Comments on: Backlog 2 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2010/02/backlog-2/ Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:40:04 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: evie http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2010/02/backlog-2/#comment-28946 evie Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:25:23 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=8688#comment-28946 (the poem) reading (the reader) as in sounding. the reader being sounded out via the sounds the poem makes in her. (i can't stop myself from thinking of *sounder* here, though it comes in at angle.) (the poem) reading (the reader) as in sounding. the reader being sounded out via the sounds the poem makes in her. (i can’t stop myself from thinking of *sounder* here, though it comes in at angle.)
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]]> By: Amy Catanzano http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2010/02/backlog-2/#comment-28930 Amy Catanzano Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:50:17 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=8688#comment-28930 Didn't know that--thanks. I have the Bantam edition. Didn’t know that–thanks. I have the Bantam edition.
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]]> By: John Oliver Simon http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2010/02/backlog-2/#comment-28914 John Oliver Simon Wed, 10 Feb 2010 05:57:17 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=8688#comment-28914 And For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf was first published — and printed — by Alta, at Shameless Hussy Press. And For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf was first published — and printed — by Alta, at Shameless Hussy Press.
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]]> By: Amy Catanzano http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2010/02/backlog-2/#comment-28910 Amy Catanzano Wed, 10 Feb 2010 05:21:40 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=8688#comment-28910 Ntozake Shange! Her play was the first book I ever taught. Introduction to Literature. Learning how to read, mutually. Thank you, Fred. Ntozake Shange! Her play was the first book I ever taught. Introduction to Literature. Learning how to read, mutually. Thank you, Fred.
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]]> By: Fred Moten http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2010/02/backlog-2/#comment-28844 Fred Moten Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:41:43 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=8688#comment-28844 Hey Amy, Invent, as in come upon, discover (what was already there, inside it or in the new thing that is our encounter. And the reading is, as you say, mutual! There is movement, there is being moved. I think I wanna engage Zong!--or to move knowingly in what I have already unknowingly agreed upon--in some kind of contact improvisation: a choreopoem, as Shange might have it or, maybe more precisely some kind of phonochoreography: sounded (deep as the sea) movement in relation to one another. Hey Amy,

Invent, as in come upon, discover (what was already there, inside it or in the new thing that is our encounter. And the reading is, as you say, mutual! There is movement, there is being moved. I think I wanna engage Zong!–or to move knowingly in what I have already unknowingly agreed upon–in some kind of contact improvisation: a choreopoem, as Shange might have it or, maybe more precisely some kind of phonochoreography: sounded (deep as the sea) movement in relation to one another.
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]]> By: Amy Catanzano http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2010/02/backlog-2/#comment-28837 Amy Catanzano Tue, 09 Feb 2010 04:29:09 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=8688#comment-28837 Anything is possible! Fred, how will you invent a way to read Zong!? In your standing before the poem and the event that is behind it, is this so that the book can find a way to read you, too? Is this what you meant above by the “mutual transformation” and by the whoever-whatever being “moved, reformatted”? With thanks-- Anything is possible! Fred, how will you invent a way to read Zong!? In your standing before the poem and the event that is behind it, is this so that the book can find a way to read you, too? Is this what you meant above by the “mutual transformation” and by the whoever-whatever being “moved, reformatted”? With thanks–
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]]> By: Fred Moten http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2010/02/backlog-2/#comment-28810 Fred Moten Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:09:51 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=8688#comment-28810 And, Amy, those, are the ones I stand before. Or, what I mean is, they are in and animate Zong! as I stand before it, try to figure out how to read it, just as Philip stood before the event, the historical and legal texts and all that they erase and all that that erasure could never have fully erased (traces/bits/fragments that are not erasable). To stand before the poem and the event that is behind it. But I don't believe in that spatial model, which is also a temporal model. I want to believe, so I guess I do believe, in a kind of ecstatic temporality of the poem, the poem as a kind of benjaminian constellation. And what's so cool in what you say comes out now, I would hope: that the poem's spacetime warps the spacetime that is outside it, holds the possibilities of massive transportations, big-ass jumps in and to some proximate other worlds, that, it turns out, people have been living in, otherwise, all, or almost all, along. And this is, from here and now, which must mean something different because of the way we're talking "here and now," absolutely about futurity. What CB is doing kinda scares me a little bit, and I'm not too interested in anything that would outlive humans because I have a soft spot in my heart for us, but there is a kind of futurity in the present, as C.L.R. James would kinda say that for me is all bound up with the way that the poem, even in the face of the unimaginable horror that might lie behind it, is encoded with another way to live. On the other hand, who knows how cool this new creature Christian sings up might be! And, Amy, those, are the ones I stand before. Or, what I mean is, they are in and animate Zong! as I stand before it, try to figure out how to read it, just as Philip stood before the event, the historical and legal texts and all that they erase and all that that erasure could never have fully erased (traces/bits/fragments that are not erasable). To stand before the poem and the event that is behind it. But I don’t believe in that spatial model, which is also a temporal model. I want to believe, so I guess I do believe, in a kind of ecstatic temporality of the poem, the poem as a kind of benjaminian constellation. And what’s so cool in what you say comes out now, I would hope: that the poem’s spacetime warps the spacetime that is outside it, holds the possibilities of massive transportations, big-ass jumps in and to some proximate other worlds, that, it turns out, people have been living in, otherwise, all, or almost all, along.

