We're looking at a section of Linda Jennings' My Life and the little tag line, the epigraph is the obvious analogy is with music in the first sentence, of this series of 45 new sentences, 37 if you're listening to the audio, is: It was a mountain creek running over little pebbles of white quartz and mica. So, first of all let me ask, where some of these sentences come from. And when I say where, I mean what vocabularies, what [inaudible]. Course is what rhetorics. Alright? Some are. Hm, sensory memory imagistic, some are later reckonings, some are historical, some are political, some are very personal, so who wants to start. Let's throw one, where does it come from? Where, what are the vocabulary? She's mixing them. >> As this, someone does in Albany. Dave? >> This is a metaphorical image, which he's using. >> Which one? >> The first sentence. It was a mountain creek. [inaudible] little pebbles in white quartz mica. >> So, I don't know what you mean by metaphorical, because I see that as almost non-metaphorical. I see it as a direct... >> It, I'm not sure what it is. >> 'Kay. So anyone want to help us out, what kind of, [inaudible] Emily we were talking about that with you before, what kind of sentence is that? >> It sounds like something out of some type of travel magazine, [inaudible] purely descriptive, concrete writing. >> Okay. I don't get travel magazine at all. >> [laugh] >> I get like visceral memory. >> It's, yeah. >> Molly? >> It's like a hiking trip taken as a child. And it's, it's synesthesia because it's both sort of the sound of the creek, which we hear without even her telling us. >> Right. >> There's a sound and the, you know the visual of the white quartz mica. >> There's no, there's no agreement about the discourse here and needn't, and there needn't be. But I'm, I'm just going to stipulate, so we'll move on. I'd like to put this in the bin of kind of visceral kid child memory. Alright. What else do we have? >> Other sentences. >> You also have, I mean, even the next sentence. Let's say that every possibility waits. I mean, ... >> There's a generalization. >> Kind of a generalization. It could be something that someone said to her once, it could be something that she's just kind of thinking, it could be something that maybe like she saw in like an advertisement, you know? >> Mm-hm, mm-hm. >> You never know, you don't know where that particular, ... >> And do you want to try to do the work of creating the twenty-seventh letter of the alphabet meaning between the two? >> I don't think so. I mean, I, ... >> That's hard, right? I mean, does anybody wanna try to do it? If you pass, you got that visceral memory moment about a mountain creek, and then you got this generalization about possibility waiting. How could we encounter in this in chapter nine of our course, the word possibility, without. >> Doing something with it. No? Amorese, you're smiling. >>, That means you gotta do it. >> Well, I mean, I just feel like that sentence is aphoristic perhaps in the same way that Dickenson is dwelling in possibility so maybe. >> Let's say. >> We just have to wait for the textulization. >> Let's stipulate. Let's, let's contend. That every possibility waits. So we'll wait, we have, we have to wait for what it means, but also the memory of this fairy, kind of naturalistic memory. >> Seems to open out to anything an imagist poem does, I mean that first line could be a kind of imagist poem. In a way, possibility comes from there. Okay, other sentences? I was sipping Shirley Temples wearing my Mary Janes, we've talked about that, what kind of sentence is that? >> It's like an Americana phrasing, we're talking about, you know, things that evoke a certain sense of time and place. >> 'Kay, if someone came up to you and said that, grammatically and rhetorically, what where what discourse world would that come from? Some. >> It's like a, it's just telling, the past. >> Yes. They were remembering or saying something that just happened. I was, this was what I was doing. Except that Shirley Temple's and Mary Jane's, those two phrases resonate together, how? >> Shirley Temple, Mary Jane. >> Shirley Temple and Mary Janes. >> They're names given to things. They're almost marketing names, with all due respect to Shirley Temple. Right that couldn't be her given name there's [laugh] something, something ridiculously cute and girly [laugh] about that name in itself and Mary Jane's is the same way, that's a marketing tool. So she's in a sense learning, and I'm gonna ask those who went through American girlhood maybe to comment more than, more than I on this but, it's almost as if she's beginning the first reckonings that boys and girls, in this case girls, get of stepping into the premade, linguistic, marketed. Image, you know, you almost feel like you're growing up into American girlhood just by encountering and accepting these. Phrases. >> Or products for that matter. [laugh] ... >> So let's do... Let's just do a left wing, or maybe a right wing [laugh] attack, on the America that creates this kind of language, that essentially... Can we do a feminist reading of this? That essentially without, you, though [inaudible] is resisting it, if she didn't resist it, if she were writing this in order and became the woman who comes from the girlhood that's socialized to do the Shirley Temples and the Mary Janes, what, what can be s-, what can we say that's wrong with a discourse that kind of forces you into that self hood? I've kind of set it up a little bit too much, but. >> Amorise, you want to take a shot at that? >> Maybe by unconsciously conforming