88 PAJ 116 Anne Carson Reading Text in STACKS © Michael Hart, 2008
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Anne Carson reading text in STACKS © Michael Hart, 2008. Courtesy Jonah Bokaer Choreography. 88 PAJ 116 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_a_00369 by guest on 01 October 2021 Stacks Anne Carson STACK OF THE SEAS OF THE MOON IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER Mare Aliorum Sea of Others Mare Ambulationis Sea of Walking Mare Anguis Snake Sea Mare Australe Sea to the South Mare Crisium Sea of Crises Mare Dormiendi Nuditer Sea of Sleeping Naked Mare Frigoris Sea of Cold Mare Humboldtianum Humboldt’s Sea Mare Humorum Sea of Moistures Mare Imbrium Sea of Rains Mare Lunae Quaestionum Sea of the Problems of the Moon Mare Marginis Border Sea Mare Moscoviense Moscow Sea Mare Nectaris Sea of Nectar Mare Nocte Ambulationis Sea of Walking at Night Mare Nubium Sea of Clouds Mare Orientale Sea to the East Mare Personarum Sea of Masks Mare Phoenici Phoenician Sea Mare Phoenicopterorum Sea of Flamingos Mare Pudoris Sea of Shame Mare Relictum Sea of Detroit Mare Ridens Laughing Sea Mare Smythii Sea of Smyth Mare Spumans Foaming Sea Mare Tempestivitatis Sea of What Frank O’Hara Calls “Cantankerous Filaments of a Larger Faintheartedness Like Loving Summer” Mare Vituperationis Sea of Blaming © 2017 Anne Carson PAJ 116 (2017), pp. 89–108. 89 doi:10.1162/PAJJ _a_00369 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_a_00369 by guest on 01 October 2021 THUNDERSTORM STACK A bird flashed by as if mistaken then it starts. We do not think speed of life. We do not think why hate Jezebel? We think who’s that throwing trees against the house? Jezebel was a Phoenician. Phoenician thunderstorms are dry and frightening, they arrive one inside the other as torqued ellipses. 90 PAJ 116 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_a_00369 by guest on 01 October 2021 STACK OF THE DEFINITIONS OF “STACK” Large usually conical pile (as of hay) left standing in the field Large quantity or number English unit of measure especially for firewood equal to 108 cubic feet Vertical pipe (as to carry off smoke) Exhaust pipe of an internal combustion engine Pyramid of three rifles interlocked Structure of bookshelves for compact storage of books usually in the plural Pile of chips sold to or won by a player of poker Collection of data of which only the most recently added item may be removed the latest item being at the top basic operations are “push” and “pop” sometimes known as a “last in first out” construction or LIFO To fall over in skating CARSON / Stacks 91 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_a_00369 by guest on 01 October 2021 SHAME STACK Shame requires the eyes of others unlike guilt. The eyes of Elijah the Tishbite saw in Jezebel a person with much to be ashamed of. There is a link between shame and mercy people who lack the one lack the other. No one could relax around Jezebel. Psychoanalysts say that shame ruins your capacity for reverie by making cracks in the mind where it is dangerous for thought to wander. In the end Jezebel’s own eunuchs throw her off the parapet. Her blood is on the wall and on the horses. 92 PAJ 116 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_a_00369 by guest on 01 October 2021 SHAME STACK RESTACK There is a link between psychoanalysts and eunuchs, cracks no one could lack that say blood others thought. SHAME STACK RESTACK RESTACKED Jezebel could crack psychoanalysts off your mind and ruin the lack of lack. CARSON / Stacks 93 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_a_00369 by guest on 01 October 2021 THUNDERSTORM STACK I watch a thunderstorm play the piano it is Sviatoslav Richter. Don’t look away or an island where birds dive. Even on TV the piano keys can barely hang onto his hands. ROCKSTOCKDOCK STACK Do you need to repair your ship. Dig a trench exactly the same length as your ship. Haul your ship offside. Give the trench a base of solid rock. Put a row of stocks across the rock. Let water flow into the trench. Haul your ship back in. Now you are a Phoenician and have invented drydock. You can repair your ship from below. Drydock is not an example of a “last in first out” construction or LIFO. 94 PAJ 116 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_a_00369 by guest on 01 October 2021 SMOKESTACK Question about what words are. Think of an inscription cut in stone. Would you say words are the cuts in the stone or words are the stone around the cuts? Think of a page in a book. Are the words the ink or the paper containing the shape of this ink? Think of a face, no you can’t engrave a face. Think of a sentence written as Homer might say on the tablets of your mind. Does Elijah in virtue of being a prophet have a mind that is one big cut so that the word Jezebel