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Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School

2003 Fence Above the Sea Brigitte Byrd

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FENCE ABOVE THE SEA

Name: Brigitte Byrd Department: English Major Professor: David Kirby Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Term Degree Awarded: Summer, 2003

“Fence above the Sea” is a collection of prose poems written in sequences.

Writing in the line of Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, and Lynn Hejinian, I experiment with language and challenge its convention.

While Dickinson writes about “the landscape of the soul,” I write about the landscape of the mind. While she appropriates and juxtaposes words in a strange fashion,

I juxtapose fragments of sentences in a strange fashion. While she uses dashes to display silence, I discard punctuation, which is disruptive and limits the reader to a set reading of the sentence. Except for the period.

Stein’s writing is the epitome of Schklovsky’s concept of ostranenie

(defamiliarization). Like her poems in , my poems present a multiplied perspective. On the moment. Like Stein, I write dialogical poems where there is a dialogue among words and between words and their meanings. Also, I expect a dialogue between words and readers, author and readers, text and readers. My prose poems focus on sentences “with a balance of their own. . . the balance of space completely not filled but created by something moving as moving is not as moving should be” (Stein, “Poetry and Grammar”). Repetitions are essential in everyday life, to the thought process, and

thus in this collection.

Like Stein, are exponents from ostranenie, and the results are

flatness of tone, experimentation with syntax, and decontextualization of words. I work

within the same parameters. Also, I am making a political statement with this collection

by asking the reader to be active and react to the text instead of being fed a poetry that is

made a commodity for consumption. I particularly agree with Hejinian’s aesthetics and

poetics: “the ‘open text’ often emphasizes or foregrounds process. . . and thus resists the

cultural tendencies that seek to identify and fix material and turn it into a product”

(Hejinian, The Language of Inquiry). Each poem from “Fence above the Sea” is an experiment with the thought that each sentence is a story and that a poem is an open text which is the mind.

THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

FENCE ABOVE THE SEA

By

BRIGITTE BYRD

A dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philososophy

Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2003

The members of the Committee approve the dissertation of Brigitte Byrd defended on April 9, 2003.

David Kirby Professor Directing Dissertation

William Cloonan Outside Committee Member

S.E. Gontarski Committee Member

Sheila Ortiz-Taylor Committee Member

Approved:

Hunt Hawkins, Chairperson, Department of English

The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the Above named committee members

for Camille

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the editors of the following journals in which some of these poems first appeared: Phoebe: A Journal of Literary Art: [from “Requiem Series”] “7. (the sand),” “8. (a beginning)”; So to Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language and Art: “Mistaken Etiquette”; The Eternal Anthology 4 (U.K.): “Extreme Injury,” “Pebbles/Pieces of Glass,” “Diversion,” “She Looks As Usual,” “Adagio for Hands,” “Stanza of the Father,” “The Door Was Open”; HOW2: “Angel and Puppet,” “Errancy,” “Calisthenics,” “Poetics.”

Many thanks also to David Kirby, S. E. Gontarski, Sheila Ortiz-Taylor, and William Cloonan, for their support. Thanks to Cynie Cory, who helped me shape this manuscript. And thanks foremost to Camille and the cats.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract vi

I REQUIEM SERIES 1

1. (a breath) 3 2. (silence) 4 3. (a house) 5 4. (a garden) 6 5. (a sign) 7 6. (Cassis) 8 7. (the sand) 9 8. (a beginning) 10

II HER FEET ARE NAILED TO THE PLINTH 11

Samothrace 12 Notes on Yellow Paper 13 Cinéma Vérité 14 Comparative Obscurity 15 American Tanz Theatre 16 A Matter of Sounds 17 Mistaken Etiquette 18

III WALLS IN THE FUTURE 19

Extreme Injury 20 Georgian Permutation with Water 21 Babushka with Plum Blossoms 22 Pebbles/Pieces of Glass 23 Diversion 24 She Looks As Usual 25 Adagio for Hands 26 Stanza of the Father 27 The Door Was Open 28 Angel and Puppet 29

IV THIS ATTRACTION TO A WINDOW 31

v

Errancy 32 Chained to Char 33 Off with Her 34 Busy Picking Wild Flowers 35 Calisthenics 36 The End of Spinning 37 Enlightenment 38 Mystic Bakers 39 Poetics 40 Countless Pretenses 41

V THE HOUSE FAR FROM THE STARS 42

Overlooking the River 43 Reflection on Madeleines 44 To Dramatize the Harvest 45 Things They Said 46 Speaking As a Poet 47 Vibration in the Line 48 Decorative Emptiness 49 Festive Uncertainty 50

VI DUST DOES NOT CREATE AN ATMOSPHERE 51

Notable Exceptions 52 Translation 53 Happy Windowpane 54 Stickler for Precision 55 Unintentional Promenade 56 Perforation of the Heart 57 Loud Darkness 58 Architectonic of a Requiem 59

NOTES 60

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 63

vi

ABSTRACT

“Fence above the Sea” is a collection of prose poems written in sequences. Writing in the line of Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, and Lynn Hejinian, I experiment with language and challenge its convention. While Dickinson writes about “the landscape of the soul,” I write about the landscape of the mind. While she appropriates and juxtaposes words in a strange fashion, I juxtapose fragments of sentences in a strange fashion. While she uses dashes to display silence, I discard punctuation, which is disruptive and limits the reader to a set reading of the sentence. Except for the period. Stein’s writing is the epitome of Schklovsky’s concept of ostranenie (defamiliarization). Like her poems in Tender Buttons, my poems present a multiplied perspective. On the moment. Like Stein, I write dialogical poems where there is a dialogue among words and between words and their meanings. Also, I expect a dialogue between words and readers, author and readers, text and readers. My prose poems focus on sentences “with a balance of their own. . . the balance of space completely not filled but created by something moving as moving is not as moving should be” (Stein, “Poetry and Grammar”). Repetitions are essential in everyday life, to the thought process, and thus in this collection. Like Stein, language poets are exponents from ostranenie, and the results are flatness of tone, experimentation with syntax, and decontextualization of words. I work within the same parameters. Also, I am making a political statement with this collection by asking the reader to be active and react to the text instead of being fed a poetry that is made a commodity for consumption. I particularly agree with Hejinian’s aesthetics and poetics: “the ‘open text’ often emphasizes or foregrounds process. . . and thus resists the cultural tendencies that seek to identify and fix material and turn it into a product” (Hejinian, The Language of Inquiry). Each poem from “Fence above the Sea” is an experiment with the thought that each sentence is a story and that a poem is an open text which is the mind.

vii

“One more moment, and everything would lose its meaning, and this table and the cup and the chair he was clinging to would become unintelligible, alien and heavy. So he sat there, waiting for it to happen. And no longer bothered to defend himself.” --

“. . . she doesn’t defend herself against these unknown women whom she’s surprised at becoming, but derives pleasure from this gift of alterability.” --Hélène Cixous

“. . .do you realize -- we’re floating in space -- do you realize. . . .” --The Flaming Lips

viii

I. REQUIEM SERIES

1

in memory of Bernard Fourneron (1932-2002)

2

1. (a breath)

And then, there is another day

The father is a breath. This is not a mistake it is. There is a question that is not answered and it is hard to turn away from moving water. Why no chance no memory no incense no scent no sound. There is a father who sleeps and sleeps and slips. Is this the answer. The father is not a priest. If I are you dancing. J’aime la musique pour les morts. The air is wind. His chest fills with requiem. The son sings. Another plane another question. The daughter waves in my head like a performer. That I wear grief in my hair is not ironical it is there in the faucet. A mind is lost and it is not a question in the sea. The hands are covered with freckles. Is memory the future and it is lost. Another breath when a mind is not. One of these mornings: (re)play: You will look for me. Streamsound. Replace the words and I’ll be gone.