to the language of Shirley Temple's and Mary Jane's. She's sort of lost her individuality in her childhood something that she's only conscious of now looking back retrospectively. So the text. >> Is self aware in that way. >> Is very playful because it uses that phrase and discloses the fact that they're little marketing phrases. And then we get the grandfather right after that. Do want, does anybody wanna do the juxtapositional reading of the grandfather following the. Mary Janes and Shirly Temples? >> Kristen? >> Well, the difference is that, you know as a 5-6 year old girl, Lynn is you know, her role is Shirley Temples and wear Mary-Janes and that's what she suppose to do; and that's what girls are meant to do in this time period. >> Then she's got this grandfather. >> Then her grandfather, he should of been a general; but he wasn't quite the right age but he's going to still have that. >> Mm-hm. >> Or maybe he shouldn't be, but he's still the kind of man. >> Mm-hm. >> Who? What? He walks with a cane? >> He has very particular. >> He's out there having his constitutional. >> Yes. >> Right. And he's. Does he salute? No, he just says he tips his hat. >> He tips his hat. >> Morning. And then if it's afternoon, evening. I love the evening by the way. >> [laugh]. At two:00 in the afternoon. >> That's so a. Yeah. That's so a language of its time. Right? That's not, not you but certainly I growing up that would, anything afternoon could be referred to as evening. >> Okay, so [inaudible]. >> [inaudible] >> There's not afternoon. >> Right. >> So there's a, there's, what do we have? What's evoked here? >> It's like gender roles, you know, like she's. >> She's meant to wear the Mary Jeans and he's meant, meant to wear the General's Uniform. >> To be militaristic. >> Mm -hm. >> And Marshall. >> Oh and the mother two sentences before that. The mother of the birthday child at every party serves the icecream. >> [inaudible] it's perfect. >> They can't, they can't do it. It's such, such this 1950's. >> It's perfect. In a way collage of this it's 50's in the sense that's it's post war. Really for 1940's. Late 40's but. But really the 50's in my opinion goes. Starts from August of 1945 to for maybe 1946 to 1960. Yeah. And that's, that's the fifties. So you get this, in a way, one of the ways to present this bo-, this post war, post, this peaceful boom. This economic boom. This, what many people see as a kind of suburbanization of American values. And the, kind of an imposition of a concept of the family, and therefore, of the self. That if you wanted to evoke this period, you could almost do it through a series of collage images. And in a way that's what she's doing, all right? She's presenting us scenes from a life, but it could be any life, any American life. Okay, and then what's the one that follows grandpa? >> Tantrum. >> It's a tantrum. >> Out of the blue, broke out blue. I assume that means like out of the blue without a breath of air. Whose tantrum? This is not grandpa's problem. >> Hm, it's hers, another child. >> Hm, its a child's, you get this, you get the. You get the cake, a celebration. Its, the war is over, [laugh]. You get the girl rising into girlhood. Also part of the cake thing the kind of somewhat girlhoody luxuriating of the drink and the nice shoes and so forth. And then you get grandfather who's kind of still in the military mode and patriarchal. And then you get a tantrum. And then you get this line that was added. That Ana mentioned earlier, Dave, you read this one. I was an object of time. >> Filled with dread. >> I think it's interesting that, that was added later. But to me that, that calls up memories of being a kid and feeling like, just it's too much time I got, I got nothing to do. But at the same time combining it with how she was worried her parents would move up, would pack up and move out. It just seems like she was always cut in this nervous feeling of waiting. Was, was this time was just too much. >> And sure, kids get tantrums because they can't process their feelings. All they know is they're upset. >> And they're also not in control. >> Oh, that's pretty much anything. >> Right. Being an object of time to me, says that she's subject to the whims of everything; the passage of time, and the actions of the people around her. She has no agency. >> And then you know, she's got the sort of background of these fears, the spiders and the ice cream cone is, is right after that. >> What is it about the ice cream cone of your childhood? >> Is that, leave imaging to the side and just be a, be a kid and get the ice-cream cone. You know, what is that, so, what's the association? >> Oh. It's like a major treat. >> So, it's just so great. >> It's so great, because, you know, it's, it's not the same if you get, like, an ice-cream cone, but you like have a box of ice-cream cones in your house, and you just like lump it. It's not the same. This is totally different. >> So you've gone out and you've gotten it, and, but, Lynn, little Lynn, is a little, she's looking to see if there's a spider. And there's something, pathetic. And beautiful [inaudible]. You know I, I, I not imposing this on us, but if I had time, and were on my own, I would do a reading of this as this is the, this is a post war syndrome, this is the child coming out of the war. Coming of, coming of age, coming of consciousness, linguistically and socially, culturally and really, economically. Because there are things now happening. Birthday cakes and ice cream cones and Mary Janes. At a, after a time of privation, and anxiety. I mean really world existence