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Reading John M. Bennett: How to Read and Think About the Poetry of John M. Bennett
by
Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino
(Originally
published in Pudding Magazine: The
International Journal of Applied Poetry, No.
29,
1996. It is here revised slightly.)
In
writing about an author, one runs certain risks. To paraphrase Samuel Beckett: one is liable to solve
mysteries of his own making. So be
it, then. But where concerns such
as John M. Bennett, about whose work—with its deep textures, as though
inverted, lying far beneath the surface—so little critical exposition can be
found, such risks are, I think, justifiable (and a little mischief, forgivable).
I
think it useful to point out Mr. Bennett’s relation to the avant-garde,
and then to the school of applied poetry, leastwise to provide a general point
of view or angle by which to approach him.
I will provide some informative ideas to keep in mind when reading him,
with the hope that these will help the reader in what to look for and how to
think about what he finds. These ideas
are, “new strategies,” “applied biology,” “revaluation,” and “logoclastics.”
New Strategies
(Bennett’s relation to the
avant-garde) John
M. Bennett’s works are today still known only to the most devoted connoisseurs
of the literary avant-garde. His
many chapbooks and broadsides—all handsomely and artistically produced limited
editions, but for the most part still available through his Luna
Bisonte Prods
It
pays to bear in mind, however, that “avant-garde” literature, if it may be
said to be indicative of a (new) paradigm in artistic literary expression, does
not supersede or render incommensurable any pre-existing or prior paradigm of
“artistic literary virtue”—avant-garde literature, and altogether because
of its limited appeal, simply does not have that force—but rather history has
shown that avant-garde artistic writing is a parallel paradigm phenomenon,
existing in large part in reaction to, and borrowing from (and being borrowed
from in turn), the greater literary (and intellectual) community.
It was the inadequacies and malfunctions of this, our greater literary
community, that necessitated the “advances,” or more precisely “the new
strategies” that we have come to associate with the term avant-garde. In this
sense, the avant-garde is always
itself a crisis (at once symptomatic of dis-ease, and the dis-ease state
itself). Avant-garde literature is
not an island, but is, rather, a peninsula—existing in connection to the
mainland, however far it may project into the sea.
Applied
Biology?
(Bennett’s relation to the confessional form and to applied
poetry) The
voice that drives a Bennett poem in no
way sounds of a beleaguered psyche; rather so much the opposite of that, this
voice tells of a self- and body-affirming persistence. Bennett
goes head to head with life; and with all of life; and he uses his entire being,
his entire sensorial and intellectual capacity in his drive to persevere, to
endure, to go on—to seize the moment and make of his momentum the significance
of his being alive, his being here, of his being now. This significance, this union,
is the symbiosis he has achieved between his life and his poetry; they are very
much one and the same—about as much as any poet can, or perhaps ought to,
endure. The truth of this is borne
out, I believe, by the fact of his very prolificacy; there is a Bennett poem to
go with every moment, every arisen need, of the day (and of the night).
Rather than being seized upon by life, he is quick to turn the coin and
be the seizer; in this way his poetry is as a log, a daily record of incidentals
and endurances. Read this way, his
poetry sounds at once a coming to terms with life, with biology, with immediate
body—and the uses to which such is put—and the starkly, sometimes violently
individualistic expression of a craftsman near total learning of his means.
And he will have it no other way. Our
popular, polite (mainland) tastes and sensibilities have to, in a sense, get
used to him. (This is indeed an
acquired taste.) But we are always,
it seems, in a state of getting used to the uncustomary—and for that reason,
impolite—ways of having ideas expressed.
Is it the idea itself that we
find disquieting, or is it that, as custom would have it, certain ideas belong
in certain places?
Sylvia
Plath remarked that she could not get a toothbrush into the poem, that for that
end she needed the short story. What
she was referring to—and in her own way triumphing against—was the certain
politeness of the poem, a politeness that had been restricting, constricting
the poet, a politeness that had in a very real sense been separating the poet
from his body, from his biology.
The poem as some platonic, abstract thing was precluding the poet from
expressing, and addressing, himself more directly and with a sense of urgency;
from turning to a more relative and satisfying simile, away from the
obscure—and for that reason, concealing and disguising—metaphor.
While the maladies of the flesh, especially lovesickness, and the
vicissitudes of life generally (if not the biological
inconveniences), have always been available topic for poetry, what was absent
was the poet writing about his own, personal maladies, and vicissitudes, in a
diction that did not exalt them to the position of an Ideal.