And then,

3

2. (silence)

And then, there is another day

(TRY SILENCE)

4

3. (a house)

And then, there is another day

Regression to a narrative is not a question. It is not. The house is empty. That was yesterday. The daughter sleeps in the house which is empty without the father who sleeps and sleeps and slips. It will be mine. And she is mine. We believe in nothing is not their answer. Is it his. The floor is. A mosaic floor over the ocean and ants lost in the blues the greens the purples the reds the colors of my sea. it fell apart. The phone rings always. A mistake it is. His hands are not. They do not speak. I face the sun. Bluish and swollen they are and covered with freckles and so are the daughter’s cheeks as if we were in the wrong place. So many places. Why no chance. This is a question and I do not know the answer. So many heartaches so many faces so many dirty things you could not even believe. A body can. She asks questions. It is difficult to turn away from moving water. It can shrink under sheets and a misshaved head. This. His breath is.

5

4. (a garden)

And then, there is another day

Streamwaves are back again. We cut the grass with his hand mower. We do. We cut and cut and cut. There is no question. Why no memory. There is. The daughter trims the flower beds. Time is not. Not the enemy it is. The stiff shears are. Stiff like his hands which are on the bed and my flowers. Not the same ones. C’est triste de mourir au printemps she says. It sticks to my brain. The sun sticks behind her. The daughter’s cheeks are covered with freckles. She does not see it. His face like a strange fragrance does. Tout se dérègle. We like him in blue and so it is decided. His mother wanted him to be a priest. A blue one. The father slips. We open doors. The daughter builds a fence with pebbles. And black pants are a question. Did you ever like it then. The wind dies. A belt and shoes she says. She says le videment des entrailles est un signe. This is not an escape it is a bag. There. The garden is ready. He is there to meet. The priest is not the father. Every time there is a question there is a decision. There is always fear. And there is religion always. We believe in nothing in the grass is not the answer in the house. It is a gesture. The daughter waves from the sea.

6

5. (a sign)

And then, there is another day

The father is a pharaoh. He is not an Egyptian he is French and that he is. There is no mistake. She did not see him the way he is and that is a mistake. The sun is. No one can stop us now. A blue flower is a sign. Another one like a priest. She carries the bag. He is there to meet. Je suis un mort vivant is her memory and the wind yields. Why no incense is not a question. There is always fear. A purple sash or a sun-like one is the question. Can’t fight what I see. These are different colors they are not blue. A tongue clicks and clicks and clicks and it is a ritual. The daughter builds a fence with pebbles and it is a dance. Is she too blind to see a gesture in the wind in the breath. We believe in nothing is not it is not. In the house anointing of the sick is. We know it is there like a requiem in his chest and a blue shirt waiting for a sign. Growing in numbers growing in speed. A smothered mind and a stiff hand covered with freckles under my cheek.

7

6. (Cassis)

And then, there is another day

The daughter is not a mother. She is mine and I am a daughter and there is another one. That there is a daughter who is there and an other who is not does not make him a number. These are different colors they are not blue. I listen to violins which are not a decision. Are we blinded by a gesture in the wind in the breath. We’ll see what we find. She rides in a car with a camera and the father is a pharaoh and I don’t have one. Only a tradition is eating cassis ice-cream in Cassis when a blue flower is a sign. There is no mistake these are the calanques and those are the cigales and the daughter stands behind the fence above the sea. Streamwaves are now a part of. If I dance are you dancing. Je ne veux pas dormir. If there is a ritual is this a tongue clicking. J’ai peur de tomber dans les vaps. Is this performance when his chest fills with requiem is this body art. There is always a sister in the train.

8

7. (the sand)

And then, there is another day

The father is in a dream. That the daughter does not wear a uniform is not a question. Streamwaves have held me they have held me late at night. There in the car there is a mistake. He sleeps and sleeps and slips. That the daughter insists on wearing blue is a coincidence it is not a number. I know hers is in my pocket and follow her on the boulders above the sea. I would stand in line for this. A mosaic floor over the ocean. Why no chance. There is always fear. This is and there is no priest. There is my head on the sand with a camera. I had to close down my mind. The house is empty with ants lost in colors. Too many things could get me. No time no train no sister no gesture no daughter waves from the sea. Too many things could make me blind. A sheet lifted up on shriveled thighs and folded legs a sheet pulled up under stiff hands covered with freckles and this is not the wrong place while the father is a breath.

9

8. (a beginning)

And then, there is another day

Everything is about waiting. A phone rings and it is not always a mistake. A chest fills with requiem and it is not his no it is not. When there is something to say the ants find the sun on a mosaic floor. A strange fragrance. They never see any light. I slip and slip under the sheets and the daughter sleeps. That her face is not the father’s is not a sign. It is a coincidence always that a daughter’s face is a father’s and often a blue one. At least we tried. In the bed there is a sea and it is cold. But we lost it. Why no sound. Sisters ride in a car with the daughter’s blue flower and it is not a tradition. There. There is only a face which is not a memory which is a face wrapped in gauze. His always there. It is hard to turn away from moving water. A house is not an escape. You smiled and you smiled with me. The father looked at her and he is not a breath there is not a breath there is only a daughter.

10

II. HER FEET ARE NAILED TO THE PLINTH

11

SAMOTHRACE

When domesticity swallows her thoughts she falls troubled with their future. Her mouth wants the salt of her tongue and a sea of sleep to flood her mind. Why is the Eiffel tower sitting on an empty crate. I feel bad for you. She faces her bare back and writes under a yellow light when they do not speak. Le temps se fige. Her head rolls down on the sand and her wings spread out in nothing. Où est la liberté de la femme quand les mots s’évanouissent. Her feet are nailed to the plinth when she looks for her and finds an empty stove. Silence is not a victory. Crowned with red hair she wraps her tongue in white sauce. Too many colors too many sounds too many things. She belongs to the page.

