Writing on the PostCardPoems
The dividing of "time" and "truth," caught and colliding in Bruegel's stormy sky, as if the "person," St. Anthony, is torn in two by his own temptations, but seen, "saw" still--an "I," for an "I" (that small word, there at the edge)--that small mark nearly lost among the clouds.
Through the seemingly direct reference points, there’s a kind of suggested “anchoring” of the individual images (Benjamin’s word for the work of the “caption”): “sky-blue” on what is indeed a very blue sky. Often, with my multi-fragment postcards, one of the fragments frequently has some quasi-concrete link to the image, or a hint of a link anyway—like Magritte’s “pipe” that is not a “pipe.” Here, the “sky-blue,” though affixed to a picture of blue sky, is in fact syntactically joined not with that sky but with memories (memories of such a sky?), or with language “as” memories, memories that are finally (blindingly?) “forgotten,” or actually, even more absorbingly, “already” forgotten (having never been seen?).
The “slide” into the next card, though it was a bit inadvertent (dependent to some extent on that day’s pile of fragments), is suggested by the “meanwhile,” working almost like a hinge between the cards, again unplanned (Joyce frequently uses “meanwhile,” as you’ll know, to signal simultaneity and I like how that works in this card, too). A narrative is nearly suggested between the cards; almost.
“Meanwhile / the motion / beneath.”
Of course, there is no actual motion “beneath,” simultaneous or otherwise, but, in that busy scene, there certainly appears to be (along with a lot of noise, though Piccadilly Circus couldn’t be more silent, almost deathly so; almost?), and the word “motion” itself both describes and denies what’s happening.
“Meanwhile / the motion / beneath.”
Of course, there is no actual motion “beneath,” simultaneous or otherwise, but, in that busy scene, there certainly appears to be (along with a lot of noise, though Piccadilly Circus couldn’t be more silent, almost deathly so; almost?), and the word “motion” itself both describes and denies what’s happening.
Finally, on the third painted (interestingly not photographed) seascape postcard (in which there are at least as many people depicted as in Piccadilly Circus, packed onto all those ships), the “white cloud” is really not very white at all (though our imaginations often try to insist upon such color coding), but the “printed word” is unquestionably a printed word (or two of them, actually), and through them something like a “glimpse,” one that is, though, decidedly “broken.”
Your question.
Oy, you see, this is what happens when you ask me questions. I’m dead certain that nothing I’ve said has in any way helped you to make sense your other responses. But for all this, I really dig the piece.
Ari
- The first thing I saw was “my own soul.” Damn, that’s an interesting sentence all by itself. But no matter. That’s the phrase I saw first. Though it is no more centered than the top line, it was more easily legible. For that reason, I believe, it attracted my eye.
- Then I moved to the top line, which is where I would have started had “my own soul” not caught my eye. We westerners tend from left to right, clockwise, and top to bottom.
- At first I read the top line as “my past life,” briefly ignoring the fragment to the left (as I ignore the fragment that begins with “th” below the line.) But that didn’t last. I read that fragment as “or,” so I see the line as “or my past life.”
- Because of “or” I look to see what comes before it, moving counterclockwise instead of the more natural clockwise.
- Then, since there is only one line I hadn’t read, I jump from “deeply hidden” to “god, blessed.” Now, as I’m writing this, think that a marvelous phrase I just concocted out of what your piece made me do. It seems significant, somehow, to jump from “deeply hidden” to “god, blessed.” A Kabbalistic aspiration?
- Anyway, so I initially read in this order: my own soul or my past life deeply hidden god, blessed. That’s a sort of sentence, but not really. Ha! So there’s no end. My eyes do not stop. My eyes play with square’s sides.. I jump around. In sum, though I think I have a natural tendency to want to read it clockwise from the top line, the “or” thwarts that and makes me read it, quickly, in a number of random ways.
- There are two tensions. The pull of a clockwise read that is thwarted by the word “or” and my mind’s desire to pull the 4 sides together into a clear phrase that is thwarted by “or” and by the comma in “god, blessed” which makes me want to find it’s proper connector. So, the next place I land is here: “deeply hidden god, blessed my own soul or my past life.” What I think is fascinating here is that my sense-making is a manifestation of a tendency to pull things together until they are graspable in some immediate way. Isn’t this, at least in part, the religious impulse?
Oy, you see, this is what happens when you ask me questions. I’m dead certain that nothing I’ve said has in any way helped you to make sense your other responses. But for all this, I really dig the piece.
Ari
From: Lunberry, Clark <clunberr@unf.edu>
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2021 8:44 AM
To: Ari, Mark <mari@unf.edu>
Subject: Re: Postcard
You’re such a good seer/reader/listener, Ari, I hope you don’t mind a further intervention in regard to my postcards...but last night I returned to a card (one that I may have sent you in the past) that never quite seemed finished to my eyes/ears/brain.
It had, in its beginnings, said only “Seeking / frozen sound,” those words hovering in the background, which I liked but, as noted, seemed the start of something and not the end; plus there was that lush red carpet at the head of the altar just waiting for something to arrive, to be written (in Paris’ Notre Dame, no less!).
So, leaving the card out on my desk over the past few days, an extension of sorts fell into place last night that sounded like a fitting and fulfilling extension, a clarification of the nature of that sought “frozen sound,” joining it to a state of grace, but one that is “heard” in the language.
