aphrodite on the stereo.
Aug. 6th, 2001 10:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aslantsunday i did all my laundry before going to the poetry exchange group. in the laundromat were a mother and daughter who spoke insistent and serious spanish the entire time. i didn't understand a word but couldn't stop listening. but oh-- the daughter was achingly beautiful. long and tan legs, ageless perfect skin, long black hair. slumbering coal and fire eyes, flashing everywhere like hummingbirds. an ordinary beauty that fascinated me. sprawled in the chair next to me between shifting scrubbing folding bleaching wringing the laundry i pretended to read liddie newton and just watched the crook of her knee in fascination. the curve of the tendon under the skin. her eyes caught mine looking at her from all the way across the laundromat and i feigned momentariness, scanning the dryers for finished loads. businesslike and informal they supervised nine or ten simultaneous loads continuously.
in the sodden haze of cambridge august heat i walked to the coop and threaded through unending tourist crowds (why always southerners?) to the corner. neil was there already and seemed more relaxed. i tried to get some information from him, but all i learned is that he isn't a professor, in fact disdains the usual academia, and instead reads voraciously on his own. no word of a job. intensely likes the sox but preferred poetry this afternoon. kept directing his comments at me.
the infamous and before-absent richard was there to lead this time. he is an old old man with white hair, a long white gandalf beard. athletic in a calm and guru-like way, the way i imagine an old yoga master might be. smooth and hairless limbs. kept his sneakers off the whole time and rested his adorable feet on the chair rung. a tendency to branch off into elaborate and not entirely important stories. redfaced and brash-voiced man joking about the chairs: "richard is a yale man." he opened with a somewhat lengthy and tangential discussion on meter, which bored me. allan and neil continued to open disturbingly random topics, swerving left and right until the woman opposite me (tan smooth shoulders, walks with a limp) began to steer them back again.
so we read gerard manly hopkins' god's grandeur which i did not recognize until halfway through, and at that point i almost wanted to recite it with richard's deep and wood-rich voice. the dove with ah! bright wings, indeed. i am a sucker for that poem. i spouted forth about melody and tone at the woman when she criticized it as overdone and suddenly felt Old Establishment, but never mind. less to unpack than last week's poem, but still a good discussion. why do i feel in my naivete that i understand poetry better than all ten other people? at heart-core i am in hopkins' shoes.
there followed a surprisingly stafford-esque poem from allan, typical and unfortunate trite ending, though. then i passed out my blackout poem. ah, discontent, old friend. when i read it i immediately felt all wrong, voice-tone scratched, parched, unsonorous, unfeeling, unmelodic. when i finished, the dark wide abyss of disgust and dissatisfaction bloomed upward. listened to the woman call me archaic three or four times, which made me hate her intensely. otherwise, guy on my right had good things to point out about my grammar inconsistencies, and complimented my natural meter and feel, and richard puzzled and mused over the wording of the last line, the precise meaning of it. the woman and the guy next to her i caught staring at me oddly, as if trying to get me to respond. they must have asked a question while i listened to neil's prattling on to richard, and i looked like a stupid blank colt as i asked them to sorry, repeat that? was distinctly and humbly unimpressed with the group dynamic. never and impossible to follow the precise beauty of eleanor's class.
man on my right with the unmemorable name read a sweet and well-turned piece about an amsterdam klipper. concluding two lines were good, the rest of it could stand some shortening, though. his poem was the most consistent, although his lisp continues to annoy the piss out of me. before we started he had quizzed me quizzically on comparative literature and what exactly that was, and was disturbed to discover that moby dick was not required reading in the department. he affects a constant sea-knowledge that is half charming and half presumptuous. minutes later he was still thinking about it and questioned me on the african diaspora, at which point i was thoroughly annoyed and no longer interested in explaining how little i knew how to define comparative literature.
that woman (who is so unmemorable i always forget she is there) with her scarred cheeks and unsure haircut, read another incomprehensible poem on death and mourning. "grief less bleeding" and other similar constructions puzzled me. i enjoy her work because she is such an interesting study, her hands and lips pale and reading the poem as if she does not remember her own words.
then the woman across from me read her stripped-down poem which was mildly good, but a trite "daddy" ending that annoyed me. in retaliation for her repetitive archaic comments i refused to comment on her poem, stubborn childish me. she projects a constant mild-soap attitude. a lukewarm assitant-professor aura. like an unhelpful jacobson center aide. i was annoyed intensely.