12

NOTES ON YELLOW PAPER

There are new colors in the leaves and the sky is white. A woman does not necessarily recognize another one when she sleeps in a car. Where are the children at two fifty-five. Her body needs a change and she is not hungry. That a flag quivers in the morning does not make her eyes. Sea moves as mercury to break its perfect skin. She was ignorant once and she threw a key to her face. Is utopia when dogs bite the flying dirt we kick with our boots when there is a meadow and trees when we never knew their names. Sometimes we can swim beyond the scenery. A horse collapses behind the daughter. They walked by the church at nightfall and bells were a sign. There is not always another way. They washed her soiled garments under the mink coat. She reads about Ancient Egypt and shaves her eyebrows.

13

CINÉMA VÉRITÉ

She is in love with a skin diver who dances in her chest. It’s nothing at all nothing at all. Her eyebrows grow thick. She says they are long like his fingernails on the sheet and there is no sheet under the sand. That a body asks for touch makes her a prisoner of sleep. It is difficult to have what we have and a bare neck is often a sign. Is she looking in the wrong place. It is a contextual happenstance when she finds him in a dream. She dislocates his symbolic stance into tears. He opened his eyes on the way. There are violins on their backs and goats without eyes and there is a gate and there is a sword. A sound tells about a place when the air is thick and it is. After years of waiting nothing came. There are sisters flying in a cave and there is die Kaiserin. Everything else is true. She is a warrior and what does that mean. The speed of an ambulance is not always about missing an insulin shot. She caught a tear duct affliction, your Krieger.

14

COMPARATIVE OBSCURITY

A dark day it is and it is in bed. An empty house is often a full heart when colors have left the rooms. This is what you get when the only brightness is a yellow shade. There is no one to let her in. I might be wrong. It is not uncommon that both breasts feel different. Silver is the color of water in the rain on the roofs. The only time a branch falls in my path is when the wind blows. I used to think. If there is estrangement what is the difference between speaking to the dead and speaking to the living. When there is a song there is reassurance is there not. If I cannot have you. There is the news of a hurricane and she grabs her umbrella. We cannot operate on nothing.

15

AMERICAN TANZ THEATRE

She dances like a crane before mating for life on the floor. This is not about being married this is about being in a relationship. She says their house is not well isolated when it is cold in the bedroom. She often writes the first thing on her mind and does she really wait for a sign from her insulated brain. When she looks up there is not enough room and she sits by the daughter on the couch. She does not like when her heroine falls like an equation on a page. The cat stares at them from the outside window sill until the daughter opens the door. Nobody can keep you from the ones you know you love. Her work is so like her from under the cover. She likes a waltz through the lines under the vicious sky and she understands the fish is sky and she does not understand. The daughter gathers the planets on a plate.

16

A MATTER OF SOUNDS

She speaks French to children and she finds a new friend. There is always food after the questions. It is a beautiful day when the daughter wakes her up in the middle of a stream and meteors race against a black sky. That the cats charged like wild elephants on wooden floors was inevitable and her hair curled around a cold finger. If she is a beautiful work of art does this mean she is dead but she is not he is. She responds to the call of spinach bagel/tomatoes/cucumber when she reads an essay on beauty. There is always a temptation and always she feels bound to her when the sun shines in yellow. You know never defeated. The point of course is that we cannot pretend she is a reliable witness. An accurate narrative can be constructed from the gap between sleepers. When they count the dust her voice is the last item in the file.

17

MISTAKEN ETIQUETTE

To some extent a farmer will always be one. The wound is deep and pulsing. That there is tall grass to cut and soil to tear does not make them builders in an empty field. Yesterday we ate red meat after months and there was a heavy sleep in the apartment. There is a blue wall and there is an open window. She sits in black while he stands in stripes. Words cannot be found when a smothered breath is kept inside a modern painting. But of course I’d like to sit around and chat. She holds a finger to her lips in the midst of Russian words and they are red like her scarf. I want you to know her hair is not red and it is getting colder. That’s a strange mistake to make. She is afraid of a leaf in the grass before she drinks tea. A walk in the field is impossible when there is hunger. Wild flowers gathered at limit often feed a child. That an ashtray breaks on the marble floor while they read poems at the museum always means that she threw it down the staircase. When there is fear we shut the window and stare at the door.

18

III. WALLS IN THE FUTURE

19

EXTREME INJURY

It is winter in the house when she knows he is trapped under the frozen ground. From the edge of a chair she caresses his hand covered with freckles his brain frosted with reds and browns of hemorrhage yellows of necrosis. She reads les dons font les esclaves comme les fouets font les chiens after watching La Pianiste and that is something to think about while she is cold on the couch with the cats. The daughter wears a blue robe with love. She is warm under the stars when the moon shines on the flowers on her knees. That there is a cricket in the closet is a mystery and where is the divine revelation. Repetition in her work does not mean she does not know what she does. She would rather stick a knife in her eye than eat another peanut butter cup. In the dark corridor she says La cigale a chanté tout l’été and they know the meaning of this winter tale. When it is cold in America she wants a mosaic floor over the ocean.

20 GEORGIAN PERMUTATION WITH WATER

The daughter sleeps with two cats when America is up in arms and now we will watch a movie about Dostoevsky and Anna Snitkina and gambling and there has always been poverty in Russia. Dear Micha she woke me up too early I did not have time to dream. Maybe I should go back to Russia and make her puncture the manic radar. She cannot live without me in the bathtub. Humbled biped you’ve come undone. Mayakovski was there and I did not know. There is only music when words have left. You’ve detached the mechanical. And now she will send a dime with a thank you note to the Southern literary bandit who assumes that a foreigner never plays with English syntax in velvet water. Et pourtant quand il se dévoile l’éblouissement. This poem the pundit reads as he belches in the light what it is tell me what it is while a flea dies red on a blank page. Le nageur n’a plus peur. A mistake he is.

21

BABUSHKA WITH PLUM BLOSSOMS

What is the scenery when life interrupts. A new couch makes a new room and they sit side by side. There is a concrete sky when she walks from her mind. They are not in Peterhof they do not smile for a picture by the Grand Cascade. Only a puppet hangs from the wall red and gold. This is all the daughter’s love by Nasturiums with Dance. She is late and there is never a time when she does not love her. There need never be a time. All this socialist propaganda on the walls she says when she forgets. Dressed in black astrakhan coat and hat her grandmother is a mafia queen with a mole on her right breast. She refused to buy anything but flowers on Nevskiy Prospekt and she often cried in the Kazan Cathedral. Is gray a concrete shade of the sky of tin roofs of thoughts. It’s just like you looks just like you. That she never jumped from the window sill into the courtyard did not help her find a mole on her breast under the sheets. She backs into her mind and she cannot feel the shaved head under the palm of her hand when she breathes.

