How often I lingered in a hollow

                                         Shadow

A          striking platitude of

            The mind

Encompassed by all,

            Composed of no-

thing    .

feeding it words,

the noxious ^ink, it’s

fearless

            shadow

marks, distinct.

Catching on my sides, _{slipping,seeping}

Tripping, and fallen, unhandleable

                            Form

Speaking in fervid arcane tounges,

Choked with ghostly flesh,

Concrete: no prospects,

            Lingering in pen

    Holds– Eternity.

In this piece I assumed the philosophy of the Black Mountain poets, and allowed my own breath, at the instant, to arise into script form. Whether it be because I have read an extensive amount of modern projectivist poetry recently, or perhaps because I'm naturally inclined to illustrate my intentions in as many dimensions as possible, the form that the verse assumed is reflection or a representation of the manner in which Black Mountain poets expressed themselves in verse form. To intertwine a visual aspect within the same ‘instant’ the following painting was created as an expression of an entity in breath and life that reflects from the organic aspects of the reality of perceptions that spawned the poem. 

Earth Tie - Robert Rauschenberg

John Cage "Imaginary Landscape No. 1"

Reflections On Imaginary Landscapes No. 1

Constructed from rhythmic units of vibrations and frequencies, John Cage's "Imaginary Landscape No. 1" pierces into a visceral reality for mankind. The compilation, formed by muted pianos, cymbals, and two variable-speed phonographs with amplifiers, is the unification of these elements to expose an entirely honest, yet ambiguous sensation. The interplay of sounds builds tension in a method that parallels poems I have read by projectivists. They flow, yet are jagged, impressionistic, and build themselves from their acoustic form spawned from the composers’ intentions. The content, or purpose of the piece, is at the quantum level of the composition: continuously fleeting, existing in a wave of possibilities and impossible to bring into concreteness, other than when defined in a perspective. The abrupt change of frequencies from the phonographs also parallels the enjambment of Black Mountain poetry. The method eases into a progression that is deviant yet somehow euphonious.

In the same manner in which the projectivists ascend from their organic origins to script a composition that harmonizes with their breathing intentions, Cage here utilizes natural progression using electroacoustic music. He attempted to make a musical pieces "free from individual taste and memory" and from the conventions that hitherto were followed. "A mistake", Cage says, "is beside the point, for once anything happens, it authentically is." This mode of applying one's intuition parallels the Black Mountain Poets, as Cage had his own experience in Black Mountain College. In the poets attempt to delineate the authenticity of reality, they, in a sense, removed their subjectivity, or attempted, rather, to maintain, in their writing, an objective interpretation, one which is reborn upon every experience of reading it. Similarly, Imaginary Landscape No. 1 does not yield a definitive reaction or sensation, but rather exists to explore what exists. 

Fully Awake: A film on Black Mountain College

Reflection on the Black Mountain Poetry Movement

Allowing your human vision to linger upon the reality of these letters, these verses, these manifestos of script and tongue which have been elevated from our primordial grounds of expression to distinguish and shape the concrete, revitalize, from the inured base of our abstract metaphysics, that organic core entity from which language ought to, and originally did, project from.

Formally introduced in Charles Olson’s Projective Verse, ‘open field’ enables the human to extend from the confines of his ambiguous duality and transfer that which gives him humanity, through the words, into another human who recognizes the entity as something not dissimilar from his own. Using phenomenology as a base of perspective, composition by field acts as an extender of the instant, the moment, the ineffably laudable and perfect in unity fragment of existence, capturable, or in an attempt to be captured, within the aspiring unbounded structure of open field composition. Extending the content into the form,  Olson avowed that it would attain an essence the exuded the integral, pivotal, and most concrete sensations that emanate from the body itself.

This radically innovative approach to writing verse could perhaps only have been spawned by the fragile entanglement of the artists, mentors, atmosphere, and essence of genuine collaboration that was at the heart of Black Mountain College. Although small and tucked away near woodlands in Asheville, North Carolina, short- lived Black Mountain College with its radically experimental approach to education gave comfort and shelter to a community of artists unlike any other institution or group. This reflects epically within the writing of the Black Mountain Poets. Although each are unique, particular, and phenomenally distinctive from one another in their methods of handling language and its surrounding form, they all carry the influential ability of transposing reality, in a lucidity that fails to find compare. They all, in some manner, were deeply conscious of their writing, and shared the value of maintaining a sense of honesty to themselves and to their 3^rd party readers.

