
333dark
334hallway
335i
336began
337to
338leave
339and
340noticed
341the
342bathtub
343full
344of
345stuffed
346animals
347in
348a
349heap
350i
351examined
352them
353each
354in
355turn
356an
357elephant
358a
359tiger
360each
361backgrounded
362by
363white
364tile
365a
366warthog
367sat
368at
369the
370top
371of
372the
373heap
374it
375caught
376my
377eye
378i
379stared
380it
381slowly
382winked
383sneering
384i
385reached
386out
387my
388finger
389and
390poked
391it
392like
393the
394pillsbury
395doughboy
396it
397responded
398in
399kind
400chuckling
401i
402woke
403with
404a
405start
406terrified
407it
408had
409made
410no
411sound
412there
413are
414at
415least
416two
417kinds
418of
419silence
420in
421the
422same
423way
424that
425there
426are
427at
428least
429two
430kinds
431of
432sadness
433there
434is
435the
436silence
437of
438after
439the
440staring
441open-mouthed
442silence
443the
444what-do-we-do-now
445silence
446there
447is
448the
449silence
450of
451before
452the
453still
454before
455rainfall
456the
457just-woken-up
458there
459is
460now
461i'm
462thinking
463about
464it
465the
466silence
467of
468between
469the
470waiting
471room
472after
473the
474heart
475attack
476after
477the
478phone
479call
480after
481the
482hurried
483drive
484the
485fast
486walking
487down
488hospital
489hallways
490the
491finding
492the
493room
494my
495family
496their
497faces
498the
499silence
500of
501after
502the
503tv
504quietly
505playing
506maurie
507the
508silence
509underneath
510that
511the
512waiting
513room
514before
515the
516doctor
517comes
518in
519tells
520us
521what
522happened
523the
524chances
525before
526my
527parents
528drive
529down
530their
531three
532long
533hours
534in
535the
536car
537before
538we
539become
540the
541hospital
542people
543for
544five
545days
546camped-out
547loud
548cackling
549crying
550doing
551crosswords
552watching
553her
554die
555the
556silence
557of
558wondering
559whether
560we
561could've
562known
563each
564other
565better
566the
567silence
568of
569the
570long
571trip
572we
573prefer
574to
575believe
576she's
577gone
578on
579which
580is
581really
582the
583silence
584of
585her
586absence
587the
588eggs
589on
590the
591floor
592broken
593in
594other
595dreams
596all
597i've
598watched
599all
600of
601my
602family
603dying
604my
605father
606i
607remember
608best
609he
610was
611on
612the
613wicker
614rocking
615chair
616on
617the
618porch
619staring
620at
621the
622back
623yard
624the
625evergreen
626trees
627in
628a
629magic
630triangle
631their
632branches
633intertwined
634we
635were
636all
637on
638the
639porch
640and
641i
642heard
643like
644a
645far-away
646bell
647the
648moment
649of
650his
651death
652i
653woke
654up
655crying
656my
657throat
658closed
659with
660grief
661leaving
662after
663the
664goodbye
665at
666the
667hotel
668realizing
669i
670won't
671be
672home
673until
674christmas
675that
676i'm
677on
678my
679own
680long
681trip
682someone
683on
684the
685radio
686station
687i'm
688listening
689to
690in
691the
692car
693screws
694up
695transferring
696tapes
697broadcasts
698dead
699air
700the
701silence
702yawns
703like
704a
705chasm
706lasting
707for
708years
709the
710wind
711picks
712me
713up
714and
715carries
716me
717away
718i
719see
720everything
721from
722a
723great
724height
725i
726see
727the
728future
729i'm
730waiting
diff --git a/river/words-irritable-reaching.river b/river/words-irritable-reaching.river new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b72119d --- /dev/null +++ b/river/words-irritable-reaching.river
@@ -0,0 +1,827 @@
1words
2and
3their
4irritable
5reaching
6somewhere
7i
8remember
9reading
10advice
11for
12beginning
13writers
14not
15to
16show
17their
18work
19to
20anyone
21at
22least
23that
24in
25the
26early
27stages
28the
29author
30argued
31that
32it
33took
34all
35of
36the
37power
38out
39of
40the
41idea
42like
43a
44pressure-release
45valve
46before
47any
48of
49that
50creative
51power
52got
53to
54be
55applied
56to
57the
58page
59it
60made
61me
62think
63of
64meditation
65at
66legunitas
67when
68hass
69writes
70that
71each
72particular
73erases
74/
75the
76luminous
77clarity