22

PEBBLES/PIECES OF GLASS

Nothing less. From the distance she cannot see the details and walks on burning asphalt to find him buried with others. It is difficult to leave the city where he carried the daughter on his back and a suitcase on his mind. A glass turtle sits at the bottom of her heart. It is a red purse hanging from a door knob and a xylophone going tu-ti-tu-ta tu-ti-tu-ta. She carries the old idea that an exotic paper box on the floor starts a collection a larger one which does not grow as empty as bottles under a bed. Why not typing words on a keyboard. Irrémédiablement et sans violence. A picture is often a faster way to repossess the senses and it is always young. She is a father too in the autumn light. Elle éblouit comme une force qui décoiffe l’âme. Cutting the parents in half works only when there is an even number.

23

DIVERSION

One afternoon there is another one in the car with another dog. Another dog and another walk by the lake. She knew she could fall in love with a duck and she said it. If they look in her eyes they will know. He slips through the fog. Empty cups often end up in a lake. If we were cats we would sleep by a child’s heart. No it is not twelve thirty. A beautiful child with stitches on her chin and such a fragile neck and they shall never meet again. She runs through a herd of tall blonde poodles. She would do anything to watch him smile. She wears her watch upside- down. I don’t know why. He stopped speaking on the day she arrived. The hand between her thighs is not lost when the door opens. She carries her childhood notebook in his blue bag when it is no longer in a drawer by his hand. She breathes in her tears all the past and the future and there is a birthmark right there in their earliest beginnings.

24

SHE LOOKS AS USUAL

A bell a drum a keyboard a voice and it is a beginning. Get off get off get off my case. She thinks she fucks the father when she fucks her and the mother and the others and all of them think that and look. At me and her maybe more maybe when she comes and dies with them. It is a small world to revive like a celebration like revivre after that after entering it and before living that life of theirs that is not. And violins buzz like her ears. She slips. If she is the father and she is the mother she knows death. Only a separation another separation and it is there and they will never meet again they have already met and she is a body like a performance fused and liquid.

25

ADAGIO FOR HANDS

He played the piano when his heart was farther than usual from home. They built the Chinese Wall and ate angel hair pasta when rain fell on the sand. Il est des facons de dire qui font trembler. She says her emotions show in her eyes. When they drive in the wind to sit in a music room and hold hands like three women in a Beckett play they forgot the directions on a table. She pushes the door open and life does not interrupt cats dreaming on the ottoman. It is a matter of tempo this symbiosis with their hearts. When did we last waltz. The daughter wears shoes with heels for the first time and they walk in the dark. Où sommes-nous? Au centre de l’aurore. She says she read all night when she opens her eyes filled with meteors.

26

STANZA OF THE FATHER

She never slept in a high bed under a window where the moon brightens flowers on her knees. There was a carnival once. It is difficult to write when a child starts her life. She heard they bombed a truck while they read. From this pillow this was inevitable. She sits by her and stares at the paper each time. Each time. There are many books in the house where he is not. Looking for something to do she never went to the Prado. They feed a lonely eland through the fence when they cannot bear watching a camel dying on soiled straw. Once they made an altar and she found a Chinese lantern. Sometime. Sometime she drew the line when her eyes could not see him by the broken tree. It’s a beautiful fatality love the way you stand. There is a whisper in her head when the daughter walks like him.

27

THE DOOR WAS OPEN

The father is buried in the ground under sand and gravel. There is a tradition and it is cold. That there is a strange fragrance does not come from the earth and we do not and animals do not. A star falls into a body and it hangs in a frame that pulses like numbers burrowed under skin folds. Is the movement from man to God is it not the opposite like faith and where does it go. There is always an empty place and not often a soundwave. A soul maybe if she is not. Present and absent at the same time and always alone. She covers her fear she enters her body and looks for the father and he is there and he always was.

28

ANGEL AND PUPPET

Don’t forget your future watch out wait until we get home watch out don’t forget wait until we get home watch half-filled human future wait until your puppet dies

No mask no mask no mask no mask home no mask home no home no home no home

Watch out don’t forget your stuffed skin don’t open it in the car the wire the face

no home don’t forget “That’s all”

Here are the years that walk between WAIT!

Wait until we get nothing don’t open emptiness in the car Murderer wait until we get home watch out HERE don’t forget watch out HERE ARE THE here are the easy YEARS watch THAT out WALK here BETWEEN lights out wait to understand until don’t forget but this:

Watch your stage wait until we float home NO Open it that one don’t endure these immovable tears the years that wait that walk between

Tears can contain death until we sip of future watch out don’t forget blissful space the whole (it) of death HERE walk between that walk in the I wait until we get home until we get even before life don’t watch (here) OUT

forget your bitter watch has begun cannot wait cannot wait don’t open it in the car

cannot wait cannot wait cannot wait WAIT can wait can wait can wait can wait hold it until we get one’s heart wait until we get home wait don’t open it in the car wait between years forget your cosmic angel cosmic walk cosmic wait cosmic watch

wait between years forget your the years that walk they wait (not) until we get home refuse your heart (watch) until we get between to go on living:

The world keeps revolving with bleak words beasts things demolition approaches fettered freedom (madness) in a strange position a return to the immediate

more say more

29 artificial truth of confinement perception slashes existence emanation specter veiled with excitement

cannot wait cannot wait

the movement of thought abused images echo a stain contagious

light in my mouth the music of the flesh runs against the walls in the future between here and the inexpressible.

30

IV. THIS ATTRACTION TO A WINDOW

31

ERRANCY

Assuage fear of absorption no artifice language conspiracy (NO) cultural appropriation based on [bracketed subject matter] I have heard water run down Apollo’s

canonical baroque motet Lully’s Miserere no element of dance libidinal preoccupation DIVERTIMENTO EXTRAORDINAIRE FROM CAPITALIST GLOBALIZATION excreted convenience uniform McDonald uniform code uniform individualistic cry UNI FORM fringe art tagged on un concrete e forment institution O savoir-faire

(Gallicism) geared to soothe crepuscular youth outbreaks c’est le côté obscure de la force HESITATE: cross semantic fields: cross incrusted cross in chest: cross original Vulgate

Instantiate sacrificed minds A voice slashes darkness LET THERE BE LIGHT: AND join the silent call of the fish no jazz jargon jouissance only Haussmanian boulevards

Kabyles kept in suburbs by kepis not kaffiyeh kneeling Lithuanians bearing blue banners Love the city of love lubricate hearts with lethargy lie in ligulated limbo Pianissimo

: Moi, je suis laminé(e) d’esthétiques loyales wear purple flip-flops tank tops wrist watch no red nun numb with nyet near Nevskiy Prospect (Is memory future?) A lone other

ostracized from orgasms There is something ridiculous about loving another woman Pantocrator think old age is tattoos on wrinkled calves engraved stigmata of rebellion

quivering wanderer trapped into estranged body divine giffle free will exists NO Return to with child reverse irreverent heart remember derision of running astray

Synchronized flipping is not sanitary is St Petersburg is not a slip is hanging in syllables tuned up for places of articulation ELEVEN she is ELEVEN gone ELEVEN years O

uttered coincidental number do not write eleven peanuts between thighs I do I do not valorize my leafy life with quantity Ceci par l’emancipation d’un orifice sans artifice

window to a wall why I say why this land why this love why this skin why this why Execute words erase linguistic marks from surfaces extinguish meaning from sounds

Yearning for silence children yell at the millennium Yearning for the dead she fucked there right there there is no correlation there is there there is not no fear of absorption.

