Smutty Alchemy
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University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2021-01-18 Smutty Alchemy Smith, Mallory E. Land Smith, M. E. L. (2021). Smutty Alchemy (Unpublished doctoral thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/113019 doctoral thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Smutty Alchemy by Mallory E. Land Smith A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH CALGARY, ALBERTA JANUARY, 2021 © Mallory E. Land Smith 2021 MELS ii Abstract Sina Queyras, in the essay “Lyric Conceptualism: A Manifesto in Progress,” describes the Lyric Conceptualist as a poet capable of recognizing the effects of disparate movements and employing a variety of lyric, conceptual, and language poetry techniques to continue to innovate in poetry without dismissing the work of other schools of poetic thought. Queyras sees the lyric conceptualist as an artistic curator who collects, modifies, selects, synthesizes, and adapts, to create verse that is both conceptual and accessible, using relevant materials and techniques from the past and present. This dissertation responds to Queyras’s idea with a collection of original poems in the lyric conceptualist mode, supported by a critical exegesis of that work. “Smutty Alchemy,” the poetry collection, navigates lyric and conceptual traditions and forms to discuss scientific subject matter, taking as a focal point the work of Margaret Cavendish, a writer at the start of the seventeenth-century scientific revolution. The exegesis aims to situate the collection, “Smutty Alchemy,” within the intellectual context both of contemporary Canadian poetry and of creative-scientific writing. Stylistically, “Smutty Alchemy” speaks to the concerns of lyric conceptualism by blurring the lines among lyric, conceptual and language poetry traditions, playing with such recognized forms as sonnets, triolets, epic poems, and free verse, as well as refigured poetic shapes, such as the element poems, the cursed sonnets, and invented poetic shapes, such as the tardigrade-shaped poems, which specifically reference concrete poetry. Feminist writers and critics can both refuse to limit subject matter or style based on the autobiographical and confessional modes of the lyric poets and still discuss the mark of the personal upon even the most process-intensive poetics and “objective” voices. Additionally, they refuse to adhere strictly to any stringent rulemaking of the conceptualists, or to choose exclusively a focus on language moments as do the language poets. My project explores this MELS iii impetus towards the understanding of poetic forms, coupled with the impulse to delimit and expand the range of those forms by creating a poetry collection that pairs scientific subject matter with experiential knowing and the synthetic and invented poetic shapes of lyric conceptualism. MELS iv Acknowledgements First and foremost, thank you always to Judie Land, my Mom, for always hearing me out. The spirit of this project and its lengthy undertaking could not have happened without your constant support. I can never repay your gifts of time and incredible insight in this collection, and I dedicate this collection of poems to you. Thank you to my gracious co-supervisors Prof. David Sigler and Prof. Larissa Lai, who came to this project with sharp eyes and open minds, and who helped me forge a better collection, and writer, than I could imagine coming. Thank you to my committee members, Dr. Jacqueline Jenkins and Dr. Anthony Camara, who fabricated the time to give this project their attention, stepped out of their comfort zones, and broadened my critical thinking. Thank you too to Dr. Susan Bennett and Dr. Harry Vandervlist for serving in my committee previously and may you both be enjoying well-earned retirements. Thank you to Dr. Christian Bök for working on the early shape of the collection. Thank you to Prof. Victor Ramraj in memoriam, who was the first person to help me truly see my context and graciously extend his expertise to this project. Thank you to my friends, The Best Cohort that a scholar could ask for, to accompany her on this journey: Jess Nicol, Peter Forestall, Rebecca Geleyn, and Jane Chamberlain. Almost there, and always together. Thank you to my incredible colleagues Will Best, Erin Emily Vance, Amy LeBlanc, Benjamin Blythe, Joshua Whitehead, Ben Groh, and Julia Polyck-O’Neill for your support and interest since this collection was a sheer nimbus of words. Thank you also to Prof. Aritha Van Herk, for your moxie and wise words, and Prof. Morgan Vanek, for sharing your love of 17th century literature with me. Thank you to Prof. Stefania