“And now, it doesn’t matter how small the gift you have. It is what you have. And I said, This is what is given you. And I lifted him up to his desk and said, Now write. And he said, What? I answered, Write that you are weak, that you allow even the mere voice of another, imagined subjectivity to compel you to your desk to write.” Pen Sharpening Exercises interweaves poetry, prose poems, and prose into a labyrinthian investigation of writing and the self.

An Imagined Generosity

And now, it doesn’t matter how small the gift you have. It is what you have.

And I said, This is what is given you. And I lifted him up to his desk and said, Now write. And he said, What? I answered, Write that you are weak, that you allow even the mere voice of another, imagined subjectivity to compel you to your desk to write. Is that all? he asked. He seemed dejected, so I gave him this: No, one more thing: write that you have nothing more to say than this.

The power of the real is somewhat over-rated, he wrote, and closed the notebook and went back to bed.

* * *

Exercises in penmanship

or pen sharpening

are good for the word, as the nib is good

to the pen, and the ink,

though we have to accept some sacrifices. We have to accept that some ink has to be lost in order for the words and lines to be found.

Lines that are fluid, flowing, fuel to be consumed by a social engine (culture).

Lines that are artful, artificial, artifacts of a condition or state (sociology).

Lines that are extenuating, yet not exculpatory, evidence of a personality (psychology. Or biology. I mean biography).

Lines that are passionate, full of desire, witness to a longing, or an indictment of desire (art, or sex).

Lines that are true, good, and beautiful—hence a mystery (religion, or mathematics).

Lines that are subjectively elaborate or decoratively self-deprecating, self-consciously mimetic or unconsciously parodic, immanently contradictory or eminently nugatory, varnished by intent or set in resin by unconscious forces, lines of a confessional nature (punishments. Or promises. I mean morality).

* * *

Entkunstung, Meaning “Art’s Emptying of Itself”

(There was) one page upon which every poet was written, until the whole of it became an inarticulate blackness. Some continued to write their lines but as soon as their hand lifted from the page what they had written couldn’t be distinguished from what came before, and was forgotten. For memory must have some particularity. Then some set out to scratch away the surface, to see what was hidden beneath. Some set out then to repair the damage to the page, to conserve the legacy. Some tried to turn the page, the page they were written on, which, if you think about it, a character in a line in a book, is a comical improbability. But impossible?

* * *

To Do

I didn’t do it, he said, What didn’t you do? I said, he said I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it, he said, You didn’t do what, what didn’t you do? I said.

I didn’t do it, said the subject.

I’m sorry I told you that, he said. I’m sorry I gave you the idea that I did it by saying that I didn’t do it. I don’t know, I feel compelled to lie to you, he said, though you’ve never done anything to me. I feel it—.

What did you do, I said, that you feel compelled to lie to me about?

I don’t know, he said, I just know I lied and lying must take an object.