78of
79a
80general
81idea
82as
83a
84self-confessed
85general
86idea
87person
88i
89identify
90with
91the
92remark
93it
94does
95seem
96as
97though
98no
99matter
100how
101lofty
102the
103idea
104i
105originally
106have
107for
108a
109poem
110once
111i
112sit
113down
114to
115write
116the
117thing
118i
119quickly
120get
121bogged
122down
123in
124the
125details
126the
127particulars
128i
129guess
130the
131writer
132of
133that
134lost
135article
136must
137work
138the
139same
140way
141leading
142to
143their
144advice
145if
146the
147luminous
148clarity
149of
150a
151general
152idea
153is
154so
155fragile
156that
157just
158beginning
159to
160write
161it
162down
163ruins
164it
165somehow
166telling
167people
168about
169it
170is
171even
172worse
173but
174back
175to
176that
177robert
178hass
179poem
180while
181he
182does
183say
184that
185thing
186about
187the
188luminous
189clarity
190of
191a
192general
193idea
194and
195he
196adds
197to
198it
199that
200a
201word
202is
203elegy
204to
205what
206it
207signifies
208his
209tone
210is
211lightly
212chiding
213this
214philosophy
215he
216opens
217his
218poem
219with
220all
221the
222new
223thinking
224is
225about
226loss
227/
228in
229this
230it
231resembles
232all
233the
234old
235thinking
236which
237to
238my
239mind
240lampoons
241both
242the
243new
244and
245the
246old
247thinking
248for
249not
250having
251anything
252new
253ultimately
254to
255say
256he
257attributes
258these
259thoughts
260to
261a
262friend
263whose
264voice
265carried
266a
267thin
268wire
269of
270grief
271a
272tone
273/
274almost
275querulous
276about
277that
278loss
279of
280luminous
281clarity
282the
283speaker
284of
285hass's
286poem
287remembers
288a
289woman
290he
291made
292love
293to
294once
295and
296this
297image
298takes
299over
300the
301poem
302in
303all
304its
305specificity
306from
307her
308small
309shoulders
310to
311his
312childhood
313river
314/
315with
316its
317island
318willows
319to
320the
321way
322her
323hands
324dismantled
325bread
326even
327in
328disproving
329his
330friend's
331remarks
332through
333his
334imagery
335the
336speaker
337of
338meditation
339at
340legunitas
341admits
342that
343it
344hardly
345had
346to
347do
348with
349her
350and
351here
352is
353the
354heart
355of
356what
357hass
358is
359saying
360about
361poetry
362a
363poem
364hardly
365has
366to
367do
368with
369what
370it's
371written
372about
373on
374the
375surface
376level
377as
378richard
379hugo
380says
381it
382in
383a
384famous
385essay
386a
387poem
388has
389a
390triggering
391subject
392and
393it
394has
395a
396real
397or
398generated
399subject
400which
401for
402hugo
403in
404meditation
405at
406legunitas
407is
408something
409about
410the
411way
412that
413not
414only
415general
416ideas
417but
418particulars
419such
420as
421the
422body
423or
424hands
425or
426the
427thing
428her
429father
430said
431that
432hurt
433her
434which
435is
436such
437a
438beautiful
439generality
440that
441is
442somehow
443also
444a
445particular
446truth
447are
448luminous
449to
450poetry
451and
452to
453life-as-lived
454the
455philosophers
456can
457say
458what
459they
460want
461but
462we
463experience
464the
465world
466bodily
467and
468particularly
469to
470ourselves
471there's
472still
473a
474problem
475with
476language
477however
478to
479which
480hass
481speaks
482by
483the
484end
485of
486his
487poem
488with
489those
490repetitions
491of
492blackberry
493blackberry
494blackberry
495in
496that
497as
498jack
499gilbert
500says
501in
502his
503poem
504the
505forgotten
506dialect
507of
508the
509heart
510how
511astonishing
512it
513is
514that
515language
516can
517almost
518mean
519/
520but
521frightening
522that
523it
524does
525not
526quite
527there
528is
529still
530that
531irritable
532reaching
533after
534fact
535&
536reason
537that
538language
539as
540communication
541requires
542i
543think
544keats
545would
546agree
547that
548he
549wrote
550about
551a
552near-unattainable
553ideal
554in
555his
556letter
557that
558only
559shakespeare
560and
561maybe
562coleridge
563and
564a
565few
566others
567could
568achieve
569this
570negative
571capability
572gilbert