32

CHAINED TO CHAR

At the end there is a loud darkness and there is velvet silence. When she hears the daughter’s shrilling voice there is the impact of his car like in the movie. Le grand bûcher des alliances. They have reached an age when separate rooms is a temptation. There is a camera and there is a picture of his father near the daughter’s carnations. She thinks of writing a living will when a mystic masseur warms her forehead with lighted fingers. It is the first time and she wants her tongue on her skin. Each extreme keeps its extreme nature. A darker thought is a sign of vanity. There is a spider in her heart and she feels its burning through her flesh. She reads that no absence cannot be replaced and she lifts the sheet to find her body.

33

OFF WITH HER HEAD

A tomb makes a perfect starting point when the father died without seeing her. There is always a garden open to the chaos of weeds and there is a fence built with pebbles. She counts past months of mourning on her fingertips when the daughter is in the throes of influenza in her sheets. It is not spring it is winter. That the father is buried under a stone she has never touched indicates it is hewn from her mind. She reconstructs the last minutes of the father and it is better for the daughter to go back to sleep. Une fois la flamme pincée entre les doigts, l’obscurité entoure aussitôt. On her way to late afternoon she walks across the sea wrapped in tapestry. The Furies under his skull always demanded something more and there was only a breath left to give. Is this a distortion of beauty this inevitable path toward nothingness. It is murderous and it is not an exorcising vision.

34

BUSY PICKING WILD FLOWERS

After days of sitting at the daughter’s side she had no desire. That she did not own a plumed hat was a distilled loss and it was an expression of freedom. In retrospect she should have seen this coming. There is always a puppet on the wall to meet her reptilian gaze. Observation and construction make imagination. Blood came out the eyes and she turned her head to breathe. She liked all the paintings and things hanging from the walls and these were lovely cats. When she had something to write she often lost it in a cup of bouillon or between soiled towels. They agreed on a maid a cook a chauffeur an accountant and she got rid of leftovers. It is difficult to stay focused when life interrupts she said and everyone knows that. On one side a bed grew and called for her and on the other a stared at her with a finger on her mouth. There was despair and diving into an empty screen made her wrists hurt.

35

CALISTHENICS

Anguish of grief is blowing out yellow candle distorted into oracular delphinium waxed breathless: my heart falls on her head red like book on black shelf under begonia leaves crying for sky Fargue est surréaliste dans l’atmosphère she marks her breast with a line dreams go down the drain AND I MISS YOU LIKE THE DESERTS MISS THE RAIN.

Eclipse memories burned in manuscripts embalm visions ebbed in ink fragment language : fallible shade fallible lips fallible smile fallible features fallible time fallible repetitions galvanize disillusions embellish devious minds girdled in burned memories. ECLIPSE! Happy chance. Hum grief into sleep dream of scents running down your spine to watch invisible red delphiniums sprout from deserted atmospheric books breathless in the rain : Je n’y puis rien, sinon me condamner pour n’avoir pas en tout et toujours été prophète.

Kernels of consumed flesh in box on shelf or distorted core of body galvanized into ashes lend disillusion to the mind do not embellish mythopoeia of eternity do not etherize melancholia into hyponym of mesmerization stamp leave of absence on my happy wrists. No shade means yellow begonia under sky in no time visions of liquid voice fading away oracle girdled with invisible lips sentenced to repeat words and slice smiles into features. (Pause.) That is what I find so comforting when I lose heart and envy the brute beast.

Quick quarrel unmasked myth etherized prophet assumptive body suspicious mind fertile rumor no eternity liquid chance every leaf is a mirror improbable hyponym fallible I’s sliced in black ink on sheets of paper like sprouts of melancholia lined up to mesmerize. Telurians! Wake from your transparency I KNOW THE MEANING OF THE CLOCK

: Ultima Thule for pensive beasts is not embalmed language is core reduced to absence versus venimous ashes tricked into boxes sealed in wax or ebbed mesmerization of heart.

Weep wisterias wrapped around wooden stairs. (Pause.) Ah earth you old extinguisher. Extrude molten words from her forgotten voice hum the scent of overcoats forgotten yesterday on assumptive hanger forgotten behind metal curtain pulled tight to forget zest pulverized by metaphorical radiations catachresis of hope slashed into anguish.

36

THE END OF SPINNING

She sits on the floor when she writes on the couch. There is no distance in this open road there is only a printer and a woman’s voice in the air. That a familiar room floods her mind is not chic at all it is much more than a Venetian waterway. Every time it happens she replaces the furniture. Although the possibility of words coming out of nothing in the afternoon is calculated within an unpredictable timeframe the cats desert the ottoman. No one died. One reason for a better picture is a luminous sky in her eyes and it is a conflicting element. She tacks on her wings and drives on the same road to the same place to find the same daughter. Repetition is the elixir of life and there is no transmutation of light in her chiaroscuro. To flatten an hour is murderous when there is only another left.

37

ENLIGHTENMENT

She sits like an Egyptian with a golden mask at her feet and it is only dusk. There is a secret vault when she comes undone like a volcano. Nothing here to fear. It is strange this attraction to a window when the view is not an ocean. That she proposes to lift her head to talk about flying hotels does not preclude a motor-skill prohibition. She is functional like a videogame. She refuses to excavate her offerings and a ritual bowl sits in its alabaster. Lava slips through her head and nothing washes away. Does she still have to climb the boulders to find the sea. There is always a light to switch on a winter afternoon when the roof is the color of the sky from the other side.

38

MYSTIC BAKERS

She says you can light a candle for your mother I will not have him on the dinner table. Wings spread out her feet are nailed to the plinth. The most difficult is to look at this empty chair when they play Chinese whisper. Nous sommes des pauvres devinettes. She knows the incantations of the sea and she needs direction when her head rolls on the sand. Aller vers les chats, ces dingues, ces fous, ces bandes de chats, d’une incroyable beauté. He did not like crowds and he played with the children while the parents celebrated life with Champagne. A voice is not always lost when she cannot hear it anymore. Each time they are alienated from their world there is the sacred and they often recognize it. She peels four apples while the daughter kneads the dough with powder sugar. They blow balloons and hide them under a white sheet taped to the ceiling. When she opens the door life interrupts.