(We know, if you will, that Shakespeare was keenly aware and adept at
depicting the fortunes of human nature, and yet, what do we know of
Shakespeare’s own, personal maladies?) The overcoming of this certain politeness of the poem—to
begin with, a relaxing of control and disguise—has taken many forms, one of
them being the confessional form.
For Bennett, the poem is a reflection (by which he sees and by which he knows himself), and to which and about which he comments; it is the place (the workshop) of his dialogue (his give and take) between body and soul. Writing on the uses of poetry (both aesthetic and restorative), he has said,
Writing [applied] poetry . . . is different from writing as art only in the uses to which the creative process and the object created are put: the creative act is basically the same in both cases. The artist starts from a feeling of discomfort, senses a lack of balance in himself: the act of creation seems to be an attempt to find or create a feeling of order or clarity in the world and in the artist’s experience of it. This is [. . .] a movement toward a more informed and controllable integration of self and world. The difference between the person using poetry as a [. . .] [restorative] technique and the poet may be only in that the creative [. . .] process is an end in itself [. . .] whereas the poet uses his finished product to promote his experience of himself alive to the rest of humanity, to leave a record of his being in the world [ . . . ] Long life, health, ‘happiness’ occur in growth, not in stability or static states [ . . .] Best said, the creative process helps achieve a state of conscious or informed change and growth.1
And
I do emphasize the words, conscious change
and growth. BLANKSMANSHIP
(and the Revaluation of Some Elements of
Grammar) BLANKSMANSHIP
2 is, in this reader’s opinion, Bennett’s most successfully
conceived and most satisfying volume of poetry; published in 1994, these poems
mark a culmination in his decades-long pursuit.
In the ads announcing its publication (though curiously absent from the
book itself) the book carries the rather Beckettian, but no less peculiarly
Bennettian, subtitle, ‘A Poem of Nothing Knowing.’
If the phrase “nothing knowing” seems remote, just consider the more
familiar, “nothing doing.” What
at first seems strange and unfamiliar, turns out to have been sitting beside you
all along . . . But while nothing
doing is easily converted to doing
nothing, “nothing knowing” defies such a conversion.
However we may cut it, our subject signals a metaphysical and existential
state of perplexity—the coming to terms with nothingness.
And while philosophers continue to quarrel over the ontological status of
“nothingness” (that is, over whether “nothingness” is a valid
philosophical concept), our more literary thinkers, psychologists included, have
continued to address it and treat of it as though it were the
really real. An immediate
knowledge of nothingness—it can stop
freight trains in their tracks, if only freight trains were knowing. But so as not
to leave ourselves completely in the lurch where concerns what is real
and what is “nothing,” perhaps it is best to keep in mind, that where
concerns a “nothing knowing,” the sense of it is (and this is wholly bound
up with logoclastics) that, the real is
not the rational.
But
what is “blanksmanship”? Is
there such a thing as the practice of blanksmanship?
Is there a precedent for it? In
the Samuel Beckett novel, Molloy, we
read that 'you would do better, at least no worse, to obliterate
texts than to blacken margins, to fill in the holes of words till all is blank
and flat and the whole ghastly business looks like what is, senseless,
speechless, issueless misery.’ This
is in fine the philosophy, the manifesto,
of blanksmanship. Beckett took his
words as close as possible to their literal implication—which would be silence—while
still remaining a productive writer. John
M. Bennett, very much his own man, rejects silence outright (for that would
imply death) in favor of life, notwithstanding life’s senseless,
“speechless” or too great to be described, issueless
misery. Could
be’s spinal eructation... toward’s blank, er, blanketed
muffling-voice, mumbling ’n formalized like
a bell in milky sand, like a well-rounded... stand
of teeth next a breast... could be’s forced expatriation,
ex-plained, un-related... mute radios
in the trees where snotty tablecloths undulate in
the breeze, where’s hand like a fork digs in, loses a
way (but finds’s loosened belt and’s shoes’re free... (Like’s
time’s all earth’s, could be’s ... Here
we meet Bennett’s first device (first in importance, that is): his use of the
apostrophe. Ordinarily, the
apostrophe serves to indicate an omission of one or more letters in the spelling
of a contraction. Most often—and
again, ordinarily—the appearance of the apostrophe signals to the reader the
possessive form of a nominative (a noun or pronoun used when it is the subject
of a verb), and either the singular form or the plural.
These rules stand for Bennett; but then, his application of them is
open-ended—that is to say, these rules are not construed (by him) so as to
state fixed limits, but general, and elastic, procedures.