573furthers
574keats
575in
576asserting
577that
578no
579matter
580what
581we
582write
583the
584words
585/
586get
587it
588wrong
589that
590utterance
591is
592itself
593that
594irritable
595reaching
596in
597gilbert's
598poem
599though
600he
601does
602reach
603after
604something
605in
606the
607second
608half
609of
610the
611poem
612he
613begins
614to
615imagine
616what
617the
618mysterious
619sumerian
620tablets
621could
622be
623as
624poetry
625instead
626of
627just
628business
629records
630my
631joy
632is
633the
634same
635as
636twelve
637ethiopian
638goats
639standing
640in
641the
642morning
643light
644o
645lord
646thou
647art
648slabs
649of
650salt
651and
652ingots
653of
654copper
655as
656grand
657as
658ripe
659barley
660under
661the
662wind's
663labor
664her
665breasts
666are
667six
668white
669oxen
670loaded
671with
672bolts
673of
674long-fibered
675egyptian
676cotton
677my
678love
679is
680a
681hundred
682pitchers
683of
684honey
685shiploads
686of
687thuya
688are
689what
690my
691body
692wants
693to
694say
695to
696your
697body
698giraffes
699are
700this
701desire
702in
703the
704dark
705this
706is
707my
708favorite
709part
710of
711the
712poem
713and
714i
715think
716it's
717because
718gilbert
719like
720hass
721reaches
722for
723the
724specific
725in
726the
727general
728he
729brings
730huge
731ideas
732like
733the
734lord
735or
736love
737or
738joy
739into
740the
741specific
742images
743of
744salt
745copper
746or
747honey
748or
749like
750he
751says
752at
753the
754end
755of
756his
757poem
758what
759we
760feel
761most
762has
763/
764no
765name
766but
767amber
768archers
769cinnamon
770horses
771and
772birds
773this
774ultimately
775is
776what
777keats
778was
779getting
780at
781and
782hugo
783too
784that
785the
786real
787subject
788of
789any
790poetry
791is
792not
793capturable
794in
795the
796words
797of
798the
799poem
800but
801that
802rather
803a
804poem
805speaks
806around
807its
808subject
809to
810be
811honest
812all
813art
814may
815do
816this
817what
818sets
819a
820poem
821apart
822is
823its
824honesty
825about
826that
827fact
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43 <section class="content verse"><p>I can walk through the rain, <a href="collage-instrument.html">that rare occurrence</a><br />and never be hit by a drop. There is a space around me<br />that refuses to be <a href="lovesong.html">penetrated</a> by weather of any kind<br />be it rain or snow or sunshine. <a href="seasonal-affective-disorder.html">Is it cold I hear you</a><br />asking in your voice soft as a breeze. No it is not<br /><a href="cold-wind.html">particularly cold</a>. If I were to describe it as warm<br /><a href="todaniel.html">I would be lying as well</a>. If I were to pretend I heard<br />you, far-off, mirage, breeze on the horizon, <a href="no-nothing.html">no truth</a><br />would ever be said to have come from <a href="swansong-alt.html">my frozen lips</a>.</p></section>
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43 <section class="content prose"><p>There is a cave just outside of Flagstaff made from ancient lava flows. We went inside it to where the darkness was a presence, it walked with us like a Christ, our footsteps fell dead on its walls. We learned what space felt like, and drowning, and being crushed, and going blind and deaf. We made up words to push the feeling away, to goad it like mockingbirds fighting hawks. We called it creepy to its face. It stared back dispassionate.</p>
44<p>In a bathroom I know there is a low thrumming that comes from the air ducts in the ceiling. It comforts me in the same way the smell of toilet-water calms my stomach, it is a sound so close to quiet, so close to the porcelain whiteness of the toilet, it pushes all other noise away. It is deafening quiet in its most real form, its most realizable form.</p>
45<p>The eggs on the floor, broken. Not the eggs in their journey to the floor or from the farm or from the hen on the farm, in the cage, glowing under fluorescent lights, its neighbors pressed to its body, rotten-smelling, grotesque. Not the fateful meeting with the floor. Not the long wait in darkness for the fluorescent dawn, cacophonous with pain and smell. None of this: the sunlight on the kitchen tile, the refrigerator softly humming, the eggs on the floor. The yolks glistening.</p>
