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

BY LYN HEJINIAN

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 . . . .