“all that is not you. I”

Notes after from IDYLLS & RUSHES by Susana Gardner (Dusie Kollektiv, spring 2011).

The book begins (?) with a quote from the writer Colette,

To write is the joy and the torment of the idle. Oh to write!

The binding (stapled, hand-made, folded pages, 3.75” x 3.75”) is covered by a remnant of text from the short novel, The Vagabond, also by Colette. The chap slips into a slip-case made from (read: recycled) a heavy-gauge page from a. . . . *

(This sounds like an autopsy. ORIGIN mid 17th cent. (in the sense [personal observation] ): from French autopsie or modern Latin autopsia, from Greek, from autoptēs ‘eyewitness,’ from autos ‘self’ + optos ‘seen.’)

“Kollektiv.” Modes of production and distribution. This chap is about a mode of production and distribution. Is this economics or poetics? What is my relation to this “chap”? Every “poem” is entitled, “(one).”


(one)

Freedom others bitter tonic
subtle certainties proof reflection
idiosyncratic looking-glass woman
among nuances class
rhythmical language, thought


(one)

Fate, keep away conquest
bouquet deference silent their
letters-physical, urgent,
brutal. Awkward
my garrulous love, idylls& rushes.


What is my relation to this poetry? Poetry depends, for its continued vitality and for its downright existence, upon the avoidance of definition.


* This reminds me of Janson’s. In Janson’s, names with the abbreviation “St.” are indexed/alphabetized under “saint,” as though they were spelled out. I appreciate that.

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