falls through it like fiery roofbeams collapsing all at once at a surprise party? CARSON / Stacks 95 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_a_00369 by guest on 01 October 2021 STACK OF ANIMAL RIGHTS A Phoenician first recorded the word “gorilla.” This was Hanno the Navigator who voyaged from Carthage along the West African coast in the 6th century BC. His logbook contains this entry: We came to an island of savages. Most of them were women with hairy bodies whom our inter- preters called “gorillas.” We chased them but could not get any males they being good climbers. We got three women who bit and clawed. So we killed them and flayed them and brought their skins back home. Pliny the Elder attests that gorilla skins were exhibited in the temple of Tanit in Carthage until the Romans destroyed it. According to linguists the word “gorilla” renders a KiKongo term for “powerful animal that beats itself violently.” 96 PAJ 116 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_a_00369 by guest on 01 October 2021 CHEAPJACK STACK The Phoenicians were a commercial people, they traded metals, weapons, ostrich eggs, shoelaces, whistles, nuts, panthers, letters of the alphabet. They invented the alphabet. They invented alphabetical order. They used these inventions for commercial transactions which were scribbled on the back of envelopes and vanished from history. From the Phoenicians the Greeks stole the alphabet, added a few letters and sat down to write the classics of Western civilization. Cold clear and blue was the morning. Jezebel is filed between ice cream and karma. CARSON / Stacks 97 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_a_00369 by guest on 01 October 2021 THUNDERSTORM STACK A lolloping wind pours out the trees and night. Boughs work at the window. Feet stain on the stairs. Doors slam, tables fall, ghosts fling their clocks from the balcony. Hand me mine! said Jezebel. A sentence a- float will you listen growing old by its sound in a fraction. 98 PAJ 116 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_a_00369 by guest on 01 October 2021 CHEAPTHUNDERJACKSTORM RESTACK Feet vanished from history. Lolloping vanished. The Phoenicians traded me said Jezebel growing old at the window. CARSON / Stacks 99 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_a_00369 by guest on 01 October 2021 STACK OF WHAT MADE JEZEBEL JEZEBEL Adrenaline. The threadlike pressure of small social conditions. Her father his terrific purple eyebrows. An historical mistrust felt by people in the west for anything that comes from the east or by people in the north for what comes from the south and so on. Again the picking of small stones out of the rice. This streaming of existence within me (she said). Elijah’s prophecy that ‘s blood would end up being licked by dogs which it did. The gold smoke of her Buick at dawn against a frozen sun. 100 PAJ 116 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_a_00369 by guest on 01 October 2021 THUNDERSTORM STACK Who cares about thunder. Problem of making a sound. To make a sound while we live. Emily Brontë’s surname was an invention you can tell by the fake umlaut. Bolt. Crack. Wrong accent. Who cares. If I don’t make a sound. If you don’t hear my sound. Her father invented it. BRONTE being the ancient Greek word “thunder” the other Emily listened. “What an afternoon for heaven when Brontë entered in!” (she wrote). Heaven is not an example of a “last in first out” construction or LIFO. CARSON / Stacks 101 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_a_00369 by guest on 01 October 2021 GRANDSTACK Dido the tragically famed queen of Carthage whom you may know from Virgil or from Purcell was a Phoenician, grand daughter of King Mattan of Tyre and grand niece of Jezebel. I find it hard to think of Jezebel as anyone’s grand aunt. One thing we can say for pretty sure is that she was not the kind of grand aunt who has a drawer in the kitchen labelled “bits of string too short for use.” 102 PAJ 116 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_a_00369 by guest on 01 October 2021 COUNTSTACK NOT COUNTING RESTACKS afternoons 1 analogies 3 animals 7 bodies of water 34 blames 2 brand names 3 cold things 3 deaths 504 Detroits 3 dry things 131 Elijahs 3 ethnicities 8 fathers 1 female wantonness 4 generalizations 9 hot things 5 imperatives 13 inventions 7 Jezebels 12 lies 2 LIFOs 1 liquids not seas 7 mornings 2 non-LIFOs 4 nouns 458 Phoenicians 8 seductions 2 slant rhymes 6 sudden silences 0 thunderstorms 7 unrelated injustices 15 verbs 145 weather reports 4 writing surfaces 14 X ratings 3 zealous actions 8 zeros 12 CARSON / Stacks 103 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_a_00369 by guest on 01 October 2021 STACK OF THE REAL PRICE OF EVERYTHING For $28.95 per acre you can purchase property on the moon.