The Poem-amatic Fist Microscope and the Production of Art

JF Ptak Science Books LLC   Post 460

"If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can
warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my
head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I
know it. Is there any other way?"
––Emily Dickinson

“Like a piece of ice on a hot stove, the poem must ride on its own
melting.”
––Robert Frost

I want to say right in the beginning that I mean no disrespect in any form in addressing the "found" nature of poetry in the larger landscape of the written word--a sort of Poetry Brut, awaiting discovery.   And the discovery is made rather simply, and randomly;  take your fist, clench it, and then open it to about the size of a dime so that you can see all the way across the interior of the fist,your eye placed at the "objective" made by the joined thumb and index finger. Get out a book, then press your eye against this "lens", placing it about a foot above a printed page.  Force your eye to bring the words into focus--if you were glasses for reading you may not need them for this exercise--I don't.  You can adjust the "focus" by making the opposite lens (formed by the pinky) a little smaller.  You've made a simple pinhole eyeglass with your hand.  Now bring your new optical tool to bear on a paragraph and record what you are allowed to see, recording each bit on a new line (as in a "standard" poetic format.  The results may be interesting!

My two examples are below:  the first is from Paul Klee's Diaries (and entry for 1916), and the second from Richard Allestreel's The Ladies Calling (an instructional for women printed in 1673).  Of course the Klee was already clsoe enough to poetry as it was, and teh Allestreel not far behind that; but the words rearranged give them an entirely new feeling, their messages both plainer and more hidden. 

This is a useless exercise in almost every way, though it was fun to do it, and it did help to point out some of the more-poetic aspects of these two works.  But poetry isn't just putting prose into a new printed format, nor is prose poetry writ bigger.   But it was a little fun.    

Example 1:
From Paul Klee’s Diaries, Trip to Tunisia,  16 April 1916, chapter 2:

In the evening, through the streets.  A café decorated with pictures. Beautiful watercolors.  We ransacked the place buying.  A street scene around a mouse. Finally someone killed it with a shoe. We landed at a sidewalk café.  An evening of colors s tender as they were clear…

And then Dissected and Rearranged with the Fist Microscope:

In the evening, through the streets
a café decorated with pictures
Beautiful watercolors, we ransacked
the place buying a street scene around a mouse.
Finally someone killed it
with a shoe.
We landed at a sidewalk café,
an evening of colors
as tender as they were clear

Example 2
The Ladies Calling
attributed to Richard Allestreel Oxford: Printed at the Theater, 1673
Part II Section III:  On Widows (opening paragraph)

“Now those Remains are of three sorts, his body his memory, and his children. The most proper expession of her love to the first, is in giving it an honorable Enterrment; I mean not such as may vye with the Poland extravagance (of which 'tis observed that two or three neer succeeding funeralls ruin the family) but prudently proportion'd to his quality & fortune, so that her zeal to his Corps may not injure a nobler relique of him, his Children. And this decency is a much better instance of her kindness, then all those Tragical Furies wherwith som. Women seem transported towards their dead Husbands, those frantick Embraces and caresses of a Carcass, which betray a little too much the sensuality of their Love. And it is somthing observable, that those vehement Passions quickly exhaust themselvs, and by a kind of Sympathetic Efficacy as the Body (on which their affection was fixt) moulders, so does that also, nay often it attends not those lesurely degrees of dissolution, but by a more precipitate motion seems rather to vanish then consume”

And then Dissected and Rearranged with the Fist Microscope:

Now those Remains are his body his memory,
his children. The most proper expession of her love to the first,
is in giving it an honorable Enterrment;
I mean not such as the Poland extravagance
prudently proportion'd to his quality & fortune,
may not injure a nobler relique of him, his Children.
 And this decency is a much better instance of her kindness,
 then all those Tragical Furies
Women seem transported towards their dead Husbands,
those frantick Embraces and caresses of a Carcass,
which betray a little too much
the sensuality of their Love.
somthing observable, that those vehement Passions
 quickly exhaust themselvs,
and by a kind of Sympathetic Efficacy as the Body (on which their affection was fixt) moulders, so does that also,
 nay often it attends not those lesurely degrees of dissolution,
but by a more precipitate motion
seems rather to vanish then consume.

Yes I am joking.  Mostly.

Comments

[Betsy Hilt]

Works for me. Here's one from the top paper on my desk:

He proposed
setting up a scholarship committee
to judge the applicants.

The committee would include him,
TSAE's president, Past President,
executive director and an at-large member.

The CAE guidelines
would be used
for eligibility.

Hmmm...perhaps it doesn't work quite as well with a memo as it does with other sources.
:-)

[Jeff]

Good try by Betsy. I just tried it on a memo from the State Library:

Let us go then you and I
when the evening is spread out against the sky
like a patient etherized upon a table
let us go through certain half-deserted streets,
those muttering creeps
on restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
at yet another pointless conference
in a distant city

Not too bad.

[John F. Ptak]

Betsey: this method works best when you start with something good like, um, poetry. For example, Jeff was lucky enough to have a memo written to him from the deep dim past that worked out pretty well with my Fist-microscope Poematizer. Helps though when the memo-writer is Mr. Eliot. Jeff: was that memo written from Heaven? Or maybe the other place? I wonder what conference HE was going to....

[John F. Ptak]

Betsey: this method works best when you start with something goo,d like, um, poetry. For example, Jeff was lucky enough to have a memo written to him from the deep dim past that worked out pretty well with my Fist-microscope Poematizer. Helps though when the memo-writer is Mr. Eliot. Jeff: was that memo written from Heaven? Or maybe the other place? I wonder what conference HE was going to....