Elevenses

Dear Walrus

A strange day at the chalk face in that the Server is down, e-mail stalled and students are occupied with exam presentations. So there’s a little space in which to breathe …

1. To read or write … yes, of course, it’s a false opposition. And yes, Deleuze gets it right (as so much – ‘Anti-Oedipus’ and ‘Thousand Plateaus’ were crucial texts for me in my twenties and I’m currently a big fan of his book on Nietzsche). I suppose it’s why I’m drawn to Duncan who so obviously incorporates reading into writing and – from my brief acquaintance with Duplessis – what I sense is going on in ‘Drafts’. To steal and adapt Beckett’s phrase: I’m after a form to accommodate the mesh (ie. the reading-writing-life weave). That said, I have things to shape and there are only so many hours in the day. And I am the Great Prevaricator (as if you haven’t guessed). Bernadette Mayer’s attitude was to make the choice. And there are the books to prove it. My experience is frequently that of walking up the ‘down’ escalator.
2. Whitman – yes. I’d dig further back to Emerson whose Essays I like enormously (and, I think, were very influential on Nietzsche). Susan Howe’s book on Emily Dickinson opens up lots of possibilities in terms of a Puritan tradition (Jonathan Edwards’ sermons, etc) and Bernadette Mayer has interesting things to say about Hawthorne and his influence upon American writing. I’ve yet to get into Hawthorne but Melville’s ‘Moby Dick’ has become a key text – see entries earlier in this Blog. I read the Whale as the Poem – well, you can work out the rest.
3. A mood of intellectual exile – that’s a fine phrase! And pretty bloody accurate. Obviously being in Belgium contributes to the feeling (dominant languages being French and Flemish, few English-language bookshops ((none of real quality)), even fewer like minded souls etc. – but let’s not get too Wertheresque). It’s also something about being in your mid-forties – any kind of passion above and beyond your career + mortgage + family looks increasingly suspect (“you mean you still have time for all that stuff?”). And I am happy to admit that just a few hours in England can make me yearn to be back across the Channel. So where does that leave me?

So, I’m very happy to maintain this correspondence – a Deleuzean ‘rhizome’ of sorts –and I’m really pleased that you find “lines of flight” leading off. I find the same in certain other Blogs – Kate Greenstreet’s ‘eod’ (now closed down) was a real inspiration: I loved the way she incorporated images and now and again gave a glimpse into her notebooks.

That’s about it for now.

In the next instalment: Tony Hancock, Tom Raworth and Modern British Poetry …

Deterritorialized yours

The Carpenter