my talk for ithaca conference will be my blog post for this week (this is an updated version of a talk on my website from another editing conference from last year so i really am cheating but it will take me three flights to get to ithaca and three flights back so that is my excuse)...
PART ONE
They went to graduate school in a cold place. There was lots of conversation in this cold place. Lots of attention to the techniques of radical modernism and the legacies of radical modernism. People met in various bars late at night, after they had done some reading and some writing alone in their large yet cold rented apartments, and talked about things. They braved the cold and the ice to talk about things. The things they talked about were things like radical modernism. And legacies. And male poets. They talked not reflectively about male poets as MALE poets, but just compulsively about male poets as if they were not even noticing that they just talked about male poets. They couldn't help themselves. There was a heroic tendency in the cold place that felt as if it was a warm breeze. A heroism that came from dealing with the cold and snow more than most other places in the nation. A heroism that came from a city dealing with a steel industry now gone and the reminder of a once thriving machismo which was now at risk. And a heroism that came from a city dealing with repeated and absurd losses in various superbowls. A heroism of a city of numerous bars.
And there was a heroism of poetic sensibilty.
The poetic sensibility was a heritage. It took the form of bold declarations. And it also took the form of many magazines and an attention to the form of bold declaration that a magazine could make. And it took the form of one up manship in terms of who is most radical. At night at the bar, perhaps one of three bars where people tended to gather, often certain poets were said to not be radical enough because they used fewer techniques of modernist fragmentation than certain other poets. These not radical enough poets were usually women poets who were seen to not be radical enough because they had other concerns, those concerns of collective identity say, the very thing that heroism hates. Or if the women poets were all about their own identity, which was not uncommon, because women too have a tendency to talk excessively about themselves, then that was a problem also. The heroism liked only heroic identity. Heroism felt that the woman poets couldn't help it; it wasn't their fault. They had to deal with the bad society. But it was sad about their work.
They had gone to the cold place because of the heritage. They loved the heritage, its stutters and its declarations and its own awareness of its own importance even if other parts of society seemed completely unaware of the heritage's existence. They loved it. They admitted it. But once they got there, they didn't know what to do with the heritage. It was so big and so strong. It was so much. It defined them. It shaped them. It made them read certain things with great attention and not read certain others things. It asked them to type up memos that it wrote for them. It dismissed their work as being too much about women, or gender specific as it might be said. So they sat around and complained about the heritage, even as they loved it and wrote out of it. This got boring quickly. And so to keep the complaint from being the culmination, they issued a challenge to themselves to edit their own magazine rather than complain. Their expectations were low. They thought they might do a few issues and maybe they themselves would learn to see a new, wider heritage. They might be able to use the magazine to talk to some women that they were having trouble talking with, women from other parts of the country who didn't seem all that interested in talking with them when they tried to talk with them when they came to town and went to one of the bars for the discussion about modernist fragmentation. And also they might just have something to do late at night other than go to the bar and hear some more about who was or was not radical enough.
Because there were so many magazines already going, they had to think of a way to fit their magazine in. They knew they wanted their magazine to be a part of the heritage. This they felt was a right they had and that they needed to assert. And yet they knew that they wanted their magazine to be suggestive of a wider heritage. They wanted their magazine to be radical enough but also have room for things that were not radical enough also or radical enough in a different way. Really, what they wanted was for that question of radical enough to go away and to talk some about things like culture and literature's role in it and literature from other countries or literatures written in other Englishes and to have that conversation be in part about form but have it have room for forms that were not in the modernist tradition as much as for forms that were in the modernist tradition because both sorts of writing had a lot to contribute to literature's shaping of and commentary on culture and literature's potential to be part of the discussion about how best to resist the large evil heritages that mattered in a way that poetic heritages did not, the large evil heritages of militarism, imperialism, and globalization. They didn't want to argue about radical enough or make a canon. They just wanted to think with others. They wanted editing to clear a space in their body for them to think.
