Currently (re)reading:: J. R. Lennon, Pieces for the Left Hand; Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies; Elizabeth W. Joyce, "The Small Space of a Pause": Susan Howe's Poetry and the Spaces Between
I still remember Charles Bernstein’s inaugural question to the participants in his Textual Conditions seminar: what was your first textual experience? I am still delighted by the question’s implication that someone’s first experience with language might be a revelation on par with budding sexuality. Bernstein stresses by association the sensory pleasures of the text, the roll of it on the tongue, its sweet or bitter taste, its grit on the hand, or trill in the ear or eye.
I don’t remember how I responded to the question at the time, but when I was very young, my mother found me in the shower alone and singing with abandon, “Diarrhea, diarrhea, diarrhea.” When she asked me about my song, I replied, “Don’t you think it sounds wonderful? Diarrhea.” My reverence was evident, so she shrugged and left me to it. I can’t blame myself now for marveling at the sound of the word, in and of itself. The sound, the visuality, and the texture of a word are not ancillary to its meaning—rather, they are central determinants of linguistic sense, and as such, they must be lived through the body, and not merely entertained in thought.
The other of my earliest memories is not strictly textual. In our house there was an illustrated children’s dictionary with which I used to abscond for hours. Each time, I hid behind a desk or a chair and opened to the entry for “color,” fixating at length not on the word itself or its definition, but on the drawing of a child with a set of watercolor paints. I could taste the pigments, the deep reds and soft oranges, the pale glow of yellow and faint violet. I was so gluttonous, so jealous of the image, that I grew fearful of discovery and went to great lengths not to be seen pouring over the book like the absolute maniac I undoubtedly was, and that I assuredly continue to be.
I still remember Charles Bernstein’s inaugural question to the participants in his Textual Conditions seminar: what was your first textual experience? I am still delighted by the question’s implication that someone’s first experience with language might be a revelation on par with budding sexuality. Bernstein stresses by association the sensory pleasures of the text, the roll of it on the tongue, its sweet or bitter taste, its grit on the hand, or trill in the ear or eye.
I don’t remember how I responded to the question at the time, but when I was very young, my mother found me in the shower alone and singing with abandon, “Diarrhea, diarrhea, diarrhea.” When she asked me about my song, I replied, “Don’t you think it sounds wonderful? Diarrhea.” My reverence was evident, so she shrugged and left me to it. I can’t blame myself now for marveling at the sound of the word, in and of itself. The sound, the visuality, and the texture of a word are not ancillary to its meaning—rather, they are central determinants of linguistic sense, and as such, they must be lived through the body, and not merely entertained in thought.
The other of my earliest memories is not strictly textual. In our house there was an illustrated children’s dictionary with which I used to abscond for hours. Each time, I hid behind a desk or a chair and opened to the entry for “color,” fixating at length not on the word itself or its definition, but on the drawing of a child with a set of watercolor paints. I could taste the pigments, the deep reds and soft oranges, the pale glow of yellow and faint violet. I was so gluttonous, so jealous of the image, that I grew fearful of discovery and went to great lengths not to be seen pouring over the book like the absolute maniac I undoubtedly was, and that I assuredly continue to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment