Statements of Intent (1) - Catherine Hales: "A Note on 'Poetics'"

I glean, I garner, I gather, I hoard,– scraps of sentences, scraps of other texts, things heard on the radio or tv or overheard in the street , the u-bahn... bits & pieces, and at some point I play around with the bits & pieces and they coalesce into a poem. But I like to keep things moving, I try to get the poem to hit the ground running and keep running and take off again at the end: flux and continuum. so when I say coalesce, I don't mean becoming fixed, but just becoming, always becoming, being in flux, there just long enough to be perceived or guessed at and then it's off again somewhere else. I don't necessarily write poems 'about', since messages are for tracts; meaning is contingent and a matter of negotiation with the reader as an equal partner in the process. 'Meaning is neither imposed, nor passively imbibed, but arises out of a struggle or negotiation between competing frames of reference, motivation and experience. (Christine Gledhill).

So a poem is also play – put these things together and see what happens. It's play as in theatre, mime, pretend; as in play on words; as in the play of light on a clear stream; as in game theory; as in mucking about in the mudpit and getting filthy. Form is part of the play, an arbitrary choice as to how to arrange the words on the page, possibly even giving some kind of order to the coalescing chaos, imitating, ironising or mocking conventional notions of form. This does not contradict the notion of flux. It is rather part of the 'meaning'.

Or an apposite quote from John Ashbery I just found on Ron Silliman's blog: "I would not put a statement in a poem. I feel that poetry must reflect on already existing statements...Poetry does not have a subject matter, because it is the subject matter. We are the subject matter of poetry, not vice versa...When statements appear in poetry they are merely a part of the combined refractions of everything else."

Or none of the above.

Catherine Hales, May 2008

Five Poems by Catherine Hales

on balance

a certain seepage will always occur
from meaning       the best metaphors not
always the best insurance       secure
all you want behind plate glass
with infrared sensors et cetera       worth
a bomb       a mask (example)       making
death eternal       you know       the thing you
fine dust of       test for fingerprints
then set up road blocks       it's when
you part your lips that the problems begin 

leavings

there’s no way round this       as the moment
splits from meaning       the way the first snow
melts from my hair when I enter the house       how
much longer will we be able to do this       sit
in what’s left of the warmth of these october afternoons
drinking milchkaffee       the play’s the thing       on the canal
birches & willows angling in air as they have to       above
ruffled water       while swans arch in for the pickings
& the sparrows go for crumbs on the tables as though we weren’t
                                                 here at all
watching the light strike & burnish the late leaves I know it’s
                                                 not over yet 

across the

singularities out there sucking light       so many
laid the foundation for a face-to-face
 
grinding millet       lighting fires       the tip of the mountain
outrageous to award a free kick for       where did I hear
 
a shopping mall is now a lifestyle center
the woman walked out into the water weighted
 
from the window we could see rising from a bed of cloud
its beam marking the sands       if we set out now

waves increasing frequency       he went supernova
deep into the present       mint       crushed cumin 

than venice

by the waters of       sofas empty bottles plastic bags full of
with a skinful of myself I just like to walk on my own if that's
 
the shriek of swifts dropping through air &
the photographer starts by painting the model's body
 
the archaeological record's real       all our mythology's
ariel awol & caliban in his soul       stale bread &
 
small pools caught in fists of petals       disposal
fronts propelled by trenches of pressure       accumulating
 
until she's invisible against the brickwork       all this at my
take another look at       yes & some of it lands in the 

Seeing it through

A quiet astringent compromise of sorts –
It's surely the meek who suffer, several see
The dovetailing of memory into the brickwork, while
New debts are expunged by the needy
Mellifluous panic of a dawn chorus in the distance
Ascending from bare ruin'd notions of the
Bone, the idle and the clinamen. And finding this
In the sort of seedy restaurant that serves
Unwholesome pastimes on the internet, no doubt
There'll be consequences, and nothing would surprise
In a time of manifestos and mellow fruitfulness.
Bringing forward the attenuated circumstance
Of unrequited séances, the overall effect
May bewilder the uncertain, the queasy,
The flavour of the season. And various
Of their majesties may even attend the play
In soporific wonder though the span be meagre.

How, then, best to serve the appetite? A pre-dawn
Vertical insertion event with incontinent
Ordnance? That would do the trick to swell
A scene or two and send the orderlies running
For the wings. But is it to be trusted, things
Being not quite as they seem? A new
Menu item with an icon on the screen
Horrifies with auguries of germ warfare
If not nipped in the code and sharpish – o brave
New world that has such weasels in it. And where
Are the artefacts likely to be seen? A drifting cloud
Is just a drifting cloud; either situation
Is ugly, but one of them will be necessary –
The governance of profiteroles depends on it;
Until in the presence of the ineffable they squander
What resistance they've afforded to the wild,
Sarcastic narks surrounding the citadel. Wholly
To blame, and trusting to the power of integers,
The creatures crawl into their caverns and expire.


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Catherine Hales lives in Berlin and works as a freelance translator. She co-edits 'Bordercrossing Berlin' magazine and co-organises the Berlin 'Poetry Hearings' festival. Her pamphlet out of mind appeared in 2006. Her poetry can be read online at Stride [here and here], Shadowtrain, Litter, Shearsman and Fire [here and here]. Her translations can be found at Litter and No Man's Land magazines, and her review of Sarah Rigg's Waterwork can be read here.