Bennett revalues the apostrophe. Bennett
revalues the logic of the apostrophe—as it is both concealed and revealed in
grammar—beyond both its descriptive and prescriptive range, but then so as to
allow for a greater range of significance (or of suggestiveness, or of
expressiveness). And the doing of
this, is in accordance with the program I call logoclastics.
For instance, as a contracted form, ‘Could be’s’ is a contraction
of “could be his”, as in, “could
be his spinal eructation.” And,
“could be his forced expatriation.”
The apostrophe, followed by the letter s
(’s), could at any time be the
contracted form of the word, his.
Again, for instance, as a contracted form, “finds’s” is a
contraction of finds his.
As in, “but finds his loosened
belt and his shoes are free.” Thus, the main clause in the last line in this stanza can be
construed or interpreted: Like his time is
all earth’s. Furthermore,
however, where the word Like’s would
ordinarily have one syllable, and one sound, here it has two syllables, and two sounds.
In pronunciation, it would sound, like
plus ’is (like ’is) and the
stress is on the like.
There is no h sound in the ’s.
And thus (and I am using phonetic spellings), the sounds we hear are not,
could bees, but, could
be ’is (and the stress is on the be).
Again, there is no h sound in the ’s.
So
that we may become more familiar with his apostrophic technique, and in the
process display some of the structures, the byways, accessible here, let us
derive a short-list (we will stick with the poems in BLANKSMANSHIP).
First we’ll list his word (his contraction), and then an
interpretation, and then a phonetic spelling of how it sounds (to the mind’s
ear). o’er’s
. . . . . over his . . . . . oar ’is so’d
. . . . . so he would . . . . . so (h)e’d
(there is no h sound) it’s’s
. . . . . it’s his . . . . . it’s is so’s
. . . . . so his . . . . . so is ’s
. . . . . his . . . . . is ’er
. . . . . her . . . . . (h)er ’e
. . . . . he . . . . . (h)e Going
back to its Greek root, the apostrophe means a
turning away from. I believe
Mr. Bennett is using the apostrophe, not only as a sort of shorthand, but also
as a (necessary) means of distancing himself from his art, as a means of dislocation. In this
way, he is, so to speak, severing the cord between his selfhood, and the art
that is so much a product (born of) his selfhood.
This enables Mr. Bennett to send his art (bearing so much the stamp and
development of his selfhood) out into the world at large, where it can stand as a
record of his being in the world.
Of
somewhat lesser importance, but not of effect, is Bennett’s use of ellipsis
dots and of parentheses. An
ellipsis, strictly speaking, is an omission of words (or paragraphs) from a
quotation. And generally this rule stands (at least as there are an
abundance of quotes—quotation marks—in Bennett’s poetry which are as
likely as not to command it). However,
once again, as in the case with the apostrophe, his use of the ellipsis dots is
open-ended. Going back to its Greek
root, an ellipsis is a falling short.
And what “falls short”—as a matter of the poetry—is the thought
or imagery being conveyed. In the poetry of John M. Bennett, the ellipsis dots may
signal a pause for thought; as in, there
is probably more to be said (on this point).
Thus, when the poet writes, ‘Could be’s spinal eructation...’ we
should expect that he will at some time to come take up this thought again and
either complete it with more detail, or carry it forward to another point or
separate image; as when he rejoins with, could
be’s forced expatriation. Or,
with the more final and open-ended: ‘(Like’s time’s all earth’s, could
be’s...’. Also,
ordinarily ellipsis dots are written with a space left before each dot and also
after the last (dot) if a word follows; Mr. Bennett does not follow this custom.
Rather, Mr. Bennett revalues the ellipsis dots.
He makes of the ellipsis his own poetical device.
Generally speaking, in the poetry of John M. Bennett, the (ellipsis) dots
signal a pregnant pause; also they may separate images; but overall they signal
(imply) an ongoing stream of thought (that may or may not find its terminus in
the individual poem, but that may be carried over to another poem, or that may
be explored throughout his entire volume, or his entire body of poetry, even;
and thus a single but imposing summary—“a poem of nothing knowing”—can
inflict itself upon a poet’s entire pursuits).
This idea of revaluation, is also relevant to an understanding of his
procedure with the parenthesis. Once
again, the customary rules stand; but then, and again, Bennett revalues the
logic contained in these rules, so as to make of the matter his own poetical
device. His use of the parenthesis
is open-ended. And where he does not write a “close parenthesis,” it
signals that his thought is, quite literally, open-ended—and
ongoing . . .