39

POETICS

Arrogance reduced to a tongue heavy with the sound of disheveled choirs on hallelujah barytone shreds my words into fragrant strings: I speak the scent of chrysanthemums

crushed by sensationalism, corrosive A-fuel melted down through reactors to burrow deep into the earth like Vaporex rubbed on chest, eyes fallen into prying sinkholes.

Ecstasy is stale: poems found on walls: roads: wastebaskets: accidental works of a world. Flash back dunes transparency in my ear a child’s imagination synchronicity

GHOST / RADIO SOARS IN EVERY HOME WE HAVE THE NORTHPOLE / WALL O Hart Crane O Hart Crane O Hart Crane O Hart Crane O Hart Crane O

Insult rampant ordinary rampant taste rampant esthetes: poetic license seeps into rivers, juggernauts juggle like jugheads in page seven hundred and seventeen.

Klopstock, tell me why you don’t know the sound of language, why you don’t know lines like incantations, why you don’t know intensity of density, why you don’t know

Mahabharata made apocalyptic, les dernières minutes de la vie d’une mouche ordinaire. NONSENSE! I know the meaning of transparent control, camellias sacrificed at dawn,

offered like blood smeared on door, casual alignment of acid tablets in cabinet, bracelets pyramid collapsed on liquid floors, heart like pyre waiting to be consumed by brilliance.

Quantum leap is not ambiguous language is unbearable quirk of speech is not endoscope : reformed conformism: a can containing a curtain is a solid sentimental usage: CALL

STEIN AND SING: O unexplored cerebral convolution, crack open the door, let me see turquoise penguins hoping their honeys come back sometime, I’M GOIN’ OVER HERE.

Understand writing as raspberries erected on knees, peanuts scattered on forearms, not vandalization of the form but enigma of the body decorated like an apricot tree diagram.

Worshipper of Nature, remember Nature is not infallible, weep hieroglyphic tears, watch extemporaneous bards clog bassoons with empty lines and characters pervade the air,

yell, ORDINARY LIFE IS ORIGINATION OF ARTISTIC EXPRESSION, and vanish. I zoomed in on interlinked forms, trembling gobbets of language, found a poetry of cruelty.

40

COUNTLESS PRETENSES

This is a place of survival my little darling she says and there is very little daring in this. She does not think she has much of a sense of history. They whisper like outlaws when she cannot restore her dignity. This is a land where dissidence and tourism capture the dollar of a people or more. Is she the only one to suffer not the pilgrims who charged through permeable windows. That this is an unspeakable chamber expands the angle of her temperance. There is always therapy to diminish vertigo and there is often a beaded garment to offer. Contempler enfin le monde dans la douceur des questions répondues. When there is a decision to make between style and substance she nabs printed words on yellow paper and it is a mode of composition. That they sleep with two cats who never sailed from England is not contentious it is a tableau vivant.

41

V. THE HOUSE FAR FROM THE STARS

42

OVERLOOKING THE RIVER

What is really important she thinks when she walks through a crossroad and her hipbone sets her on the edge like a door. If there is chocolate powder why do they eat oatmeal. She calls an old friend when the future scares them stiff from a desk. When she opens a beads curtain the daughter tells her of horses and she says the cat likes this electric guitar. There is news from Australia and there is always a risk in netting Western dollars. That her world fits in a notebook carries a strange fragrance when she wants to escape to a forest. Simply put I saw your love stream flow. Where are the violins in this prime vantage point. She likes the zephyr song in a perfect weather and wo-wo-wo-wo-wo-wo-wo-won’t you. The daughter wants to be an ambassador and there is a form to sign.

43

REFLECTION ON MADELEINES

An unexpected letter often leads to Gregorian chants. When her mind flashes a picture of him in a bed she sinks in a bathtub and blows bubbles under velvet water. He traveled over the ocean to whisper he had always loved her and he said he liked the change. She cried when he did not scare her anymore in the car. That the daughter loved him at first sight explains why she carried a dictionary in the pocket of her jeans for three days. When a father dies like his father what is the daughter’s future. There was foam pouring out of his mouth when she came to tell him she had always loved him and she whispered there is something wrong. A voice is never lost if it is deep enough. His father told her the story of the stars when they sat by the pond far from the lights in the house far from the stars.

44

TO DRAMATIZE THE HARVEST

That she told him the moon is blue after his reading on reading is something to read in. On the other side what do you mean. Displacement is always associated with movement and often there is no point in staying still. She likes the new haircut and the European style from a blue chair in the dark. What is left to save. Just stars racing to burn out. She sees they have missed him. Be a star be an altar and I will hang it on you. The daughter stabs the package from France with a kitchen knife and she says it is another Christmas present. Elle est dévorée de remors à l’idée de n’avoir pas compris. When she buries her face into his old shirt she finds the Mistral and the sun hits the walls of an empty room. On her lips the chimaera of millennial space.

45

THINGS THEY SAID

She says we have forgotten the magic of the phone. She does not know the scent of the father as she knows hers. That they speak of children and they speak of horses and they speak of late birthday packages does not crush her words into pieces of glass. Hit you from wherever to wherever you are. When she holds her hand above her eyes she sees another woman’s paradise. It is a mist of lavender on skylarks buried down a leather purse like a handkerchief. There is always a cat by her side when she swims in heavy water blues and she opens a box of calissons d’Aix. The lemony tang of the madeleines was a year-round experience. Only a Provencal white house stands in a garden of citrus trees and dusk sets over the mountains mauve between sky and sea. Alors, peut-être cette chemise usée qu’il aimait porter. She stands on an empty road for a picture and in perspective she is taller than telephone poles.

46

SPEAKING AS A POET

On her way down she sees a head wrapped in gauze and another made-up into a foreigner. The impulse to place flowers on their folded arms is not a diffusion of her emptiness into a common gesture. She knows the ephemerality of an imaginative bouquet. They crystallize into the colors of a sea and they are variations on the moment. She buries her face in her neck and what can she say. When she fears life little has changed since their beginning. Violent disturbances involve the durability of her skills and she attaches herself to the daughter. On her way up she forwards an anti-war message and it is appropriate FYI. From here nothingness enwraps the future and there is harmony with the paths of destruction.

47

VIBRATION IN THE LINE

For a week now she has been troubled and her thighs are heavy with grief. The cat nibbles at her shoulder through the sleeve of a wool sweater when she sits with Malte Laurids Brigge in a cold bed. A good intention but in some ways I don’t think it gets any easier. What if she pulled off these bulging veins before they spill on the white sheets. That she watches foreign movies for a week is a difficult thing to say when she came from abroad and the necessary spreading of on the screen scares her. She likes that the iron sits under the easel when she speaks to her about the future. She looked words onto them, certain words that she needed and that weren’t there. And then there is another day. She wears a ruffled shirt and she wears a snazzy boa sweater and she does not know this word when both of them decide on black for the rest. Les films étrangers ne sont pas étrangers à cette étrangère. It is not always bright in the bedroom when a hearse is hauled around the Eiffel tower by a camel.

