(no subject)
Mar. 9th, 2009 11:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yuuagoToday was unremarkable - and so, of course, I shall proceed to remark upon it.
Devin gave an excellent guest-lecture in the intro class today. Unfortunately only half the students showed up and most of them were doing the stare-like-sheep thing (or, as Mu would call it, the venus flytrap thing). Fortunately they are not carnivorous sheep, as I have no idea who would be the one to run around screaming names if the sheep were to start devouring heads. Certainly not me.
Anyway.
Over lunch I discussed with my colleagues the fact that John Sherman and Joel Salt are fucking weird - and also, the fact that I hate Tristram Shandy with the passion of a thousand blazing suns. I believe I remarked that if it had some dragons, and men in armour riding around whacking other with sticks, and maybe a giant or two, then I might find it readable. Alas, no. Unfortunately, I'll have to try to choke some more of it down before I go to sleep tonight.
I fell asleep on the couch in the ECC room again. :| I really have to stop doing that.
While at the cafe today, the barristo said to me, "Hey, were you reading The Road last time you were here?" I replied that yes, indeed I was - and we had a lovely little conversation about it. This is highly unusual; normally I don't have such encounters with strangers. But, it was nice.
Somehow I managed to get two pages written today, mostly while I was waiting for the intro class to start (and some on the bus). Only about 1/2 page was on the long Eesti story, though. The rest was on a different fill. A dialogue-only preview:
"And you are as delicious as the day we sat sipping tea, looking homeward in a city too large to hold our abandonments."
"I-I am?"
"Oh, yes."
"Where do you get that from?"
"Scofield."
"What?"
"Poetry. We have that here, you know. This might be the last corner of the Earth, but we do have poetry."
Speaking of Gregory Scofield, I was reading over some of his poems today. Ahh, his work always fills me with such warmth. And now that I think of it, I don't believe I've ever put any of his poetry up here before. I shall do so now. (Not gonna bother putting the accents on the Cree words, because I'm too lazy to look up the alt codes)
To Answer Some Things (For My Nicimos)
It's not that I don't love you
the way words like spring frogs
echo their night-water voices
croaking awas, awas (go away, go away)
from their trenches of blackness.
It's not that I keep my tongue
fat, bitter
or my mouth full of rat-root
and thistles. It's not that I'm frozen,
at least every moment.
It's not that I've grown bored
and turn down the moon
after you sleep. It's not
that I don't love you, nicimos (sweetheart)
or I've stopped
singing your eyes
the drum-song of Astotin Lake or
your legs the V of wintering geese
floating high
above our bed of turning grass.
It's not that I don't love you,
e-hey, e-hey
tapwe, ki-sahkitin, ki-sahkitin! (it is true, I love you, I love you!)
or the constant funeral of our enduring
that keeps me in this house,
eating from the bowl
of chokecherries
you've put before me, the bowl
of your steaming bones
I've cracked to the marrow.
Devin gave an excellent guest-lecture in the intro class today. Unfortunately only half the students showed up and most of them were doing the stare-like-sheep thing (or, as Mu would call it, the venus flytrap thing). Fortunately they are not carnivorous sheep, as I have no idea who would be the one to run around screaming names if the sheep were to start devouring heads. Certainly not me.
Anyway.
Over lunch I discussed with my colleagues the fact that John Sherman and Joel Salt are fucking weird - and also, the fact that I hate Tristram Shandy with the passion of a thousand blazing suns. I believe I remarked that if it had some dragons, and men in armour riding around whacking other with sticks, and maybe a giant or two, then I might find it readable. Alas, no. Unfortunately, I'll have to try to choke some more of it down before I go to sleep tonight.
I fell asleep on the couch in the ECC room again. :| I really have to stop doing that.
While at the cafe today, the barristo said to me, "Hey, were you reading The Road last time you were here?" I replied that yes, indeed I was - and we had a lovely little conversation about it. This is highly unusual; normally I don't have such encounters with strangers. But, it was nice.
Somehow I managed to get two pages written today, mostly while I was waiting for the intro class to start (and some on the bus). Only about 1/2 page was on the long Eesti story, though. The rest was on a different fill. A dialogue-only preview:
"And you are as delicious as the day we sat sipping tea, looking homeward in a city too large to hold our abandonments."
"I-I am?"
"Oh, yes."
"Where do you get that from?"
"Scofield."
"What?"
"Poetry. We have that here, you know. This might be the last corner of the Earth, but we do have poetry."
Speaking of Gregory Scofield, I was reading over some of his poems today. Ahh, his work always fills me with such warmth. And now that I think of it, I don't believe I've ever put any of his poetry up here before. I shall do so now. (Not gonna bother putting the accents on the Cree words, because I'm too lazy to look up the alt codes)
To Answer Some Things (For My Nicimos)
It's not that I don't love you
the way words like spring frogs
echo their night-water voices
croaking awas, awas (go away, go away)
from their trenches of blackness.
It's not that I keep my tongue
fat, bitter
or my mouth full of rat-root
and thistles. It's not that I'm frozen,
at least every moment.
It's not that I've grown bored
and turn down the moon
after you sleep. It's not
that I don't love you, nicimos (sweetheart)
or I've stopped
singing your eyes
the drum-song of Astotin Lake or
your legs the V of wintering geese
floating high
above our bed of turning grass.
It's not that I don't love you,
e-hey, e-hey
tapwe, ki-sahkitin, ki-sahkitin! (it is true, I love you, I love you!)
or the constant funeral of our enduring
that keeps me in this house,
eating from the bowl
of chokecherries
you've put before me, the bowl
of your steaming bones
I've cracked to the marrow.
Yuu. Fic writer & book lover. M/Canada.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 03:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 10:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 04:34 pm (UTC)Wow, that poem. Wow.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 10:08 pm (UTC)Saa, yes! It's my favourite from that collection. If you have not read th' collection, as you were not there for that class, perhaps do it over the summer - He really does write such beautiful things.