Let’s
not leave this stanza—subtitled ‘statue’—of ‘LIGHT STEAMS’ so
quickly. Let us involve ourselves
with this diction—with the constituents of this vocabulary—and see what we
can find by way of “the elasticity of meaning.”
I believe what we come up with will be (as a general rule) representative
of Bennett’s entire body of poetry. Again,
the time of day is ‘in the AM,’ and the body is awakening: Could
be’s spinal eructation... toward’s
blank, er, blanketed
muffling-voice, mumbling ’n formalized like
a bell in milky sand, like a well-rounded... stand
of teeth next a breast... could
be’s forced expatriation,
ex-plained, un-related... mute radios
in the trees where snotty tablecloths undulate in
the breeze, where’s hand like a fork digs in, loses a
way (but finds’s loosened belt and’s shoes’re free... (Like’s
time’s all earth’s, could be’s... Let’s
begin with, ‘eructation.’ An eructation
is the act of belching. A ‘spinal
eructation’ is, I imagine, a belching of the entire nervous system—a
belching of the entire organism. What
can it be—a belching of the entire
organism? If ordinarily an
eructation is a passing of wind from the stomach, then a “spinal eructation”
is a passing of wind through (across)
the nerves—and the nerves play like
eolian harp strings out of tune. Much
as in the case of Mr. Beckett with his farts, for Mr. Bennett, the poetic
afflatus is no semi-divine inspiration, but is, rather, very much a bodily expiration.
The poetic afflatus, here, works not so much in accordance with fancy, as
with quick viscera. The poet’s irresistible impulse to write poetry is as much
a form of dyspepsia (or indeed, his need to repatriate,
to return and to keep (himself) safe in his native land (his selfhood), the place
from where he is brought out, and made exile, by his circumstances), as it is of
some professional duty. But
consider the violence of the imagery—and moreover, that we are not certain
whether Mr. Bennett is employing a simile here, that he may mean his image
literally. The movement in this
passage—that is, the movement of a heretofore inanimate or sleeping body (a
statue in the pose of Rodin’s Le Penseur) in its quickening—is initiated not by the touch of
dulcet nature, but by successive jolts, in
the form of bodily inconveniences, to the nervous system!
A
distinctive feature of Mr. Bennett’s style, for better or worse, is that he
does not develop to the full his ancillary images or ideas; he mentions
“spinal eructation” and moves on (albeit he does so with the “ellipsis
dots”). He does not linger to
explore, to advance the image with additional information; he states the case,
then pauses, and then resumes only to lead us away, onto another image.
If we are to follow him, to follow the poem, that is, we must accumulate
and unite these images into one solid image; this solid image then becomes, in
turn, but one element, one article, toward the composition and fulfillment of
his theme, the theme of blanksmanship and of the poem of “nothing knowing.”
The “spinal eructation,” whatever it may be, is an indispensable note
in this course of events (so too, I believe, the image of the Le
Penseur, which I have read into the poem).
This course of events amounts to the doing of “blanksmanship.”
So
far as logoclastics goes, John M. Bennett seems to break fresh ground with each
new volume. His approach to the
technical matters at hand is as practical and unbiased, and playful, as is his
search for a personal yet communal diction.
He makes poetry of the very obstacles and impediments that would
otherwise clog his way. And as a
writer of applied poetry, he demonstrates without exception that poetic
procedure is itself a way of life, that there exists a universe of “new
strategies” just waiting to be discovered.
I declare we must identify John M. Bennett as being one of the most
active and present forces happening
today.
copyright © Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino
Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino has a degree in philosophy from Fordham University. He is a poet and theorist living in New York City where he edits the online journal eratio postmodern poetry. His poetry and prose have appeared in print in
The Germ, Barrow Street, Washington Review, jubilat, Xcp: Cross-Culrural Poetics and online at
xStream, Nthposition, Rattapallax--Fusebox, Cordite Poetry Review, Samsära,
Softblow, Aught, Malleable Jangle, In Posse Review and at Xcp:
Streetnotes. His e-books include Stephen’s Lake, a novel in parts
(xPress (ed) 2004) and Go (xPress (ed). 1
From an article entitled 'Poetry Therapy as Art' in Pudding
Magazine: The International Journal of Applied Poetry, No. 1, 1980. 2
BLANKSMANSHIP (ISBN
0-935350-47-0) is available from
Luna Bisonte Prods. |