Forlini, Prof. Christian Olbey, and Prof. Eden Lackner, for your interest in my work and MELS v kindness. Thank you to the wonderful administrators of the English Department who kept me afloat in a sea of paperwork; my endless gratitude goes out to Prof. Aruna Srivastava, Prof. Suzette Mayr, Ms. Karen Preddy, Ms. Carole Taylor, and Ms. Barb Howe. Thank you to the Writer in the School residency supported by the GATE program at Queen Elizabeth High School, with particular gratitude to Karen Webster and Gary Perfect, and the students in those classes who heard some of my first drafts. Thank you to the Kinship Residence and Ian Kinney of the Earthship for letting me borrow some starlight and write some poems. Thank you to the Artist in Residence program organized by the Health Humanities committee, and especially Aritha van Herk and Tom Rosenal. Thank you to the Department of English, the Faculty of Graduate Studies, the A.T. J. Cairns Memorial Award, and QEII Scholarship program for the generous financial support that made my venture possible. Thank you also to the staff at the National Portrait Gallery of England, the Thomas Fischer Rare Book Library of Toronto, and especially Adriana Sanzana, of the Geography Library, and Melanie Boyd, the English Department librarian, for their integral assistance in research at the University of Calgary Libraries. And thank you to my previous writing teachers Mr. Bohdan Kinczyk, Prof. Robert Majzels, and Prof. Larry Garber, and my previous reader, Prof. Kim Solga. With the right teachers, sometimes a collection can be fashioned from a throw-away idea. MELS vi Table of Contents: Abstract ii Acknowledgements iv Preface: Syzygy 2 Part I: The Pikaia 4 Part II: Elements i. The Abstract The Abstract 15 Of Art and Atoms 16 Word and Bond 17 Marginalia 18 Little Books 19 ii. The Fire Suite Fire 21 Sulfur Fig. 1 22 Oxygen Fig. 3 23 Carbon Fig. 3 24 CO2 Fig. 1 25 CO2 Fig. 2 27 iii. The Air Suite Air 30 Oxygen Fig. 1 31 Oxygen Fig. 2 32 Hydrogen Figs. 1-10 33 Helium Fig. 1 34 Neon Fig. 1 35 iv. The Water Suite Water 37 H2O Fig. 1 38 Tardigrade: Water Bear 39 H2O Fig. 2 40 NaCl Fig. 1 41 MELS vii v. The Earth Suite Earth 44 Carbon Fig. 1 45 Carbon Fig. 2 46 H2O Fig. 3 47 Tardigrade: Moss Piglet 48 Sulfur Fig. 2 49 Part III: Experiments Salt 51 The House of Fame 55 Sound 56 Smell 57 Touch 58 Sight 59 Taste 60 Experiment 40 61 Against Microscopes 62 Entropy 63 Microcosmscope 64 What Measurements 65 Severall Figur’d Atomes 66 Light from Cucumbers 67 Of Loose Atomes 68 The Fittest Flowers 69 Quantum Entanglements I 70 Quantum Entanglements ii 71 Quantum Entanglements iii 72 Poets have the Most Pleasure 73 Tardigrade: Slow Stepper 75 Fames Library within the Temples 76 Experiments ii 77 A Priori 78 Virtue 79 Mistress Sonnet 80 Part IV: Conclusions Elegy 82 Alchemy 83 The Margaret Cavendish School of Thot 86 A Visit to the Royal Society 87 [her]esy 88 MELS viii Carnivorous Plants 90 The Duchess Wears not Ribbons 94 Venus Among the Atoms 97 The Marriage of Hermes Trismegistus 104 Partnering 105 Autoerotography 106 Hand Bound 107 of conclusions 108 Paleontolography 109 Margaret the First, Not the Last 110 Tardigrade: Evasive Species 116 Salt: Extro 117 Glossary 118 Exegesis: Introduction 120 Margaret Cavendish 123 The Debate about the Function of Form 130 The Convergence of Poetic Movements 133 Scientific Epistemology 137 The Forms for the Voices 141 The Pikaia 146 The Elements 151 Experiments 157 Conclusions 166 The Collection’s Contexts 172 Conclusion of the Exegesis 186 Works Cited 190 MELS 1 Preface MELS 2 Syzygy Margaret, forgive my intrusion i can’t help but note that i was already here, here in the persuasion of your words chosen, the microscopophillic understanding of this language the Angluttonous expandings offered me the room, didn’t even need Rubens’ house: leave a possible space, undesignated in nature, but a crevice, and i will come Poe theorized that if our universe were infinite, it would be flooded with endless days from countless suns: (don’t go paradoxxing my socials) the night brings a reassurance: that all things, even our universe, have their ends and pardons our many limits, and whose aren’t many? no life can be lived forever in human shape, no strife will persevere, no flesh will fully contain our ambitions or legacies but I will hitch my moon upon your sun to cross your trajectories and conjure let’s see what the electromagnetic spectrum still presents the fleshy glass refraction of constellately self and steer this thinkership to a bioluminescence of facets MELS 3 Part I: The Pikaia MELS 4 The Pikaia The Pikaia, oldest of human life’s line, separates, distinct, by novelty of spine.