Embracing Fracture: The Buddhist Poetics of Allen Ginsberg and Norman Fischer Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Rotando, Matthew Louis Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 28/09/2021 18:35:10 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/228611 EMBRACING FRACTURE: THE BUDDHIST POETICS OF ALLEN GINSBERG AND NORMAN FISCHER by Matthew Louis Rotando __________________________________ Copyright © Matthew Louis Rotando 2012 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2012 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Matthew Louis Rotando entitled Embracing Fracture: The Buddhist Poetics of Allen Ginsberg and Norman Fischer and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy __________________________________________________ Date: February 21, 2012 Dr. Tenney Nathanson __________________________________________________ Date: February 21, 2012 Dr. Suresh Raval __________________________________________________ Date: February 21, 2012 Dr. Carlos Gallego Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. ________________________________________________ Date: February 21, 2012 Dissertation Director: Dr. Tenney Nathanson 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. SIGNED: Matthew Louis Rotando 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Without my ancestors, the Rotando, DiPrima, Granfortuna, and Mehrtens families, most of whom came through Ellis Island in the later 19th and early 20th centuries, I could not be writing in this language. They were the first adventurers. I follow in their wake. This dissertation is affectionately dedicated to the vibrant memories of my very dear cousin, Todd Joseph Ouida, who was born on May 18th, 1976, and died on September 11th, 2001, and my greatly admired and loving grandfather, Raymond Matthew DiPrima, who was born in New York on February 28th, 1916, and died on July 11th, 2011. In August of 1995, I experienced my first taste of the clarity and calm of Vipassana Meditation. For this I am forever grateful to my teacher, S.N. Goenka, and his teacher, Sayagyi U Ba Khin. I am also grateful for the deepening meditation experiences I had with Wellewatte Seelagawesi Thero and Mahinda Thero of Peradeniya Monastery, while living in Sri Lanka from September 2000 to July 2001 on a Fulbright Foundation Scholarship. These teachers and the experiences I have had under their guidance have been life-saving. They have demonstrated with their actions what positive effects serious meditation practice can have on the individual and on society. 5 I am also deeply grateful to my mother, Laurie Mae Corey, who introduced me to the joy of reading and who read with me, at a very early age, a book called Zen In The Martial Arts, by Joe Hyams, who recommended that I “lengthen my own line” instead of trying to shorten those of other people. It was also with her that I attended, as a young boy, a poetry reading given by Allen Ginsberg in the auditorium at Manhattanville College. The one and only time I saw him perform live will always be with me. “And all the hills echoéd!” As a young teenager, I picked a small and aged book off the shelf of my father, Louis Mehrtens Rotando, titled An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, by D.T. Suzuki. I read the words in awe and confusion, not knowing that this book, a leftover from a world religions course that my dad took as an undergraduate, was planting some very strange and important seeds of inquiry within me. I am grateful to my parents and stepparents (Elia Schoichet, JoAnne Conway Rotando, and Lance Corey) for always fostering a warm spirit of intellectual adventure within me, and for always supporting my academic career, as well as my shaggy world- wanderings. My dear friend, Jack Skeffington, also a graduate student at the University of Arizona, has been both a motivator and a compañero throughout the entirety of my writing process. I am thankful for the stability and inspiration of his friendship, and for the many intellectually challenging conversations we have had that have made this dissertation better. Go, Vistadors! 