Monday, May 05, 2014

San Francisco Bay



This is another picture of the green waters of San Francisco Bay from Fort Mason. I had another of Mandelstam's poems for tonight, but was suddenly overwhelmed by the (immense, intense) century since his poem was written. I guess it will keep for later in the week. Thinking about modern, I remembered how nice Lyn Hejinian was about participating in a poetry panel that I was drafted to arrange by a sort of outlier outfit, the Poetry Bibliographers of the American Library Association. I have a cassette tape (old Technology!) of the presentation which I still treasure. So, in quest of modernity, I found this at this link.  For convenience, I have copied and pasted it here, formatting, footnotes and all.

from constant change figures

constant change figures
the time we sense
passing on its effect
surpassing things we've known before
since memory
of many things is called
experience
but what of what
we call nature's picture
surpassing things we call
since memory
we call nature's picture
surpassing things we've known before
constant change figures
experience
passing on its effect
but what of what
constant change figures
since memory
of many things is called
the time we sense
called nature's picture
but what of what
in the time we sense
surpassing things we've known before
passing on its effect
is experience
FOOTNOTES: Originally published in Bay Poetics, edited by Stephanie Young. Faux Press: Cambridge, MA, 2006.
Lyn Hejinian, "Constant change figures" from Bay Poetics, 2006. Copyright 2006 by Lyn Hejinian.

Source: Bay Poetics (Poetry Foundation, 2006)

If I concentrate on this, I feel like I can almost understand it; I feel my brain humming. Also, now I notice that in my own poetry, there is usually some sort of narrative element. Read this poem more than once and see what you think.  Hum m m m m m . . . .

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