46<p>I compose with music best. Under its meaninglessness <a href="music-433.html">I am able to hear the silence</a>, a different meaninglessness, a somehow-deeper meaninglessness, the inverse of repeating a word until it is only sound. I can hear the taboo, the never-spoken, unacknowledged. I write to drown its sound, with the scratching of my pen.</p>
47<p>Silence lies underneath us all in the same way<br />the Nile has a river underneath ten times as large<br />(though this is an urban legend, apparently)<br /> I threw a party in my dream and went to the bathroom, down a long dark hallway. I began to leave and noticed the bathtub full of stuffed animals in a heap. I examined them each in turn: an elephant, a tiger, each backgrounded by white tile. A warthog sat at the top of the heap. It caught my eye, I stared, it slowly winked, sneering. I reached out my finger and poked it, like the Pillsbury Doughboy. It responded in kind, chuckling. I woke with a start, terrified. It had made no sound.</p>
48<p>There are at least two kinds of silence, in the same way that there are at least two kinds of sadness. There is the silence of after, the staring, open-mouthed silence, the what-do-we-do-now silence. There is the silence of before, the still before rainfall, the just-woken-up.</p>
49<p>There is, now I’m thinking about it, the silence of between: the waiting room after the heart attack, after the phone call, after the hurried drive, the fast walking down hospital hallways, the finding the room, my family, their faces the silence of after, the TV quietly playing <em>Maurie</em>, the silence underneath that; the waiting room <em>before</em> the doctor comes in, tells us what happened, the chances, before my parents drive down, their three long hours in the car, before we become the Hospital People for five days, camped-out, loud, cackling, crying, doing crosswords, watching her die.</p>
50<p>The silence of wondering whether we could’ve known each other better.</p>
51<p>The silence of the long trip we prefer to believe she’s gone on, which is really the silence of her absence.</p>
52<p>The eggs on the floor, broken.</p>
53<p>In other dreams, all I’ve watched all of my family dying. My father I remember best: he was on the wicker rocking chair on the porch, staring at the back yard, the evergreen trees in a magic triangle, their branches intertwined. We were all on the porch, and I heard like a far-away bell the moment of his death. I woke up crying, my throat closed with grief.</p>
54<p>Leaving after the goodbye at the hotel, <a href="lappel-du-vide.html">realizing I won’t be home</a> until Christmas, that I’m on my own long trip, someone on the radio station I’m listening to in the car screws up transferring tapes, broadcasts dead air. The silence yawns like a chasm, lasting for years. <a href="riptide_memory.html">The wind picks me up and carries me away</a>, I see everything from a great height, I see the future. I’m waiting.</p></section>
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43 <section class="content prose"><p>Somewhere I remember reading advice for beginning writers not to show their work to anyone, at least that in the early stages. The author argued that it took all of the power out of the idea, like a pressure-release valve, before any of that creative power got to be applied to the page. It made me think of “<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/177014">Meditation at Legunitas</a>,” when Hass writes “that each particular erases / the luminous clarity of a general idea.” As a self-confessed General Idea person, I identify with the remark: it does seem as though, no matter how lofty the idea I originally have for a poem, once I sit down to write the thing I quickly get bogged down in the details, the particulars. I guess the writer of that lost article must work the same way, leading to their advice: if the “luminous clarity of a general idea” is so fragile that just beginning to write it down ruins it somehow, <em>telling</em> people about it is even worse.</p>