6 I am very thankful to Dr. Angela Mullis, who has been a confidant and a dear and motivating friend for the latter part of this dissertation process. She has helped me push myself through some very tough moments. I am especially grateful for the guidance and patience of my dissertation chair, Dr. Tenney Nathanson, who first introduced me to the work of Norman Fischer via the book Success, which I consider one of the great works of art in our time. Tenney’s encouragement and scholarly rigor have made me a better writer and thinker. Ten thousand things, indeed. I am also thankful to Dr. Suresh Raval and Dr. Carlos Gallego, the other members of my dissertation committee, for their generous suggestions and participation in a project that has been full of fits and starts. Also, without the tireless administrative help of Marcia Marma, the unflappable Program Assistant for Graduate Studies in English Literature at the University of Arizona, I would be utterly lost. “Matthew, when you sit there meditating, are you wasting time?” —Raymond Matthew DiPrima 7 DEDICATION In loving memory of my grandfather Raymond Matthew DiPrima and my cousin Todd Joseph Ouida. 8 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS…………………………………...…………………………9 ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………….……..10 INTRODUCTION: EARLY EASTERN AND BUDDHIST RIPPLES IN AMERICA, SITUATING ALLEN GINSBERG AND NORMAN FISCHER……………………….11 1. ALLEN GINSBERG’S EARLY BUDDHIST POETRIES AND “HOWL” AS PROTO-BUDDHIST POEM……..…………………………………………………..….22 2. FRACTURED ECSTATIC: GINSBERG’S LATER POEMS AS BUDDHIST PRACTICE………………………………………………………………………………55 3. NORMAN FISCHER’S SUCCESS AND THE MUTABILITY OF THOUGHT………………………………………………………………………………82 4. NORMAN FISCHER AND THE RADICAL ACTIONS OF WRITING INSIDE AN EDGE…………………………………………………………….……………………..106 5. STILL(ING) THE FRACAS: NORMAN FISCHER’S POETIC AND MEDITATIVE PRACTICES AND SILENCE AS A PLACE NOT TO SETTLE IN……………….....127 CONCLUSION: WHERE WILL THOUGHT GO FROM HERE?................................147 WORKS CITED………………………………………………………………………..150 9 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Sakyamuni Coming Out From The Mountain. Liang Kai. First half of 13th c. Hanging scroll, ink and colors on silk. Tokyo National Museum………………………....34 Kirlian Photograph of Poker Symbols. Natasha Seery. March 23, 2005……………....111 10 ABSTRACT This dissertation is an exploration of the strain of Buddhist thought and practice running through American Modernism and American Modernist Poetry. I examine the works, both poetic and critical, of two authors, Allen Ginsberg and Norman Fischer. I explore Allen Ginsberg’s relationship with Buddhism, as it changed throughout his life, looking at key poems in his early career, such as “Sakyamuni Coming Out of the Mountain,” and “The Change: Kyoto to Tokyo Express.” I also examine “Howl” in light of Ginsberg’s early experiences with Buddhism and other spiritual forms. I consider some of the poetics and politics of “Howl” as an example of the both the poetic space and the mind Ginsberg prepared for his later spiritual and poetic life. I also theorize the connections between the Buddhist attitude that Ginsberg cultivates and the modernism of Ezra Pound, who eschewed Buddhist ideas and terms in his re-working of Ernest Fenollosa’s well-known essay, “The Chinese Written Chracter as a Medium for Poetry.” I examine the way Ginsberg considered Pound’s Cantos as a model of a mind, in the act of the real work of thinking. I end my treatment of Ginsberg’s work with a reading of “Father Death Blues” which Ginsberg considered the “culmination” of his Buddhist training. Looking at Norman Fischer, I focus closely on the Zen aspects of his writing, spending special attention on notions of the koan, as well as things he says (in his Zen lectures and elsewhere) about intersections between Zen mind perception models and models of mind that come via the practices of psychoanalysis. I work to explain how Fischer situates in terms of the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets and other avant-garde poetic movements. I explore how Fischer’s innovative style(s) work within his poetic practices in “Praise,” an extended journal/diary poem from Precisely The Point Being Made and the Cage/MacLow practices of releasing of ego and agency in writing methods. I also look at how such journal/diary poems compare to other poetic “mind models” within American Modernism. My chapters on Fischer culminate in a discussion, with significant close readings, of his book Success. 11 INTRODUCTION: EARLY EASTERN AND BUDDHIST RIPPLES IN AMERICA, SITUATING ALLEN GINSBERG AND NORMAN FISCHER Wittgenstein famously said, “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” But he didn’t mean by this that what you can’t speak about is irrelevant or non existent.