anxiety. And she's still got one little baby foot in the old world. The world of her grandparents [inaudible], the world of her grandfather's patriarchy. And she's got one foot in this modern world of the people of my generation who were given everything. And who in the 60's basically rejected the ease with which we got this given to us. And one of the things that got given, or is the language as it is with all of it's valences. So I tend to read this really as about the war and emerging from the war, those fears, you know. Children go through war, even on the home front like this. But she was in San Francisco. And there was some real fear about what would happen from in on the Japanese front from, in the Pacific. Mostly unrealized fears. But nonetheless when a child grows up with that fear and they get, they're given something don't worry this is pure innocent, just an ice cream, oh common Lynn just eat your ice cream cone. Like I don't it's got spiders. >> So, it's you know really, very moving to me. Alright, let's skip ahead, anything else you want to say? Stood in produce and ate raw peas? That's a nice one. >> Uh-huh >> Nothing to say other than what it is? >> I >> I want to skip ahead to the part where the man comes with the pinto pony? >> Yeah go ahead. >> And they think of him as a cowboy, not because he has a pony, and is wearing a cowboy hat. >> Right. >> But because he says two bits. >> Explain that. >> So, his it's the. >> His speech leads them to believe that he's a real cowboy. He, he talks the talk, ... >> Language. >> Instead of the fact that he's wearing this costume and has this pony. Anyone can do that. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. >> But if you talk the talk, then you really are a cowboy. >> One imagines this guy, probably a guy from San Francisco for the tenderloin district or something, ... >> [laugh] >> Coming, putting a hat on, ... >> [laugh] >> And having this poor little pony come into the neighborhood where the girls are, and he says, come on, get your ride on the old pony, fresh from Oklahoma, it's only two bits. What are two bits? >> It's a quarter, and. Right. Two bits. It's an old-fashioned way of saying it. A cowboy way of saying it. And so what does Lin, little Lin, think? >> She thinks that since he has this language that he's the real deal. And. >> Can you extract from that? Like some other. >> That you, that, that. >> Language constructs you into a certain type of being and then you can construct yourself into a certain character if you speak in a certain way. >> And Miss Sly? First grade teacher? >> Miss Sly, yeah, she's sly not, she wasn't originally sly but her name made her so, and so being named sly has given her, people are predisposed to think of her as, she must not be the nicest, prettiest lady, she must be kind of, you know, sneaky. So implicitly Lynn [inaudible] is saying. Remember this is a critique of the unified subject, that is language poetry. A critique of voice, a critique of the ego-psychology that underwrites the notion that the self can express itself and that what you're reading is the pure expression, it comes from the inside. Take that critique, which certainly disengages in. And apply it to the cowboy, so called cowboy with his two-bits language and be sly and you get implicitly a warning from West Virginian. >> Watch out. Go ahead, somebody. Watch out. What will happen? If you don't, if you aren't, if you don't see your coming of age as a coming into consciousness about the way language shapes us, and establishes our values. Anybody wanna read a littler further on that? Anne? >> Well, it gets back to what we were talking about earlier with, Grenier? >> Mm-hm, Robert Granier, right, his speech. >> Yeah, you know he said that composition, functioning in the composition of the world. >> Of the world. >> So if you think about language as composition. The way that you compose your language is going to be the way that your world is composed. So I think what, what, you know, maybe what Ginny and what Stein do with their composition is. To break down the artifice of composition, break down, you know, the kind of traditional modes of narration which are not. >> Accurate, they're, they're artificial compositions. And when she's saying... >> They're not inaccurate. It's just that they are artifice. >> Sure. >> Right. >>, More or less accurate than any. Language is language, right? It's not that the language itself. The language itself is languaged so that language gives us a view of the self that got language, or the language that made the self what it is. Language is not transparent. This is not Windex language but, but, but stained-glass language so that you look through the language, and you're not necessarily going to see some original true self. >> This is what Lyn Hejinian is. Go ahead, I'm sorry. I interrupted you. >> Yeah, so I mean. If we just, even, like, look back at, I mean. We, we keep coming back to this, but the Shirley Temple's Mary Janes line. And the, and the, even juxtaposing that with the two bits, you know? If you think about the way that their language constructs those two selves, and the difference in those two selves. >> I think we have there, kind of like her critique of, of how this language works. >> And both of those instances are, a constructions of American culture. One looking back, a kind of pseudo history of the cowboy, and the other this girlhood, which really is imposing. Quietly, lusciously, in a friendly kind of, come-on-wear-the-Mary-Janes-way helping. The girl compose her American self, her feminized self, as