Such aspirations pierce deeply into my own ideas of language and its utilization for a genuine purpose. Often language is used to manipulate or divert its readers from a truth, using its inherent logic and rationale. In some cases its function is to describe, lifelessly painting abstract symbols in our minds that detract from the boundlessness that object and substance innately carry. What these poets, for me, do, is invigorate and give a pulse to the words that are sometimes left as corpses, grey and inanimate. They infuse into composition the natural kinetics and illustrate that “elements are to be seen as creating the tension of a poem as totally as do those other object create what we know as the world” (243). This action brings the purpose of language to illustrate and capture the immortality of the real.  As humans inexorably propel themselves forward into the prospects of ‘evolution’, this poetry, so to speak, affirms the origins of our nature; giving it flesh so not to have it fade underneath a groundless construction that the ego and civilization has fabricated for itself. It brings into tangibility the fleeting and the moment to instant impressions and experiences of existence in life, much as Joyce’s works extend into the entity of reality, to extract it, and lure it into a, usually, articulate flow of syllables and images. Their poetry paints an awe-inspiring juxtaposition of life and verse; a unification of the breath and (perhaps the most profound foundation to man’s intellect) tangible tongue.(Olson)

Work Cited

Charles Olson, Donald Allen, and     Benjamin Friedlander. Collected prose. Los Angelos: Univ of California Pr, 1997. 239-249. Print.

Benz, Jim. "Charles Olson's Essay on Projective Verse." Poetry- Forms.suite101.com. N.p., 05/02/2010. Web. 3 Jun 2010. essay-on-projective-verse>.

Fully Awake. Dir. Neeley House, Cathryn Davis." Independent: 2005, Film.

Study For Flanders - Frank Kline

Explication of At the Loom: Passage 2 - Robert Duncan

Robert Duncan: At the Loom Passage 2

                       

                                             A cat’s purr

In the hwirr thkk                “thgk, thkk”

      of Kirke’s loom on Pound’s Cantos
                      “I heard a song of that kind…”

my mind a shuttle among

                set strings of the music

lets a weft of dream grow in the day time,

                   an increment of associations,

        luminous soft threads,

the thrown glamour, crossing and recrossing,

            the twisted sinews underlying the work.

Back of the images, the few cords that bind  

     Meanings in the word-flow,

                            the rivering web

            rises among wits and senses

gathering the wool into its full cloth.

The secret!    the secret!    It’s hid

            In its showing forth.

The white cat kneads his paws

                   And sheathes his eyes in ecstasy against the light,           

      The light bounding from his fur as from a shield

                Held high in the midst of a battle.

What does the Worm work in His cocoon?

            There was such a want in the old ways

                 When craft came into our elements,

            the art shall never be free of that forge,

                                 that loom, that lyre –

           

            the fire, the images, the voice.

Why, even in the room where we are,

                   reading to ourselves, or I am reading aloud,

           sounding the music,

                                                the stuff

                        vanishes upon the air,                       

                                    line after line thrown.

Let there be the clack of the shuttle flying

        forward and back,            forward and

                                 back,

warp, wearp, varp:            “cast of a net, a laying of eggs”

    from *warp-      “to throw”

            the threads twisted for strength

                       that can be a warp of the will.

      “O weaver, weaver, work no more,”

              Gascoyne is quoted:

      “thy warp hath done me wrong.”

And the shuttle carrying the woof I find

        Was skutill              “harpoon”  - a dart, an arrow,

                  or a little ship,

           

            navicula                 weberschiff,           

crossing and recrossing from shore to shore –

    prehistoric  *skutil   *skut-

            “a bolt, a bar, as of a door”

          “a flood-gate”                ·

                                    but that battle I saw

was on a wide plain,                         for the

         sake of valor,

the hand traind to the bow,

      the man’s frame

withstanding,       each side

facing its foe for the sake of 

         the alliance,

allegiance, the legion, that the

            vow that makes a nation

one body not be broken.