44<p>But back to that Robert Hass poem: while he does say that thing about the “luminous clarity of a general idea,” and he adds to it that “<a href="words-meaning.html">a word is elegy</a> to what it signifies,” his tone is lightly chiding this philosophy. He opens his poem with “All the new thinking is about loss. / In this it resembles all the old thinking,” which to my mind lampoons both the new and the old thinking for not having anything new, ultimately, to say. He attributes these thoughts to a friend, whose voice carried “a thin wire of grief, a tone / almost querulous” about that loss of luminous clarity. The speaker of Hass’s poem remembers a woman he made love to, once, and this image takes over the poem in all its specificity, from “her small shoulders” to his “childhood river / with its island willows,” to “the way her hands dismantled bread.”</p>
45<p>Even in disproving his friend’s remarks through his imagery, the speaker of “Meditation at Legunitas” admits that “It hardly had to do with her”—and here is the heart of what Hass is saying about poetry. A poem hardly has to do with what it’s written about, on the surface level; as Richard Hugo says it in <a href="http://ualr.edu/rmburns/RB/hugosubj.html">a famous essay</a>, a poem has a “triggering subject” and it has a “real or generated subject,” which for Hugo in “Meditation at Legunitas” is something about the way that not only general ideas, but particulars, such as the body or hands or “the thing her father said that hurt her,” which is such a beautiful generality that is somehow also a particular truth, are luminous to poetry and to life-as-lived. The philosophers can say what they want, but we experience the world bodily and particularly to ourselves.</p>
46<p>There’s still a problem with language, however, to which Hass speaks by the end of his poem, with those repetitions of “blackberry, blackberry, blackberry,” in that, as Jack Gilbert says in his poem “<a href="http://www.smith.edu/poetrycenter/poets/theforgottendialect.html">The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart</a>,” “How astonishing it is that language can almost mean, / but frightening that it does not quite.” There is still that “<a href="http://www.mrbauld.com/negcap.html">irritable reaching</a> after fact &amp; reason” that language, as communication, requires—I think Keats would agree that he wrote about a near-unattainable ideal in his letter that only Shakespeare and maybe Coleridge and a few others could achieve, this “Negative Capability.” Gilbert furthers Keats in asserting that no matter what we write, “the words / Get it wrong,” that utterance is itself that irritable reaching.</p>
47<p>In Gilbert’s poem, though, he does reach after something. In the second half of the poem he begins to imagine what the “mysterious Sumerian tablets” could be as poetry, instead of just “business records:”</p>
48<blockquote>
49<p>[…] My joy is the same as twelve Ethiopian goats standing in the morning light. O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper, as grand as ripe barley under the wind’s labor. Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts of long-fibered Egyptian cotton. My love is a hundred pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this desire in the dark.</p>
50</blockquote>
51<p>This is my favorite part of the poem, and I think it’s because Gilbert, like Hass, reaches for the specific in the general; he brings huge ideas like the Lord or Love or Joy into the specific images of salt, copper, or honey, or like he says at the end of his poem: “What we feel most has / no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses and birds.” This, ultimately, is what Keats was getting at, and Hugo, too: that the real subject of any poetry is not capturable in the words of the poem, but that rather a poem speaks around its subject. To be honest, all <a href="art.html">art</a> may do this. What sets a poem apart is its honesty about that fact.</p></section>
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