"The creation of an integral self is the work of a lifetime, and although that work can never be completed, it is nonetheless an ethical responsibility."
(Gary Saul Morson & Caryl Emerson, Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics)
Bakhtin locates this project, the project of self, in language. Asking us to fully experience the words we use and how we use them. He asks us to not simply swallow the prose of life but to chew, spit and sometimes throw it up.
What narratives do we accept in the way we frame and express our thoughts?
What stories do we invoke?
Which authors?
Which authorities?
He asks us to question the way we breathe—the thoughts that inspire us, giving our lungs their ability to transport the substance necessary for life. Thought and spirit have an oxygen of their own. Anyone sucking thoughtlessly on the pipe of life refuses to accept their responsibility as maker. Life is a creative project requiring a morality and ethics of answering back (to what has already been spoken). Life requires voice—a voice of one's own.
Bakhtin insists on this project, allowing no alibi in being. He declares each individual's ethical responsibility to do more than claim existence, saying we must engage in the intimacy of giving our lives shape—shape in the process of taking on the authoritative discourse, and working at the substance of our own internally persuasive discourse.
Showing posts with label Language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Language. Show all posts
20 August 2012
13 August 2012
Language
"Both the authority of discourse and its internal persuasiveness may be united in a single word—but such unity is rarely a given—it happens more frequently that an individual's becoming, an ideological process, is characterized precisely by a sharp gap between these two categories: in one, the authoritative word (religious, political, moral, the word of a father, of adults and of teachers, etc.) that does not know internal persuasiveness, in the other internally persuasive word that is denied all privilege, backed up by no authority at all, and is frequently not even acknowledged in society (not by public opinion, nor by scholarly norms, nor by criticism), not even in the legal code."
We confront these authorities every day—consciously or not. Sifting between these words and worlds is not difficult. The authoritative word is familiar, it grows everywhere, rusting the substance of people, and the substance of conversation. Authoritative words and worlds don't go down easy—they choke, they stretch the esophagus, stripping the sides, and making it difficult to pull in the oxygen required of thought. If you do not agree—you cannot go forward. When you agree, you go only where your movement is required. Is that motion or relocation?
"The struggle and dialogic interrelationship of these categories of ideological discourse are what usually determined the history of an individual ideological consciousness."
Struggle, dialogue, and history, each of these words open and close of their own account. Considering Bakhtin's point here, "are what usually determine the history of an individual ideological consciousness," the use of the word determine whispers a declaration, you are shaped in ways you can be significantly unaware of and still feel you've come to some conclusion.
But, "It is not a free appropriation and assimilation of the word itself that authoritative discourse seeks to elicit from us, rather, it demands our unconditional allegiance."
I return to the process of sifting. Sorting through language in this way is not difficult, but few take the smallest amount of time to do it. Instead we speak, we think, we pledge allegiance to the flow of words, the exchange of ideas, the pattern of interaction the authoritative discourse demands of us. But we think we are speaking, thinking, exchanging. Why?
"It enters our verbal consciousness as a compact and indivisible mass; one must either totally affirm it, or totally reject it. It is indissolubly fused with its authority—with political power, an institution, a person—and it stands and falls together with that authority. One cannot divide it up—agree with one part, accept but not completely another part, reject utterly a third part."
Political power determines citizenship, mobility, economies and to a large degree basic safety. Political power defines necessity and then applies those definitions to our bodies (earth, human, plant and animal). Political power requires a licence. Institutions and people serve the same functions, standing and falling by the authority of these words (business hours, days of the week, languages, and ceremonies). There are innumerable worlds outside of these, but this world of words refuses to recognize their existence.
"The authoritative word demands that we acknowledge it, that we make it our own; it binds us, quite independent of any power it might have to persuade us internally; we encounter it with its authority already fused to it."
To some extent, when we are not sifting and sorting, we are agreeing. That agreement is coerced, but it is agreement nonetheless. Disagreements are punished, severely—but disagreement allows for dignity.
"All this renders the artistic representation of authoritative discourse impossible."