At that moment when they challenged themselves they were just thinking of themselves. Just of how to hang onto something. Or just of how to find something to hang onto. They were just thinking of themselves. When they thought of editing they thought of how a pebble drops into a pool of water and the water ripples on the surface but just below the surface the pebble drifts down and as the pebble drifts down it drifts past the beings that live in the water, the tadpoles, the fish, the amoebas, the plants of various sorts and it floats gently down through the thickness of the water, comes to rest on the bottom as the surface ripples become slower and quieter at the same moment. When they thought of editing they thought of a knot finally coming untied after appearing to be impossibly tangled. Or an impossible tangling of a piece of string that is neatly wound around a spool. When they thought of editing they thought of a feeling that there is no end as they were coming to the end of the road, pulling up right in front of the concrete bunker that symbolizes the end of the road, getting out, climbing over the bunker, walking out into the grass of the field, then walking slowly and steadily towards their own writing, all the while holding the eyes wide, full of peripheral vision, holding their eyes on the horizon, noticing the effort that it takes to be aware of the changes that occur as the eyes are held wide and on one point for a long time. There are just a few changes at first they realized when they began editing, like the slight blurring of vision, the heavy tiredness of eyes, the way the horizon seems to move about or changes shape or color but then they would think of springing off the diving board and moving into the part of the dive that feels aerodynamic and smooth, feels just right to the body, the feeling of moving through the air, and then the feeling of entering into the water, the cool water of other's ideas, as if in slow motion as if floating but really with just a certain quick sensation of smoothness. They thought of the inner smoothness that moves plovers, monarchs, whales, garden snakes, ants, slugs, herds of walking animals from one place to another when they thought of editing. The feeling that sets them in motion, a feeling that might not even be a conscious awareness that is moving them toward another place, a place of water perhaps or a place of dryness or a place of coolness or of warmness and the feeling of arriving together and with this motion the comfort that this space of almost unconscious moving must have, an effortless realization that comes with each moment of change. Or when they thought of editing they thought of a noticing their clenched fist and then unclenching this fist and the sensation of the unclenched fist and how this sensation travels up the hand and into the chest and into breath. All of this was the all right of editing. An all right of unclenching. An all right of sitting in a room that is not a bar but is a public place and then breathing in and out audibly in this place with others breathing in and out audibly at the same moment. The breathing in was a taking in of the work of others and giving it space in the lightness inside the body, letting others, the air that just was audibly expelled by others inside the body, into the cells, and letting it do all the transmutations that are essential for humans and then breathing out, breathing out the air of others and their own addition of germs and moisture to the air of others.
PART TWO
All this, all this worked for them. They let the writing of others grow in them and the writing of others changed them and they were grateful to this.
Years went by. One year and another year. They moved around a lot. They moved from city to city but none of this is important because as they moved they brought their editing with them. At one point they woke up and found themselves in the middle of the Pacific ocean. They had an email discussion list that they were on. The email discussion list had evolved from a cc list to a small discussion list. It was a private list and this troubled some of them but relieved others. Sometimes there were fights on the list. Sometimes nothing was said on the list. But at a certain point a group from the list decided to start a press together. They decided to start a press because they felt that presses were disappearing. This had something to do with the constant erosion of government funds that even while they tended to be the sort of people who didn’t get much in government funds they had been, although they didn’t really realize it until now, beneficiaries of a certain amount of trickle down. And they felt there was no place for people like them, people of a certain age, to publish their books. There was no one for them so they decided to be for themselves.
They had a long email discussion about how to start the press. And what they decided finally was that anyone from the discussion list could join the press. And nineteen people did. And all nineteen agreed to donate 1% of their income every year for at least three years. And during those three years, everyone would get a budget to edit one book. The budget was small, but it was possible to publish a book on it if one used a galley printer. The press seemed wonderful and utopian to them. Everyone would edit and see through production a book of their own choice. No one could say that the press couldn’t publish a book. There would be no group editorial decisions. No complaints about who published what. This would let them be a press of acceptance rather than one of narrow editorial vision.
It was wonderful and utopian. It was wonderful and utopian and full of problems. It still is wonderful because it has published at least fifteen books. Books that might not otherwise get published. It has done books that have dropped into their mind as a pebble might drop into a pool of water and it has done books that have made them think of knots coming untied and books that have felt so expansive that they feel as if they had come to the end of the road and then gone beyond it. And the press has done books that read like diving into a pool just right and books that move them from one place to another unconsciously and books that have clenched and unclenched their fists.
