|k| clippings: 2014-12-01 — emptying the wind's pockets

RIP Mark Strand. Indulging in the four prose poems that conclude his recently released Collected Poems seems a fitting tribute to a wonderful writer and—by all accounts—fine man.

WORK

“Not to Miss the Great Thing”

It was to happen. He knew it would happen. He would have secret knowledge of when that would be, and be there early to welcome it. The gates to the city were closed. A cloud lowered itself into the central square and disappeared into an unmarked alley. A large woman with sequins in her hair studied him from a distance. A cold rain fell on all the houses but his. Suddenly it stopped, and he walked out into the yellow light. “Maybe it’s come,” he thought, “maybe this is it, maybe this is all it is.”

“Nocturne of the Poet Who Loved the Moon”

I have grown tired of the moon, tired of its look of astonishment, the blue ice of its gaze, its arrivals and departures, of the way it gathers lovers and loners under its invisible wings, failing to distinguish between them. I have grown tired of so much that used to entrance me, tired of watching cloud shadows pass over sunlit grass, of seeing swans glide back and forth across the lake, of peering into the dark, hoping to find an image of a self as yet unborn. Let plainness enter the eye, plainness like a table on which nothing is set, like a table that is not yet even a table.

“In the Grand Ballroom of the New Eternity”

They sway like drunks in delirious exile from sense, letting their blindness guide them ever further from what might have been theirs, letting their former selves fade and be lost in the dusk of forgetfulness, never to be regained, never to be more than an idea of once having been, so that the light which had been theirs is gone for good. And when the doctors come, it is too late. The shades above the city have already been drawn, the pockets of wind have been emptied.

“When I Turned a Hundred”

I wanted to go on an immense journey, to travel night and day into the unknown until, forgetting my old self, I came into possession of a new self, one that I might have missed on my previous travels. But the first step was beyond me. I lay in bed, unable to move, pondering, as one does at my age, the ways of melancholy—how it seeps into the spirit, how it disincarnates the will, how it banishes the senses to the chill of twilight, how even the best and worst intentions wither in its keep. I kept staring at the ceiling, then suddenly felt a blast of cold air, and I was gone.

—Mark Strand
—from Collected Poems of Mark Strand

WORD(S)

umtagati (umtukati, mtagati, etc.). noun. A South African (Nguni) word for a witch, a wizard, a practitioner of evil magic. Also, such witchcraft or evil magic itself. Original Nguni umthakathi.

“That was well done, Untúswa,” whispered the King. “I have but one word, and now there is one umtagati the less. Proceed!” (Bertam Mitford)

“Umkogwana said ‘I am not an umtagati, but there (pointing to Dunn) is the snake who will kill you and be King over your land.’” (Cornelius Vijn)

“ By the time I came up with the scene of his next really notable doings he was umtagati in full form supernatural, you know, a thing to be dreaded and conciliated. And I don’t wonder, really. Here was a man without weapons, bareheaded in the sun, speaking no word of any native language, alone and nearly naked, plunging ahead through that wild unknown country and no harm coming to him.” (Perceval Gibbon)

WEB

1. You might have seen that inspiring, 1970s-era letter from the LEGO corporation to parents. Turns out it’s a fraud. And it isn’t a fraud. A fascinating bit of investigation.

2. Tomoko Takeda’s book sculptures.

3. “Saviour of France’s art: how the Mona Lisa was spirited away from the Nazis”

4. Pianograms show, for individual pieces, how often each piano key gets pressed relative to the rest. They are “piano-looking histograms”

5. Today in 1955, after a long work day, Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on the #2857 bus for a white man and is arrested, leading to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and a legal case whose looming presence would effectively begin the dismantling of segregation.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader C. says: “Thanks for sending that lead poem “Not An Elegy for Mike Brown”. It is amazing. For me, it’s the most powerful thing you’ve sent. Thanks for that.”

• Reader B writes: “Two thoughts in gratitude: ¶ 1) That’s a great, classic Rex Stout line. ¶ 2) Ever look into Chris Logue’s weird Iliad project, War Music ? Recommended if so. A wild translation/interpretation/thingamabob.” — Thanks for the reminder…a friend turned me onto Logue’s versions years ago and I’ve been meaning to pick up all the pieces ever since!

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