Gerald Burns
Reprising Longinus
So I just gave Barbara Jordan's new book (Recessions) to Jennie, who read
"Anchorites" and demanded at once pen and paper, is writing now.
I find this motion more tolerab1e than poets outside our cafe on Tuesdays
-- do they only write on Tuesdays -- with ring notebooks, ballpoint, pencil
waiting with dull perception on what they feel, to note like weather.
Barbara's poems are a diction, like something poured out of an antique-shop
rusted tin (faded paper label) that, rattling, decanted does not disappoint.
So Jennie scribbles, mostly short lines struck through with longs,
pointed dark suede shoes and clay-tan corduroys, bead necklace punctile
with silver, ending in a long faceted crystal if that places it, capable
of enthusiasm as Longinus says for a text, generating text,
some attempt to place original textual zing next to, in spiritual space,
the inspiree's, recommending this as even Quintilian doesn't quite,
the bookshop with its volumes vanishing or graying for her, becoming
less milieu ("Need another sheet?" "Thank you, Gerald") except for that,
the shop existing in a way for being a place to write in, while 1 to
be doing something write this on the same HOMAGE TO THE BEATS flyer
she's filling, filling, still short lines with long ones at intervals
like Zukofsky making C's for Celia, on the paper only, not the note
or key, Jennie's page folded once to make it (more) a book page.
On a stool she sits, head kerchiefed, and writing writing writing. ("More?"
another sheet. A man calls, asks for Archimedes.) Jennie's motion has me
nostalgic for Longinus, little green fine-print Oxford translation, not the Loeb,
no Greek for me, the flicker there of what so unexpected to the Renaissance
appeared as fire like naphtha rubbed along a dancer's body, house lights dimmed,
effect you can't get without apology to present light, concession that
a bit of it may be achieved (she's on her fourth doubled sheet), good pianist
doing cocktail-lounge standards on the Sanyo laser-player, flourish, as I
tentatively title this, resting my goldenrod cardstock on Jane Kenyon's Boat of Quiet Hours.
Copyright © 1995 Gerald Burns
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