PART THREE
[Part three has not been authorized by the mothership and has thus not been released.]
PART ONE
They went to graduate school in a cold place. There was lots of conversation in this cold place. Lots of attention to the techniques of radical modernism and the legacies of radical modernism. People met in various bars late at night, after they had done some reading and some writing alone in their large yet cold rented apartments, and talked about things. They braved the cold and the ice to talk about things. The things they talked about were things like radical modernism. And legacies. And male poets. They talked not reflectively about male poets as MALE poets, but just compulsively about male poets as if they were not even noticing that they just talked about male poets. They couldn't help themselves. There was a heroic tendency in the cold place that felt as if it was a warm breeze. A heroism that came from dealing with the cold and snow more than most other places in the nation. A heroism that came from a city dealing with a steel industry now gone and the reminder of a once thriving machismo which was now at risk. And a heroism that came from a city dealing with repeated and absurd losses in various superbowls. A heroism of a city of numerous bars.
And there was a heroism of poetic sensibilty.
The poetic sensibility was a heritage. It took the form of bold declarations. And it also took the form of many magazines and an attention to the form of bold declaration that a magazine could make. And it took the form of one up manship in terms of who is most radical. At night at the bar, perhaps one of three bars where people tended to gather, often certain poets were said to not be radical enough because they used fewer techniques of modernist fragmentation than certain other poets. These not radical enough poets were usually women poets who were seen to not be radical enough because they had other concerns, those concerns of collective identity say, the very thing that heroism hates. Or if the women poets were all about their own identity, which was not uncommon, because women too have a tendency to talk excessively about themselves, then that was a problem also. The heroism liked only heroic identity. Heroism felt that the woman poets couldn't help it; it wasn't their fault. They had to deal with the bad society. But it was sad about their work.
They had gone to the cold place because of the heritage. They loved the heritage, its stutters and its declarations and its own awareness of its own importance even if other parts of society seemed completely unaware of the heritage's existence. They loved it. They admitted it. But once they got there, they didn't know what to do with the heritage. It was so big and so strong. It was so much. It defined them. It shaped them. It made them read certain things with great attention and not read certain others things. It asked them to type up memos that it wrote for them. It dismissed their work as being too much about women, or gender specific as it might be said. So they sat around and complained about the heritage, even as they loved it and wrote out of it. This got boring quickly. And so to keep the complaint from being the culmination, they issued a challenge to themselves to edit their own magazine rather than complain. Their expectations were low. They thought they might do a few issues and maybe they themselves would learn to see a new, wider heritage. They might be able to use the magazine to talk to some women that they were having trouble talking with, women from other parts of the country who didn't seem all that interested in talking with them when they tried to talk with them when they came to town and went to one of the bars for the discussion about modernist fragmentation. And also they might just have something to do late at night other than go to the bar and hear some more about who was or was not radical enough.
Because there were so many magazines already going, they had to think of a way to fit their magazine in. They knew they wanted their magazine to be a part of the heritage. This they felt was a right they had and that they needed to assert. And yet they knew that they wanted their magazine to be suggestive of a wider heritage. They wanted their magazine to be radical enough but also have room for things that were not radical enough also or radical enough in a different way. Really, what they wanted was for that question of radical enough to go away and to talk some about things like culture and literature's role in it and literature from other countries or literatures written in other Englishes and to have that conversation be in part about form but have it have room for forms that were not in the modernist tradition as much as for forms that were in the modernist tradition because both sorts of writing had a lot to contribute to literature's shaping of and commentary on culture and literature's potential to be part of the discussion about how best to resist the large evil heritages that mattered in a way that poetic heritages did not, the large evil heritages of militarism, imperialism, and globalization. They didn't want to argue about radical enough or make a canon. They just wanted to think with others. They wanted editing to clear a space in their body for them to think.