48

DECORATIVE EMPTINESS

When they pull up in a driveway at the edge of the woods the daughter counts her rich friends she says and she looks inward for a love statement. They are swollen these faces who sit in a place of distress. She likes to drink coffee with a cat on the ottoman and her mind escapes to a glass turtle. You must try not to destroy the habits of the poor. When a winter sun calls on her from the other side she weeps. If she says she is a writer she must write and it is a lonely place to announce. An image of intolerable splendor. It is like the Stoclet Frieze on the walls of a Belgian dining room. She throws words at her face against a white wall and there is her red hair in the way always.

49

FESTIVE UNCERTAINTY

A man who has no memory of this is lost. This is the daughter and this is the anticipation to find out when the lights go off and she makes her bed on the couch. If they hear the wind when the windowpanes are frosted it is a cold morning. There is no father in the bed under the sheets there is another woman’s hand on her thigh. C’est reposant un écrivain, souvent, ça écoute beaucoup. A cat sleeps on the ottoman and another one sleeps by the daughter’s heart. She ties a black scarf around her face. Les dernières minutes de la vie d’une mouche ordinaire. This is a blue outfit when they bake apple tarts with heavy cream and lemon pies in music. It’s a and the superstars. There are candles on the table and lights in the tree.

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VI. DUST DOES NOT CREATE AN ATMOSPHERE

51

NOTABLE EXCEPTIONS

She leaves the house and she sits alone on the couch. Where is the fairy tale in this Southern winter morning. Talent is necessary when nothing has been agreed between them. There is a piano and there is a woman’s voice when she writes notes on yellow paper. It is like floating dizzy with fright this foreignism. So this is where people come to live. After months of silence the wind chimes sing by the door. She sees them the way she reads the description of a death hour. She buries her face in his fur to learn the scent of love. His hair tangles around her fingers and she knows he loves her when there is a dead mouse on the steps behind the door.

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TRANSLATION

After a decision is made she reads tzarist tuna with a brilliant sun. I’m not sure who’s fooling who. A love for the book is essential he says and he forgot to say it. She drives away and the nation’s overflowing bank accounts do not go into building housing for poets. They lack sleep and it shows in the silence in museums. There is always a cat behind the door and another under the keyboard. They eat when they eat and it is always on a tray on the floor. He says he is one of the most interesting French writers today and he is mean. She likes him and she tells her the monasteries are open. She has the matchless attentiveness of those who don’t understand what is said to them. He holds her hand and says do it. Seriously she is really hungry and what can she have now. First the lover then maybe wandering shadows and it does not depend on the opium trade.

53

HAPPY WINDOWPANE

When she sits in the bed with her hand wrapped around her ankle it is too early. She has not eaten since last year and she is hungry. Truly, the paths of fate are wondrous and beyond understanding. She woke up with baba ghanouj in her mouth and she does not know what it means. Yesterday there was a sheet filled with painted balloons taped to the ceiling. After Harmony in Yellow it is The Golden Knight on the wall in the bedroom. The daughter pulled a yellow ribbon and she is learning to see. There is always a cat sleeping by her side when she reads and sometimes she sleeps too. Il faut risquer l’indigestion si l’on a envie de manger. That they flip crêpes holding a coin is the wrong superstition and they wish for a better year. She watches her words fall on a page with a reptilian gaze.

54

STICKLER FOR PRECISION

On her way to nowhere she enters the daughter’s dream. Is remembering the destruction of memory and where does it go. There is a road and there is no car. It is true that repetitions have a purpose and disturb the need to move forward. That it is questionable is not a sign of immobility it is a sea. Why is a body on a page when it is about desire. There is a text and it might slip out when she takes off her gloves. A change of course is not a direction when she finds a cabron in her bed. There is a translation when borders are crossed and she craves a new memory. Give me yours and I’ll give you mine. This time she takes hers and it matters to her.

55

UNINTENTIONAL PROMENADE

An equally remarkable tree limb falls on their path and her legs know to stop for her eyes. With encouragement from a childhood memory she tells the daughter of a thunderbolt shooting through rooms and what is the truth. Not everyone is sanguine. An encounter with the past is often enchanting when it is not on a plantation. Il y eût une invasion de papillons. The unfortunate revelation of a resilient reverie preserves her boundless enthusiasm and it is hard to know what is fake. Dust does not create an atmosphere when she has become exasperated. They bustle about branches on the ground as if confirmation is needed. Improvisation is inevitable and who owns the future. When she squints in the wind the daughter hits her heart.

56

PERFORATION OF THE HEART

When her words are lost in the daughter’s absence nothing happens on the other side of a window. There is always a cat at her feet and another by her hand. The daughter knows everything about them and it is like frost bites on her lips. That she runs all day on a crowded piazza wrapped in a blue towel is not true and she says it is her fear of losing control over what already. A mixture of candor and insolence is often a bond between the essential Thing and a mere trifle. An irresistible tropism toward the desert makes the of the Turkish slipper. After years of driving away she gave up dancing. It is a lonely place this cluster of tin roof houses built around nothing. A footprint rescues the daughter lost in a dream when it is followed by the sound of a body rushing through empty lanes. Depending on one’s point of view a burning firewood summons them to a solemn rite or forces her to wipe off the stardust from her eyes. Sometimes she has nothing to say when she turns on the light.

57

LOUD DARKNESS

Why writing when there is no more time to read. She listens to an escape artist who left his name in a suitcase watching the sun come down on his forlorn luck. Is alienation a defiant freedom. Dans mon pays, on ne questionne pas un homme ému. She watches the daughter canter in the riding ring and he is not going back to this broken heart. It is a terrible fate when a young man cannot leave his country and all there is left is a cry when his only hope vanishes with a plane into the blue clouds. When all curiosity is gone he knows the meaning of horror. A vicious sun above the tin roof swallows the shadows of men who walk by her door. She knows what happens to these displaced bodies when she speaks her native language with a foreign accent. This is a waltz and they shall not meet again.

58

ARCHITECTONIC OF A REQUIEM

She dreams of Saint Augustine and she whispers his name under the sheets. There is always a red leaf in the middle of the path. When science is the occidental God her hands reach out for drops of rain. L’ Éden se retire peu à peu du Jardin. This is the only way open to esoteric wisdom when she walks by the lake and recognizes the stones. Are planets and constellations trapped into a blue spell bottle. There is the song of the wind in the oak trees and there is no Santa Claus. I’m sorry I have my shoes on my ears I can’t hear you. The daughter builds a ginger bread house and the cat sets down a dead mouse on the doorsteps. She rubs her fingers on her naked throat and this is to be passed over in silence like a dream when it is a requiem for the father.

