.two poems for poetry month: "Prism" (selections) and 'Paradise Lost'
Today is kind of a weird day. On one hand, I'm making significant progress on stuff, which is a really good thing, considering the Plan is to have four chapters of Rodney the Dissertation (which is turning into Uriel "I'll Fucking Smite Your Ass" the Dissertation) done by early fall. As it turns out, this is even better because I will most likely not be getting summer funding this year, due to what I now strongly suspect is my own fuck-up.
It's times like this I wish fanfic/fanart paid a lot better than it did. Or that graduate students had an easier time finding financial patrons who were okay with the thought of spending money so someone could spend a summer writing about old literature about 200 people in the world care about, or that everything in my mind, soul, and body did not rebel against the idea of sugar daddies. This is going to be one perilous few months, balancing the job I hope to acquire with writing as fast as I can. *sigh*
Another good thing is, hey, it's National Poetry Month! I bring you a selection of Louise Glück's "Prism," from her collection Averno (2006). The entirety of the collection resonates with me because of my interest in problems of mind and the world of the human body, the restraints of society and the expectation it places upon women, what happens when women are tired of having hands and want to grow wings to fly to the sun. Her poetry looks back to the long tradition of meditation and divine ascent in Western writing, but in a way that subtly suggests there is not much divinity waiting for us at the end of the road: all there is, as "Blue Rotunda" suggests, is scorched.
15.
Deceit. Lies. Embellishments we call
hypotheses—
There were too many roads, too many versions.
There were too many roads, no one path—
And at the end?
16.
List the implications of “crossroads.”
Answer: a story that will have a moral.
Give a counter-example:
17.
The self ended and the world began.
They were of equal size,
commensurate,
one mirrored the other.
18.
The riddle was: why couldn’t we live in the mind?
The answer was: the barrier of the earth intervened.
19.
The room was quiet.
That is, the room was quiet, but the lovers were breathing.
In the same way, the night was dark.
It was dark, but the stars shone.
The man in bed was one of several men
to whom I gave my heart. The gift of the self,
that is without limit.
Without limit, though it recurs.
The room was quiet. It was an absolute,
like the black night.
20.
A night in summer. Sounds of a summer storm.
The great plates invisibly shifting and changing—
And in the dark room, the lovers sleeping in each other’s arms.
We are, each of us, the one who wakens first,
who stirs first and sees, there in the first dawn,
the stranger.
A few days ago, I tracked down and sent to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
unamaga an excerpt from Milton's Paradise Lost. I fondly refer to it as the Part with the Angel Sex0rs, and those of you who like themselves some Castiel might appreciate this, if only for the mental image of Castiel trying to explain angel sex to Dean, who snickers like a five-year-old the entire time.
Context (because it's nice to have): God knows Satan's on the prowl, looking to mess things up in Eden. He sends the archangel Raphael to speak to Adam, and tell him that things will be great so long as he doesn't do anything stupid like disobey. Adam then asks Raphael about various things, and Raphael tells him about the creation of the world, the fall of Satan, and then, upon request, angel sex.
Bear with me then if lawful what I ask:
Love not the Heav’nly spirits? And how their love
Express they? By looks only or do they mix
Irradiance? Virtual or immediate touch?
To whom the angel with a smile that glowed
Celestial rosy red, love’s proper hue,
Answered: Let it suffice thee that thou know’st
Us happy and without love no happiness.
Whatever pure thou in the body enjoy’st
(And pure thou wert created) we enjoy
In eminence and obstacle find none
Of membrane, joint, or limb, exclusive bars.
Easier than air with air, if spirits embrace,
Total they mix, union of pure with pure
Desiring, nor restrained conveyance need
As flesh to mix with flesh or soul with soul.
(Paradise Lost 8.614-29)
And the paraphrase, because while Milton has a way with the blank verse, he can be opaque:
[Adam said,] “Bear with me then, if what I ask is allowed. Do the Heavenly spirits love? And how (if they do love) do they express it? By looks only, or do they mix the light of their bodies?* [Do they express it by] merely looking, or by direct touch?”
The angel, with a smile that glowed celestial red, love’s proper hue, replied to him, “It should be enough that you know we’re happy, and without love, there is no happiness.* Whatever pure thing you enjoy in your body (and you yourself were created pure), we enjoy it in heaven [or in a superior way] and find no obstacle, no bar, of membrane, joint, or limb. If spirits embrace it is easier than mixing air with air; they mingle completely, one pure thing desiring union with another, not limited by necessary body parts*, as flesh needs to mix with flesh, or soul with soul.”
* = angels were supposed to be made of the light God created on the first day.
* = happiness and love (not sexual love, but a sort of platonic love that binds all things to a natural order) are almost the same thing. There’s no proper English word for it.