We must moan, scream or cry. We must cough, and spit. We must retain something capable of bearing life.
"An independent, responsible and active discourse is the fundamental indicator of an ethical, legal and political human being."
all quotes are from: M. M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, Edited by Michael Holquist, Translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. (pages 342-4)
We confront these authorities every day—consciously or not. Sifting between these words and worlds is not difficult. The authoritative word is familiar, it grows everywhere, rusting the substance of people, and the substance of conversation. Authoritative words and worlds don't go down easy—they choke, they stretch the esophagus, stripping the sides, and making it difficult to pull in the oxygen required of thought. If you do not agree—you cannot go forward. When you agree, you go only where your movement is required. Is that motion or relocation?
"The struggle and dialogic interrelationship of these categories of ideological discourse are what usually determined the history of an individual ideological consciousness."
Struggle, dialogue, and history, each of these words open and close of their own account. Considering Bakhtin's point here, "are what usually determine the history of an individual ideological consciousness," the use of the word determine whispers a declaration, you are shaped in ways you can be significantly unaware of and still feel you've come to some conclusion.
But, "It is not a free appropriation and assimilation of the word itself that authoritative discourse seeks to elicit from us, rather, it demands our unconditional allegiance."
I return to the process of sifting. Sorting through language in this way is not difficult, but few take the smallest amount of time to do it. Instead we speak, we think, we pledge allegiance to the flow of words, the exchange of ideas, the pattern of interaction the authoritative discourse demands of us. But we think we are speaking, thinking, exchanging. Why?
"It enters our verbal consciousness as a compact and indivisible mass; one must either totally affirm it, or totally reject it. It is indissolubly fused with its authority—with political power, an institution, a person—and it stands and falls together with that authority. One cannot divide it up—agree with one part, accept but not completely another part, reject utterly a third part."
Political power determines citizenship, mobility, economies and to a large degree basic safety. Political power defines necessity and then applies those definitions to our bodies (earth, human, plant and animal). Political power requires a licence. Institutions and people serve the same functions, standing and falling by the authority of these words (business hours, days of the week, languages, and ceremonies). There are innumerable worlds outside of these, but this world of words refuses to recognize their existence.
"The authoritative word demands that we acknowledge it, that we make it our own; it binds us, quite independent of any power it might have to persuade us internally; we encounter it with its authority already fused to it."
To some extent, when we are not sifting and sorting, we are agreeing. That agreement is coerced, but it is agreement nonetheless. Disagreements are punished, severely—but disagreement allows for dignity.
"All this renders the artistic representation of authoritative discourse impossible."
We must moan, scream or cry. We must cough, and spit. We must retain something capable of bearing life.
"An independent, responsible and active discourse is the fundamental indicator of an ethical, legal and political human being."
all quotes are from: M. M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, Edited by Michael Holquist, Translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. (pages 342-4)
06 August 2012
Language
"It is. . .inaccurate to speak of entering into dialogue, as if the components that do so could exist in any other way. To be sure, particular dialogues may break off (they never truly end), but dialogue itself is always going on."
(Gary Saul Morson & Caryl Emerson, Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics)
Dialogue is the key. Bakhtin understands dialogue in several ways, and I am in conversation with his work. Dialogue require people. People who speak, listen, and respond. "There can be no dialogue between sentences. " When we speak we "turn to someone." Without this turn, the utterance "does not and cannot exist." (Bakhtin, The Problem of Speech Genres)
I am turning to you, and in turning I face the language of your life. According to Bakhtin every utterance (speech genre) is dialogic by definition. Words do not pop into an existence where nothing has been spoken. The world, in this view, is not made of up signs, but of transformative speeches. When we speak we enter the stream. When we are silent, we enter another. Like all energies in motion we can allow ourselves to be moved, we can resist, and we can join the energy we have into the conversation. Together we exchange words, words carrying their own energy with them.
"No word can be taken back, but the final word has not yet been spoken and never will be spoken."