At that moment when they challenged themselves they were just thinking of themselves. Just of how to hang onto something. Or just of how to find something to hang onto. They were just thinking of themselves. When they thought of editing they thought of how a pebble drops into a pool of water and the water ripples on the surface but just below the surface the pebble drifts down and as the pebble drifts down it drifts past the beings that live in the water, the tadpoles, the fish, the amoebas, the plants of various sorts and it floats gently down through the thickness of the water, comes to rest on the bottom as the surface ripples become slower and quieter at the same moment. When they thought of editing they thought of a knot finally coming untied after appearing to be impossibly tangled. Or an impossible tangling of a piece of string that is neatly wound around a spool. When they thought of editing they thought of a feeling that there is no end as they were coming to the end of the road, pulling up right in front of the concrete bunker that symbolizes the end of the road, getting out, climbing over the bunker, walking out into the grass of the field, then walking slowly and steadily towards their own writing, all the while holding the eyes wide, full of peripheral vision, holding their eyes on the horizon, noticing the effort that it takes to be aware of the changes that occur as the eyes are held wide and on one point for a long time. There are just a few changes at first they realized when they began editing, like the slight blurring of vision, the heavy tiredness of eyes, the way the horizon seems to move about or changes shape or color but then they would think of springing off the diving board and moving into the part of the dive that feels aerodynamic and smooth, feels just right to the body, the feeling of moving through the air, and then the feeling of entering into the water, the cool water of other's ideas, as if in slow motion as if floating but really with just a certain quick sensation of smoothness. They thought of the inner smoothness that moves plovers, monarchs, whales, garden snakes, ants, slugs, herds of walking animals from one place to another when they thought of editing. The feeling that sets them in motion, a feeling that might not even be a conscious awareness that is moving them toward another place, a place of water perhaps or a place of dryness or a place of coolness or of warmness and the feeling of arriving together and with this motion the comfort that this space of almost unconscious moving must have, an effortless realization that comes with each moment of change. Or when they thought of editing they thought of a noticing their clenched fist and then unclenching this fist and the sensation of the unclenched fist and how this sensation travels up the hand and into the chest and into breath. All of this was the all right of editing. An all right of unclenching. An all right of sitting in a room that is not a bar but is a public place and then breathing in and out audibly in this place with others breathing in and out audibly at the same moment. The breathing in was a taking in of the work of others and giving it space in the lightness inside the body, letting others, the air that just was audibly expelled by others inside the body, into the cells, and letting it do all the transmutations that are essential for humans and then breathing out, breathing out the air of others and their own addition of germs and moisture to the air of others.
PART TWO
All this, all this worked for them. They let the writing of others grow in them and the writing of others changed them and they were grateful to this.
Years went by. One year and another year. They moved around a lot. They moved from city to city but none of this is important because as they moved they brought their editing with them. At one point they woke up and found themselves in the middle of the Pacific ocean. They had an email discussion list that they were on. The email discussion list had evolved from a cc list to a small discussion list. It was a private list and this troubled some of them but relieved others. Sometimes there were fights on the list. Sometimes nothing was said on the list. But at a certain point a group from the list decided to start a press together. They decided to start a press because they felt that presses were disappearing. This had something to do with the constant erosion of government funds that even while they tended to be the sort of people who didn’t get much in government funds they had been, although they didn’t really realize it until now, beneficiaries of a certain amount of trickle down. And they felt there was no place for people like them, people of a certain age, to publish their books. There was no one for them so they decided to be for themselves.
They had a long email discussion about how to start the press. And what they decided finally was that anyone from the discussion list could join the press. And nineteen people did. And all nineteen agreed to donate 1% of their income every year for at least three years. And during those three years, everyone would get a budget to edit one book. The budget was small, but it was possible to publish a book on it if one used a galley printer. The press seemed wonderful and utopian to them. Everyone would edit and see through production a book of their own choice. No one could say that the press couldn’t publish a book. There would be no group editorial decisions. No complaints about who published what. This would let them be a press of acceptance rather than one of narrow editorial vision.
It was wonderful and utopian. It was wonderful and utopian and full of problems. It still is wonderful because it has published at least fifteen books. Books that might not otherwise get published. It has done books that have dropped into their mind as a pebble might drop into a pool of water and it has done books that have made them think of knots coming untied and books that have felt so expansive that they feel as if they had come to the end of the road and then gone beyond it. And the press has done books that read like diving into a pool just right and books that move them from one place to another unconsciously and books that have clenched and unclenched their fists.
PART THREE
[Part three has not been authorized by the mothership and has thus not been released.]
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