distinct from Grandpa. These are, these are cult-, very specific cultural markers. So. >> What else, what else? She goes to the bathroom. She vomits secretly because. >> She longs for her mother. >> She misses her mother. You want to say anything about that? Emily? >> Well, I just remember that list you read of all her earlier fears, about, [inaudible] getting lost, being homesick, of spiders and [inaudible] her ice cream cone. They're all about this type of displacement, this disruption, what you're talking about. And so, that disruption, to, for that to define her childhood by creating these phobias and then to, for her to use disruption as her poetic practice and her kind of structure and awe in structure seems sort of lovely and resonant. >> What happens in a life? When, you go to school. I mean, this is, this is a young girl. She's what? Six. >> Is that when you go to school? >> You go when you're five ... >> Five. She's five to six in this particular year. What happens? Talk about the development of the ego. >> What's going on here? >> I mean it feels constructed by others. He's sort of very accepting and vulnerable to external definitions, before you can create yourself in lang, or recreate yourself in language. >> It's a turmoil moment. Right? But why, why, why do you miss mom? It's a fairly obvious question but [inaudible]. >> I, I mean it's protective. It's the womb, it feels safe, nurturing. >> What, what role is the mom, was the mother play in this section, early in the section? >> She's the birthday cake maker. >> Yes. Well all the moms. >> [laugh] >> Right and earlier, in a earlier section, what, what role does mom play, mother play? >> Her childhood was a holy melodrama. Right. So now Lynn goes to school this is the moment where you get socialized by another set of agents and you move out of the sphere of the domestic; and it makes her sick. Followed by a much later thought now, bid chaos. What could she possible mean? Or what do we do? What meaning do we construct from that juxtaposition? I don't know that I had a tendency when I was reading my life to interpret a lot of it meta-poetically. So that anecdote might be factually accurate or not. I saw it as maybe that sort of like Stein accumulation that she describes, that she talks about, in let us describe a belief. Where it's sort of this just bodily, just disorganized chaos. But it's more authentic in that sort of illogical structure than would be, of the artificial, conventional narrative that Anna was talking about. So when she says undone is not, not done, it's not in the sense that. >> Hegenyon's way of writing lacks any meaning or beauty at all. It's recreating that in a new way, which requires a committee. >> So, translate that. >> Or translators. >> Undone, it's not the same as not, not done, translate. >> Right, it's a double negative. So, it mean, it's not, it's just... >> It's not that we didn't do it. It's that we undid it. >> [inaudible] >> Right. >> Difference. >> Yes. >> What's the difference? >>, Can you give them newly [inaudible]. >> Intentional, like [inaudible]. " ... >> This is undoing. What we are reading is undoing or an attempt to undo the layers and layers of encrusted, socially valued [inaudible] Language imposition on the self, who at 37 of 45, takes it to be her mission to reproduce the way in which the word disappeared and the world appeared, to use the phrase from [inaudible]. So disappearance of the word, appearance of the world. Let's go back to the appearance, the reappearance of the word. We were worded. We were languaged. Undone is undoing that to some extent rather than not doing it at all. So this is meta consciousness about the way in which we get created. Now bid chaos welcome. Let's try one more time. Let's conclude with that. Now bid, come on, bring it on, bring what on, Emily, now bid chaos welcome. >> Accept that disorder. The disorder, which is the natural state of things rather that the artificial order that we. >> Mm-hm. >> Impose on it. >> Cool. Dave, do you wanna say something? While, while, while, while I'm asking Dave, I'm gonna add I've not done this yet, but I'm gonna ask, Max to type in big caps, [inaudible]. I believe it's the language of invocation, of poetic invocation, I think it might even be from Milton. >> Dave. >> Hi. >> Big chaos welcome. >> I agree with what Emily said, bring on life. Bring on, the. >> Well what kind of life? Chaos. >> Right, but. >> This is not the order of a traditional memoir. >> You don't have the control anymore. >> Anna, big chaos welcome. >> It sounds almost like Shakespearian to me. >>, What is she asking? What does she want? >> She wants. >> All of life, words and all. >> Molly? >> Well, I just sequence it with the, or I put it together as a sentence before. As a child, like, you go out there unprotected. You're five year old, five years old, and it's like bring on the world. >> Max, did you come up with something? >> Just no, [laugh], ... >> It's the name of a blog, as you search, [laugh] ... >> Imagine that. >> We'll post this. >> I'm like... >> We'll post this. I believe it echoes Miltonic invocation. >> Well, God created the heavens and the Earth out of chaos, right? So, it's pre-creation mode. >> And in Milton, it's the, it's the, calling of the Muse to take the chaos of, of what happened, and make it, make it, ordered in the harmonious description of language. And this is, this is, I'm doing that, this one decree, this is an invocation of chaos. And of discontinuity. And discontinuity is the way these lives get constructed and it needs to be the way in which we tell it.