This pleases me to no end and, once more, these cards are positioning me to say way more than I, alone, ever could, almost as if I’m hearing in the language something of the “grace” to which the card itself is pointing, with something of that “frozen sound” found.
Clark
From: "Ari, Mark" <mari@unf.edu>
Date: Thursday, July 8, 2021 at 10:17 AM
To: Clark Lunberry <clunberr@unf.edu>
Subject: RE: Postcard
Yes, sir, man. This one was waiting for “on hearing the language of grace.” I like the card as it was, but I like it more now. You must have felt it yearning. It has yearning in it, doesn’t it? Seeking is yearning. And what is that one seeks in such place, but something unchanging that can be counted on to hold shape and meaning. The world outside is transient. In this place, time and creation and things universal hold their forms. I may go too far, here, so forgive me if I do—but the sounds inside such a place, the sound of prayers and music are sent up to make a connection with whatever it is into which spirits yearn to fly—out of joy or in a cry. And it is the language of grace that inspires that, isn’t it? I’m not speaking of ordinary language here, the sort of language that pretends to ward grace. But grace has its own language. Sound might carry it, but silence may, as well. But it doesn’t even necessarily come in through the ears.
In any case, those are my first thoughts. You were interested in eye movements last time. I can tell you, interesting or not interesting to you, as the case may be—my eyes fell on across the carpet first. I read, first, “on hearing the language of grace.” Then I raised them to read “seeking frozen sound.” I really kind of like the way I came at it, now that I think about it. I like that I read the lower line first, and then added meaning with the phrase above. It reads both ways to me. After reading the 2nd line and, then the first ,my mind rearranged them so that the first line did come first—and I read it as “seeking frozen sound/on hearing the language of grace. The mind made the most logical arrangement and set it that way. But my mind moved back and forth. I like that way I came to it. It reads so well that way, too—“on hearing the language of grace/seeking frozen sound.” In this one, it can be read that it is the language of grace that is seeking frozen sound. That that grace itself, in its seeking, is a language that can be heard. Is the language decipherable, I wonder, or is the sound of it sufficient to the hearer. There’s the mystery.
These are my immediate reactions, Clark.
Ari
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2021 8:44 AM
To: Ari, Mark <mari@unf.edu>
Subject: Re: Postcard
You’re such a good seer/reader/listener, Ari, I hope you don’t mind a further intervention in regard to my postcards...but last night I returned to a card (one that I may have sent you in the past) that never quite seemed finished to my eyes/ears/brain.
It had, in its beginnings, said only “Seeking / frozen sound,” those words hovering in the background, which I liked but, as noted, seemed the start of something and not the end; plus there was that lush red carpet at the head of the altar just waiting for something to arrive, to be written (in Paris’ Notre Dame, no less!).
So, leaving the card out on my desk over the past few days, an extension of sorts fell into place last night that sounded like a fitting and fulfilling extension, a clarification of the nature of that sought “frozen sound,” joining it to a state of grace, but one that is “heard” in the language.
This pleases me to no end and, once more, these cards are positioning me to say way more than I, alone, ever could, almost as if I’m hearing in the language something of the “grace” to which the card itself is pointing, with something of that “frozen sound” found.
Clark
From: "Ari, Mark" <mari@unf.edu>
Date: Thursday, July 8, 2021 at 10:17 AM
To: Clark Lunberry <clunberr@unf.edu>
Subject: RE: Postcard
Yes, sir, man. This one was waiting for “on hearing the language of grace.” I like the card as it was, but I like it more now. You must have felt it yearning. It has yearning in it, doesn’t it? Seeking is yearning. And what is that one seeks in such place, but something unchanging that can be counted on to hold shape and meaning. The world outside is transient. In this place, time and creation and things universal hold their forms. I may go too far, here, so forgive me if I do—but the sounds inside such a place, the sound of prayers and music are sent up to make a connection with whatever it is into which spirits yearn to fly—out of joy or in a cry. And it is the language of grace that inspires that, isn’t it? I’m not speaking of ordinary language here, the sort of language that pretends to ward grace. But grace has its own language. Sound might carry it, but silence may, as well. But it doesn’t even necessarily come in through the ears.
In any case, those are my first thoughts. You were interested in eye movements last time. I can tell you, interesting or not interesting to you, as the case may be—my eyes fell on across the carpet first. I read, first, “on hearing the language of grace.” Then I raised them to read “seeking frozen sound.” I really kind of like the way I came at it, now that I think about it. I like that I read the lower line first, and then added meaning with the phrase above. It reads both ways to me. After reading the 2nd line and, then the first ,my mind rearranged them so that the first line did come first—and I read it as “seeking frozen sound/on hearing the language of grace. The mind made the most logical arrangement and set it that way. But my mind moved back and forth. I like that way I came to it. It reads so well that way, too—“on hearing the language of grace/seeking frozen sound.” In this one, it can be read that it is the language of grace that is seeking frozen sound. That that grace itself, in its seeking, is a language that can be heard. Is the language decipherable, I wonder, or is the sound of it sufficient to the hearer. There’s the mystery.
These are my immediate reactions, Clark.
Ari
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