we ran over by a half-hour looking at neil's example of a religious litany poem (prayer=something understood) and i skipped out early. the high point of all this was that i looked in my address book and discovered what has been making the coop doors beep security alarms at me. i had put in there a sticker, a circuit from a library book i'd found. i left it in the bathroom and escaped silently through the doors. the walk home was pleasantly quiet and traffic minimal through the leafy campus. i enjoy this summer which is two-thirds over and still feel the city is not mine. the quieted sidewalks are littered with tree seeds, helicopter seeds, fallen blooms and wilted weeds. the august heat droops over the bricks and the low and darkened sun flickered on a chrome fender like a dying lightbulb, my shadow long and slow before me like a pool i could fall into.
in the sodden haze of cambridge august heat i walked to the coop and threaded through unending tourist crowds (why always southerners?) to the corner. neil was there already and seemed more relaxed. i tried to get some information from him, but all i learned is that he isn't a professor, in fact disdains the usual academia, and instead reads voraciously on his own. no word of a job. intensely likes the sox but preferred poetry this afternoon. kept directing his comments at me.
the infamous and before-absent richard was there to lead this time. he is an old old man with white hair, a long white gandalf beard. athletic in a calm and guru-like way, the way i imagine an old yoga master might be. smooth and hairless limbs. kept his sneakers off the whole time and rested his adorable feet on the chair rung. a tendency to branch off into elaborate and not entirely important stories. redfaced and brash-voiced man joking about the chairs: "richard is a yale man." he opened with a somewhat lengthy and tangential discussion on meter, which bored me. allan and neil continued to open disturbingly random topics, swerving left and right until the woman opposite me (tan smooth shoulders, walks with a limp) began to steer them back again.
so we read gerard manly hopkins' god's grandeur which i did not recognize until halfway through, and at that point i almost wanted to recite it with richard's deep and wood-rich voice. the dove with ah! bright wings, indeed. i am a sucker for that poem. i spouted forth about melody and tone at the woman when she criticized it as overdone and suddenly felt Old Establishment, but never mind. less to unpack than last week's poem, but still a good discussion. why do i feel in my naivete that i understand poetry better than all ten other people? at heart-core i am in hopkins' shoes.
there followed a surprisingly stafford-esque poem from allan, typical and unfortunate trite ending, though. then i passed out my blackout poem. ah, discontent, old friend. when i read it i immediately felt all wrong, voice-tone scratched, parched, unsonorous, unfeeling, unmelodic. when i finished, the dark wide abyss of disgust and dissatisfaction bloomed upward. listened to the woman call me archaic three or four times, which made me hate her intensely. otherwise, guy on my right had good things to point out about my grammar inconsistencies, and complimented my natural meter and feel, and richard puzzled and mused over the wording of the last line, the precise meaning of it. the woman and the guy next to her i caught staring at me oddly, as if trying to get me to respond. they must have asked a question while i listened to neil's prattling on to richard, and i looked like a stupid blank colt as i asked them to sorry, repeat that? was distinctly and humbly unimpressed with the group dynamic. never and impossible to follow the precise beauty of eleanor's class.
man on my right with the unmemorable name read a sweet and well-turned piece about an amsterdam klipper. concluding two lines were good, the rest of it could stand some shortening, though. his poem was the most consistent, although his lisp continues to annoy the piss out of me. before we started he had quizzed me quizzically on comparative literature and what exactly that was, and was disturbed to discover that moby dick was not required reading in the department. he affects a constant sea-knowledge that is half charming and half presumptuous. minutes later he was still thinking about it and questioned me on the african diaspora, at which point i was thoroughly annoyed and no longer interested in explaining how little i knew how to define comparative literature.
that woman (who is so unmemorable i always forget she is there) with her scarred cheeks and unsure haircut, read another incomprehensible poem on death and mourning. "grief less bleeding" and other similar constructions puzzled me. i enjoy her work because she is such an interesting study, her hands and lips pale and reading the poem as if she does not remember her own words.
then the woman across from me read her stripped-down poem which was mildly good, but a trite "daddy" ending that annoyed me. in retaliation for her repetitive archaic comments i refused to comment on her poem, stubborn childish me. she projects a constant mild-soap attitude. a lukewarm assitant-professor aura. like an unhelpful jacobson center aide. i was annoyed intensely.
we ran over by a half-hour looking at neil's example of a religious litany poem (prayer=something understood) and i skipped out early. the high point of all this was that i looked in my address book and discovered what has been making the coop doors beep security alarms at me. i had put in there a sticker, a circuit from a library book i'd found. i left it in the bathroom and escaped silently through the doors. the walk home was pleasantly quiet and traffic minimal through the leafy campus. i enjoy this summer which is two-thirds over and still feel the city is not mine. the quieted sidewalks are littered with tree seeds, helicopter seeds, fallen blooms and wilted weeds. the august heat droops over the bricks and the low and darkened sun flickered on a chrome fender like a dying lightbulb, my shadow long and slow before me like a pool i could fall into.