And this is, from here and now, which must mean something different because of the way we’re talking “here and now,” absolutely about futurity. What CB is doing kinda scares me a little bit, and I’m not too interested in anything that would outlive humans because I have a soft spot in my heart for us, but there is a kind of futurity in the present, as C.L.R. James would kinda say that for me is all bound up with the way that the poem, even in the face of the unimaginable horror that might lie behind it, is encoded with another way to live. On the other hand, who knows how cool this new creature Christian sings up might be!
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]]> By: Fred Moten http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2010/02/backlog-2/#comment-28808 Fred Moten Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:53:45 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=8688#comment-28808 Hey Bhanu, yeah, progeny, I think. And there's this mixture of literal and figural when I think about this with regard to Zong! and consider what it is to be the descendants of the one who have no descendants, who were robbed of their capacity to make generations, as Gayl Jones/Ursa Corregidora would say but also robbed even of the capacity to have, let alone tell, their story, but, whose remains are expressive, who remain in that they express, somehow, anyway, and in a way that doesn't try to recover or repair but only demands the expression that it pulls from you and that you are. Hey Bhanu, yeah, progeny, I think. And there’s this mixture of literal and figural when I think about this with regard to Zong! and consider what it is to be the descendants of the one who have no descendants, who were robbed of their capacity to make generations, as Gayl Jones/Ursa Corregidora would say but also robbed even of the capacity to have, let alone tell, their story, but, whose remains are expressive, who remain in that they express, somehow, anyway, and in a way that doesn’t try to recover or repair but only demands the expression that it pulls from you and that you are.
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]]> By: Amy Catanzano http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2010/02/backlog-2/#comment-28803 Amy Catanzano Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:48:28 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=8688#comment-28803 Fred, your "space-time of articulation" makes me think about the spacetime of the poem, how the poem works with space and time as literary devices, but also how the poem warps spacetime, too, outside of the poem. Fred & Bhanu: If the reader, the poem, and history have a spatial relation, they might have a unique time signature as well, a spacetime that situates history in the future. Christian Bok's Xenotext Experiment--in which he is encoding a poem into a live bacterium to create a cultural archive that could outlive humans—seems to be a good example of futurity as a poetic device within a spacetime of impossible codes. Fred, your “space-time of articulation” makes me think about the spacetime of the poem, how the poem works with space and time as literary devices, but also how the poem warps spacetime, too, outside of the poem.

Fred & Bhanu: If the reader, the poem, and history have a spatial relation, they might have a unique time signature as well, a spacetime that situates history in the future. Christian Bok’s Xenotext Experiment–in which he is encoding a poem into a live bacterium to create a cultural archive that could outlive humans—seems to be a good example of futurity as a poetic device within a spacetime of impossible codes.
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]]> By: Bhanu Kapil http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2010/02/backlog-2/#comment-28788 Bhanu Kapil Mon, 08 Feb 2010 03:34:49 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=8688#comment-28788 "The event-remains are deep and we stand before them, to express them, as their expression." Fred: the writer a kind of progeny of these impossible codes? “The event-remains are deep and we stand before them, to express them, as their expression.” Fred: the writer a kind of progeny of these impossible codes?
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