Just when hope withers...
"visa," "provisionally..."

"... we are, above all, animals who attempt to be reborn by speaking."
--Valere Novarina, "Syncopations."



Hey, no, I'm not leaving for Russia, though that does sound inviting right now--going anywhere sounds inviting right now, ya kno? See below for the connection to the Novarina quote, which comes courtesy of reading Laura Carter's excellent blog. And that italicized bit about hope is a piece out of a Rita Dove poem I am familiar with from having written at length on her Mother Love (Norton, 1995), which I do not have with me here at work but which I will try to find in my room at home--although that room is stacked near to the ceiling, and is several rows deep, in boxes of books stowed away after my recent move. I have not memorized the entire poem, but perhaps I should do that. Memory is such an animal, a gerbil, or a puppy fetching a grab bag of associational stuff unless one focuses it and actually memorizes structured or set pieces, such as poems or songs. Well, my memory is very dependent on material sources, written things, books or other sources to reference (this is part of what Socrates did not like about writing--how it changed memory from an oralist orientation where a lot had to be committed inside ones head, to a freeing up but also a dependency on material texts) I am now missing those books terribly but not willing to unpack because I will probably have to move again in the next several months. But maybe I should reconsider that.

So, I was scrolling around blogland and found the wonderful Novarina quote posted to Laura Carter's blog, and when I read it, this patchwork bit from the Rita Dove poem popped in my head--Kristeva would say that is how the semiotic chora becomes intertextuality. If you haven't already done so, go read this quote at Laura's, and do check out the developing scroll of fascinating quotes she has going. I'm thinking, then, that I should reconsider my decision not to unpack my books (also, of course, the famous Walter Benjamim essay comes to mind), because I get to feeling great loss when a connection like this between text and reading and material being occurs. It is fulfilling to have the book in hand to complete the material moment, I guess, and I suppose there are other more pop-psychology ways to interpt that, as well as many dusty layers of Freudian stuff to say about it... :) but I'm really not one for much of that crap. I'm of the Irigaray frame of mind, though I do also like some of Lacan, even if Luce spent 300+ pages of dissertation famously severing her student relationship with him. Or so the myth goes--not sure how much that story measures up to the practical reality of the event, is what I mean to say about that.

Added note: oh hey, here I'll amend the above in this very moment of writing it, by posting the Dove poem now, since I paused to check online and happily found the poem (it's one of my favorites) at the Modern American Poetry site:


Exit --by Rita Dove *


Just when hope withers, the visa is granted.
The door opens to a street like in the movies,
clean of people, of cats; except it is your street
you are leaving. A visa has been granted,
"provisionally"-a fretful word.
The windows you have closed behind
you are turning pink, doing what they do
every dawn. Here it's gray. The door
to the taxicab waits. This suitcase,
the saddest object in the world.
Well, the world's open. And now through
the windshield the sky begins to blush
as you did when your mother told you
what it took to be a woman in this life.


*Copyright © 1995 Mississippi Review.

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