re: imaging the world

From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Wed Mar 01 2000 - 12:51:27 MST


From: Damien Broderick <d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au>:

>Me, I've got *zero* visual imagery.
>
>I need to turn everything into narrative, run compression algorithms on the
>word chunks, then fool around with those. This can be amazingly powerful,
>
>This has a very strange effect on my writing.

I think this is fascinating. You know that you've made this
your strength, don't you?

I am curious about your "word-chunking". Some of the poetry
that I like best places the words on the page so that it "dances" along.
I feel a sense of movement, or, if I squint my eyes, I see
shapes arise out of the "chunks" of letters.

What happens inside of your head when you read words that "move"
or words that "form shapes" ?

Here are two examples. (the latter is actually a song, but
Kate Bush wrote the words in a way to express it better).

(370) LXI
if-you-and-i-awakening
(e.e. cummings)

if you and i awakening

discover that(somehow
in the dark)this world has been
Picked,like a piece
of clover,from the green meadow of

time

lessness;quietly
                turning
toward me the
guessable mirrors which your eyes are

You will communicate a little

more than twice all that
so
gently
while we were asleep while
we were each other disappeared:but i

slightly

smiling,
gradually shall reenter the

singular kingdom

(sleep)
       while some
thing else
kisses busily
a
memory,which how exquisitely
flutters in

the cornerless tomorrow

---------------------------------------------

Jig of Life
by Kate Bush

     Hello, old lady.
     I know your face well.
     I know it well.

     She says,
           "Ooh-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na!
           I'll be sitting in your mirror.
           Now is the place where the
           crossroads meet.
           Will you look into the future?

           "Never, never say goodbye
           To my part of your life.
           No, no, no, no, no!
           Oh, oh, oh,

           "Let me live!"
     She said.
           "C'mon and let me live, girl!"
     She said,
         "C'mon and let me live, girl!"
         "C'mon and let me
         live!"

           "This moment in time,"
         (She said.)
           It doesn't belong to you,"
         (She said,)
           It belongs to me,

           "And to your little boy and to
           your little girl,
           And the one hand clapping:
           Where on your palm is my little
           line,
           When you're written in mine
           As an old memory ?
           Ooh,
           na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-

           "Never, never say goodbye
           To my part of your life.
           Oh no, no, no, no, no!
           Never, never, never!
           Never, never let me go!"

     She said,
           "C'mon and let me live, girl!'
                  "C'mon and let me
                  live!"
     She said,
           "C'mon and let me live, girl!"
                  "C'mon and let me
                  live!"

     I put this
     moment..............................................here.

     I put this
     moment.........................here.
     I put this moment--

         "Over here!
     "Over here!
     Can't you see where memories are
     kept bright?
     Tripping on the water like a laughing
     girl.
     Time in her eyes is spawning past
     light,
     One when the ocean and the woman
     unfurled,
     Holding all the love that waits for you
     here.
     Catch us now for I am your future.
     A kiss on the wind and we'll make the
     land.
     Come over here to where When
     lingers,
     Waiting in this empty world,
     Waiting for Then, when the lifespray
     cools.
     For Now does ride in on the curl of
     the wave,
     And you will dance with me in the
     sunlit pools.
     We are of the going water and the
     gone.
     We are of water in the holy land of
     water
     And all that's to come runs in
     With the thrust on the strand."

Amara

********************************************************************
Amara Graps email: amara@amara.com
Computational Physics vita: finger agraps@shell5.ba.best.com
Multiplex Answers
********************************************************************
"If you gaze for long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into
you." - -Nietzsche



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