Yet it is all, we know, a mêlée,

            a medley of mistaken themes

      grown dreadful and surmounting dread,

so that Achilles may have his wrath

                        and throw fown

            the heroic Hektor who raised

that reflection of the heroic

               in his shield…

Explication

Duncan’s At The Loom, Passages 2 is the paragon of the projectivist verse, of a composition by field that was the epithet of the Black Mountain literary movement. 

Initiating with onomonopia [purr, hwirr, thkk] promptly illustrates Duncan’s partiality to the lyrically tangible dimension of language. The poem also begins with a large indent, which backtracks on the following line. This is prevalent throughout the verse, as the increments of the progression of the line imply the logical rhythmic succession of the meaning of the words. Apparent in the line “forward and back,   forward and…back” we see how enjambment plays a role in line indentation to carry the meaning onto the page, as the word back is on the following line, indented ‘back’ to align with the first appearance of the word ‘back’. This method of composition speaks for the contemporary modern movement, in using the paper as the canvas to depict the form and content of the word’s significance.

Quotations scattered throughout the piece allude to a subjective voice, as the majority of the poem is scripted for imagery and objective impressions and notions, “thy warp hath done me wrong.” for instance. Quotations are also used to extend auditory rhythmic patterns, such as the sound of loom emanating from an external source and the consonance arrangement of words “a bolt, a bar, as of a door” and “O weaver, weaver, work no more.” adds a voice which plays off the original tone of the speakers voice and builds tension.

The poem constructs the notion of the mind being a composer/weaver, which intertwines the strings of its consciousness and reality to fabricate. Duncan concentrates on the building of a “word-flow” that results from the binding of the images of our thoughts, intellect and senses, manifest as threads. He stresses the significance of “the secret!” repeating it twice, and indenting “it’s hid” to imply the crucial space between the value of the secret and notion that it is hidden at the surface. Duncan further explores the penetrating light of clarity or insight that shines, which yields a blinding ecstasy and reflects back from the ‘cat’s’ shield, as if the clarity of self-truth is harmful and in subconscious anticipation is avoided with a mental shield. Duncan marks the Worm significant by capitalizing Worm and His, the Worm being the secret that eats away within, (or so can be insinuated by Duncan’s question of the worm’s work), inside the cocoon of words, the threads of language that have been wrapped around tightly around the secret to obscure it and de-clarify it. It also implies that it undergoes some sort of metamorphosis while hid from the eyes of reality, within the inner abstractions of language. Continuing on, Duncan illustrates imagery of the loom and lyre as the originators of art, which thread components and elements together and which emanate harmony from them, the stings or the musical harmony of words, simultaneously.

Duncan also outlines the notion of “the stuff” (suspended in the center of the line on its own) or the music that comes from reading, as being fleeting from instant to instant, “vanish[ing] upon the air, line after line thrown” which stresses the importance of expressing the moment that was pivotal in the Black Mountain movement. He furthers that the artistic experience is perennial in its existence “forward and back,     forward and

                        back”

continuously restarting on a new line of thread, to spawn more; in the infinite stream of creativity. Duncan also uses the metamorphoses of words to illustrate how they can progress, evolve, and display new meanings from distortions. “warp, wearp, varp..from *warp- ‘to throw’”. These new meanings, although, may not be in the power of the creator, but rather in the influence of the tools used for fabrication. “The threads twisted for strength, that can be a warp of the will,” where words, convoluted and ‘twisted’ for their effect, can in turn yield a distortion of the original intentions. The poem concludes by expressing that the battle, the melee, exists for the purpose of intention vs. creation unifying. To have the artist's hand be capable of holding the ‘bow’, the mode of the artist’s creation, in a way so as to depict the subtleties and images they imagine in clarity within reality. Duncan ends the poem with the “the reflection of the heroic” and “in his shield…” which floats ambiguously in the center of the end of the verse. This last impression shows us that regardless of the heroism of the artist in this battle, the light of clarity and truth always reflects from the shield, the egoic reflection of his innermost secret, which he holds.

Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow - Robert Duncan

as if it were a scene made-up by the mind,   

that is not mine, but is a made place,

that is mine, it is so near to the heart,   

an eternal pasture folded in all thought   

so that there is a hall therein

that is a made place, created by light   

wherefrom the shadows that are forms fall.

Wherefrom fall all architectures I am

I say are likenesses of the First Beloved   

whose flowers are flames lit to the Lady.

She it is Queen Under The Hill

whose hosts are a disturbance of words within words   

that is a field folded.

It is only a dream of the grass blowing   

east against the source of the sun

in an hour before the sun’s going down

whose secret we see in a children’s game   

of ring a round of roses told.

Often I am permitted to return to a meadow   

as if it were a given property of the mind   

that certain bounds hold against chaos,

that is a place of first permission,   

everlasting omen of what is.

Reflections of Projectivist Poetry

Food For Fire, Food For Thought – Robert Duncan

Maximus, to himself – Charles Olson

Not Ideas about the Thing but the Thing itself – Wallace Stevens

“Untitled” * (Added to making a Republic…)  - Charles Olson

Often I Am Permitted To Return To A Meadow – Robert Duncan

Anger – Robert Creeley

After A Long Illness – Robert Creeley

Structure of Rime XXV – Robert Duncan

Night Song for 2 Mystics – Robert Blackburn

The Third Dimension – Denise Levertov

As The Dead Prey Upon Us – Charles Olson

            The experience of interacting with these pieces of verse is distinctly an interaction, as the poem is the manifestation of the original, instantaneous energy and entity from what we deem the originator intertwining and communicating with the animate being, the being underneath the I that we have exalted to assume our substance, the being of the rhythmic vitality that originates from our living, animal, human form. These projectivists, experimental experientialists, utilize the impressionistic, boldly innate potential of the form, the line of a poem, its structure, to link the fading connection between human and human by using the concrete experience of phenomena as the communicator.

            A factor quick to rise into anticipated illumination is the method by which these projective poets utilize their breath for tangible expression. What has become evident by experiencing these poems is that the projectivist’s endeavor, to transfer their breath from themselves to be re-inspired and freshly experienced with the same force by the reader, is that they achieve their prospect in multi-dimensions by use of the syllable, liberty of the line, and form as an extension of content.

            Being experimental in nature, many projectivists, shatter/sacrifice conventional syntax and spelling to further their individual promptings. The most distinctive deviation of diction is the severance of vowels from their respective word. For instance, throughout the work of Black Mountain Poets yr takes the place of your, could becomes cld and should shld. In doing this, rather than squandering letters to expel a trite purpose, they brought the current of the flow of poetry into brevity of breath. Eliminating vowels, which are natural consequences of the breath, in particularly suggestive words of subjectivity (your, could, should) furthered the projectivist’s incentive to give flesh and objective, independent life to their works. The influential, powerful method deepened and broadened the communication between purpose and comprehension.

            Enjambment is perhaps the most evidently tangible structure that the projectivists utilized. Explicitly an extension of a line break, their use of enjambment correlates to their rhythmic breathing form. This aspect of their poetry allows for a melody to develop based on the breath units in which one manifests the verse. It acts as an extension of the poet’s voice, allowing the reader to bring the poem into solidity, maintaining an organic resemblance to the original creation of the poem from the projectivist’s intellect. Enjambment also constructs and directs tension continuously, pulling the reader mentally forward and backwards, and also eases the tension it fabricates by the natural rhythm that results. Along with enjambment, particular and careful use of punctuations and especially commas assist in extending and transposing the breath into script.

            Projective Verse does not hold a particular body of content; so much as it remains a canvas for writers to extend their unique experiences. The poems I read through were, although, predominantly concerned with the nature of reality underneath the superficiality of everyday existence, the nature of being, and the boundless prospect of man to manifest himself within the possibilities that he holds. Much of Creeley’s poetry dealt with love and the honesty of the nature of affection. Robert Duncan’s poetry is far more difficult to condense into a category of content. Duncan gives voice to aspects of existence that had remained tucked away underneath the realm of language. Charles Olson, as is apparent in his Maximus Poems, held a concentration towards the genuine interaction between the individual and it’s encompassing society and breathing reality.