*= the “restrained conveyance.” This indicates the “love” Adam talks about is carnal love—but it’s carnal love as it existed before the fall; for Milton, pre-lapsarian sex was OK. Actually, it was pretty fucking hot. Adam and Eve go at it like bunnies, for serious. It’s only after the fall that sex becomes icky and gross and do not want.
Dean, of course, would say that this is the point when sex becomes fun.
It's times like this I wish fanfic/fanart paid a lot better than it did. Or that graduate students had an easier time finding financial patrons who were okay with the thought of spending money so someone could spend a summer writing about old literature about 200 people in the world care about, or that everything in my mind, soul, and body did not rebel against the idea of sugar daddies. This is going to be one perilous few months, balancing the job I hope to acquire with writing as fast as I can. *sigh*
Another good thing is, hey, it's National Poetry Month! I bring you a selection of Louise Glück's "Prism," from her collection Averno (2006). The entirety of the collection resonates with me because of my interest in problems of mind and the world of the human body, the restraints of society and the expectation it places upon women, what happens when women are tired of having hands and want to grow wings to fly to the sun. Her poetry looks back to the long tradition of meditation and divine ascent in Western writing, but in a way that subtly suggests there is not much divinity waiting for us at the end of the road: all there is, as "Blue Rotunda" suggests, is scorched.
15.
Deceit. Lies. Embellishments we call
hypotheses—
There were too many roads, too many versions.
There were too many roads, no one path—
And at the end?
16.
List the implications of “crossroads.”
Answer: a story that will have a moral.
Give a counter-example:
17.
The self ended and the world began.
They were of equal size,
commensurate,
one mirrored the other.
18.
The riddle was: why couldn’t we live in the mind?
The answer was: the barrier of the earth intervened.
19.
The room was quiet.
That is, the room was quiet, but the lovers were breathing.
In the same way, the night was dark.
It was dark, but the stars shone.
The man in bed was one of several men
to whom I gave my heart. The gift of the self,
that is without limit.
Without limit, though it recurs.
The room was quiet. It was an absolute,
like the black night.
20.
A night in summer. Sounds of a summer storm.
The great plates invisibly shifting and changing—
And in the dark room, the lovers sleeping in each other’s arms.
We are, each of us, the one who wakens first,
who stirs first and sees, there in the first dawn,
the stranger.
A few days ago, I tracked down and sent to
unamaga an excerpt from Milton's Paradise Lost. I fondly refer to it as the Part with the Angel Sex0rs, and those of you who like themselves some Castiel might appreciate this, if only for the mental image of Castiel trying to explain angel sex to Dean, who snickers like a five-year-old the entire time.Context (because it's nice to have): God knows Satan's on the prowl, looking to mess things up in Eden. He sends the archangel Raphael to speak to Adam, and tell him that things will be great so long as he doesn't do anything stupid like disobey. Adam then asks Raphael about various things, and Raphael tells him about the creation of the world, the fall of Satan, and then, upon request, angel sex.
Bear with me then if lawful what I ask:
Love not the Heav’nly spirits? And how their love
Express they? By looks only or do they mix
Irradiance? Virtual or immediate touch?
To whom the angel with a smile that glowed
Celestial rosy red, love’s proper hue,
Answered: Let it suffice thee that thou know’st
Us happy and without love no happiness.
Whatever pure thou in the body enjoy’st
(And pure thou wert created) we enjoy
In eminence and obstacle find none
Of membrane, joint, or limb, exclusive bars.
Easier than air with air, if spirits embrace,
Total they mix, union of pure with pure
Desiring, nor restrained conveyance need
As flesh to mix with flesh or soul with soul.
(Paradise Lost 8.614-29)
And the paraphrase, because while Milton has a way with the blank verse, he can be opaque:
[Adam said,] “Bear with me then, if what I ask is allowed. Do the Heavenly spirits love? And how (if they do love) do they express it? By looks only, or do they mix the light of their bodies?* [Do they express it by] merely looking, or by direct touch?”
The angel, with a smile that glowed celestial red, love’s proper hue, replied to him, “It should be enough that you know we’re happy, and without love, there is no happiness.* Whatever pure thing you enjoy in your body (and you yourself were created pure), we enjoy it in heaven [or in a superior way] and find no obstacle, no bar, of membrane, joint, or limb. If spirits embrace it is easier than mixing air with air; they mingle completely, one pure thing desiring union with another, not limited by necessary body parts*, as flesh needs to mix with flesh, or soul with soul.”
* = angels were supposed to be made of the light God created on the first day.
* = happiness and love (not sexual love, but a sort of platonic love that binds all things to a natural order) are almost the same thing. There’s no proper English word for it.
*= the “restrained conveyance.” This indicates the “love” Adam talks about is carnal love—but it’s carnal love as it existed before the fall; for Milton, pre-lapsarian sex was OK. Actually, it was pretty fucking hot. Adam and Eve go at it like bunnies, for serious. It’s only after the fall that sex becomes icky and gross and do not want.
Dean, of course, would say that this is the point when sex becomes fun.