59 NOTES

I would like to thank , Stereolab, Beth Orton, Radiohead, IAM, Everything but the Girl, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Tori Amos for their music which accompanied me through this journey with I played over and over again. Phrases from their lyrics subreptitiously insinuated themselves into these poems.

I REQUIEM SERIES

“it is hard to turn away from moving water” is from Lynn Hejinian’s My Life. “Every time there is a question there is a decision” is from Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons.

II HER FEET ARE NAILED TO THE PLINTH

“Cinéma Vérité” was inspired by ’s poem “Heavy Water Blues” and refers loosely to Tom Tykver’s movie Der Krieger und Die Kaiserin .

The title “American Tanz Theatre” is an adaptation of the name of Pina Bausch’s dance company, the Wuppertal Tanz Theatre, as this poem plays with the idea of blurring the boundaries between stage and reality.

“Mistaken Etiquette” refers to St. Petersburg, Russia.

III WALLS IN THE FUTURE

“Extreme Injury”: La Pianiste is a movie directed by Michael Haneke based on Elfriede Jelinek’s novel Das Klaverspielerin. “les dons font les esclaves comme les fouets font les chiens” is an Inuit proverb discussed by Pascal Quignard to explain the extraordinary decomposition of History during the twentieth century.

“Georgian Permutation with Water” refers to St. Petersburg, Russia, and a “literary” reading in Tallahassee, Florida. This poem also refers to Karoly Makk’s film The Gambler, inspired both by Dostoevsky’s novel by the same title and the events that inspired the novel. The word “Georgian” pertains to the state of Georgia, USA.

“Babushka with Plum Blossoms” is in memory of Denise Bricq. Nasturiums with Dance is a painting by .

“Adagio for Hands”: “Il est des facons de dire qui font trembler” and “Où sommes-nous? Au centre de l’aurore” are from Pascal Quignard’s Les Ombres errantes.

“The Door Was Open” was inspired by Antonin Artaud who observed Antonin Artaud until he answered the call of madness.

“Angel and Puppet”: most italicized words are borrowed from Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Fourth Elegy,” which inspired the action of this poem.

IV THIS ATTRACTION TO A WINDOW

“Errancy”: “Moi, je suis laminé(e) d’esthétiques loyales” is an appropriation of a sentence from Jules Laforgue’s Choix arbitraires.

“Chained to Char”: “Le grand bûcher des alliances” is a line from René Char’s poem “Chaîne.”

60 “Off with Her Head”: “Une fois la flamme pincée entre les doigts, l’obscurité entoure aussitôt” is from Pascal Quignard’s Les Ombres errantes.

“Busy Picking Wild Flowers”: “Observation and construction make imagination” is from Gertrude Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.

“Calisthenics” is for Cynie Cory. “Fargue est surréaliste dans l’atmosphère” is from Andre Breton’s Manifestes du surréalisme. “That is what I find so comforting when I lose heart and envy the brute beast” and “Ah earth you old extinguisher” are from Samuel Beckett’s Happy Day.

“Mystic Bakers”: “Nous sommes des pauvres devinettes” is from Pascal Quignard’s Les Ombres errantes. “Aller vers les chats, ces dingues, ces fous, ces bandes de chats, d’une incroyable beauté” is from Marguerite Duras’s Écrire.

“Poetics”: “GHOST / RADIO SOARS IN EVERY HOME WE HAVE THE NORTHPOLE / WALL” is from Hart Crane’s poem “The River.” “les dernières minutes de la vie d’une mouche ordinaire” is from Marguerite Duras’s Écrire. “a can containing a curtain is a solid sentimental usage” is from Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons.

“Countless Pretenses”: “Contempler enfin le monde dans la douceur des questions répondues” is from Pascal Quignard’s Les Ombres errantes.

V THE HOUSE FAR FROM THE STARS

“To Dramatize the Harvest” is for David Kirby.

“Things They Said” is for Christiane Fourneron.

“Vibration in the Line” is for S.E. Gontarski. “She looked words onto them, certain words that she needed and that weren’t there” is from Rainer Maria Rilke’s The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. The last sentence of this poem refers to the climactic scene from René Clair’s movie Entr’acte.

“Decorative Emptiness”: The Stoclet Frieze is a mural by Gustav Klimt . “You must try not to destroy the habits of the poor” and “An image of intolerable splendor” are from Marguerite Duras’s The Lover.

“Festive Uncertainty”: “C’est reposant un écrivain, souvent, ça écoute beaucoup” is from Marguerite Duras’s Écrire.

VI DUST DOES NOT CREATE AN ATMOSPHERE

“Notable Exceptions” was inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke’s The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.

“Translation” is for Barbara Hamby. “She has the matchless attentiveness of those who don’t understand what is said to them” is from Marguerite Duras’s The Lover.

“Happy Windowpane”: The “superstition” mentioned toward the end of the poem is, in fact, a French tradition for the mi-carême rather than for New Year’s Day. “Truly, the paths of fate are wondrous and beyond understanding” is from Rainer Maria Rilke’s The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. Harmony in

Yellow is a painting by Henri Matisse. The Golden Knight is a painting by Gustav Klimt. “Il faut risquer l’indigestion si l’on a envie de manger” is from Pascal Quignard’s Les Ombres errantes.

“Unintentional Promenade”: “Il y eût une invasion de papillons” is from Pascal Quignard’s Les Ombres errantes.

61 The title “Perforation of the Heart” was inspired by a passage from Rainer Maria Rilke’s The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge in which Malte explains the procedure of the perforation of the heart.

“Loud Darkness”: “Dans mon pays, on ne questionne pas un homme ému” is from René Char’s poem “Les Matinaux.”

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Brigitte Byrd is a native of France where she lived until she moved to the United States in 1988. She now holds citizenship in both France and America. Byrd received a BA in English in 1997 and a MA in English in 1999, both degrees from the University of West Florida where she was awarded the Outstanding Graduate Student in English Award in 1999. She came to the Florida State University in order to study Poetry and Poetics with Professor David Kirby. Also, she studied Performance Theory with Professor S.E. Gontarski. As a student, Byrd contributed to The Journal of Beckett Studies as an Associate Editor and to Fiction Collective Two as an Assistant to the Publisher. Her poetry has appeared in several journals, including New American Writing, HOW2, The Eternal Anthology (UK), So to Speak, Phoebe, and in the anthologies Like Thunder and American Diaspora (U of Iowa P). In 2000, she was the winner of the Summer Literary Seminar Poetry Contest, which allowed her to write and study in St Petersburg, Russia, for two weeks. Byrd now holds a PHD in English from the Florida State University.

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