(Gary Saul Morson & Caryl Emerson, Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics)
Often people want to suppress dialogue, by declarations: it's over. Enough has been said, and I've said it. These authoritative means wield power over speakers and listeners and claim to be (not represent, but actually define for all time the content and form of the world) undeniable. If we remember the lie underlying these authorities and participate in the dialogue we can face life ethically and communicate.
"The very words [we use] carry the intonations and evaluations accumulated in daily life, in diverse contexts and heterogeneous speech genres whose existence has not been recognized."
(Gary Saul Morson & Caryl Emerson, Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics)
I am speaking of speech. Every day talk. Sometimes the dialogue is familiar, we recognize and agree on the terms. Sometimes the dialogue is strange and we are required to invest some aspect of ourselves (time, patience, intellect) to finding a way to relate, a means of offering some meaningful response in return. These processes are never complete, life requires that much of us. The dialogue goes on. We utter our words. The dialogue continues.
"The most interesting and most unfinalizable aspects of any interaction arise from the relative disorder of the participants."
(Gary Saul Morson & Caryl Emerson, Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics)
The relative disorder requires each of us to show up: awake to the shape of each moment, aware of our place, and willing to "turn to someone." From Coltrane's Ascension and Meditation to Auten's Sense and Sensibility, "we all need someone to listen to us." We speak, we moan, we take a moment to catch our breath and blow.
(Gary Saul Morson & Caryl Emerson, Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics)
Dialogue is the key. Bakhtin understands dialogue in several ways, and I am in conversation with his work. Dialogue require people. People who speak, listen, and respond. "There can be no dialogue between sentences. " When we speak we "turn to someone." Without this turn, the utterance "does not and cannot exist." (Bakhtin, The Problem of Speech Genres)
I am turning to you, and in turning I face the language of your life. According to Bakhtin every utterance (speech genre) is dialogic by definition. Words do not pop into an existence where nothing has been spoken. The world, in this view, is not made of up signs, but of transformative speeches. When we speak we enter the stream. When we are silent, we enter another. Like all energies in motion we can allow ourselves to be moved, we can resist, and we can join the energy we have into the conversation. Together we exchange words, words carrying their own energy with them.
"No word can be taken back, but the final word has not yet been spoken and never will be spoken."
(Gary Saul Morson & Caryl Emerson, Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics)
Often people want to suppress dialogue, by declarations: it's over. Enough has been said, and I've said it. These authoritative means wield power over speakers and listeners and claim to be (not represent, but actually define for all time the content and form of the world) undeniable. If we remember the lie underlying these authorities and participate in the dialogue we can face life ethically and communicate.
"The very words [we use] carry the intonations and evaluations accumulated in daily life, in diverse contexts and heterogeneous speech genres whose existence has not been recognized."
(Gary Saul Morson & Caryl Emerson, Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics)
I am speaking of speech. Every day talk. Sometimes the dialogue is familiar, we recognize and agree on the terms. Sometimes the dialogue is strange and we are required to invest some aspect of ourselves (time, patience, intellect) to finding a way to relate, a means of offering some meaningful response in return. These processes are never complete, life requires that much of us. The dialogue goes on. We utter our words. The dialogue continues.
"The most interesting and most unfinalizable aspects of any interaction arise from the relative disorder of the participants."
(Gary Saul Morson & Caryl Emerson, Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics)
The relative disorder requires each of us to show up: awake to the shape of each moment, aware of our place, and willing to "turn to someone." From Coltrane's Ascension and Meditation to Auten's Sense and Sensibility, "we all need someone to listen to us." We speak, we moan, we take a moment to catch our breath and blow.
31 July 2012
Translation
Dá'ák'eh: the whole family goes out and works the fields
Every one plays a part in the preparation of the fields. The youngest members are given seeds. "They represent life, innocence and purity." They represent the seeds themselves. They place the seeds into the broken earth—with their own hands. We rely on them. This becomes a part of who they are, these young people working the field with their elders.
As they grow they experience the process and take the prayers inside their mind and soul. They see their family, from toddlers to elders, out upon the earth taking care of it. She takes care of them in return. This a relationship. They have been a part of this themselves, growing alongside the crops, over the years, some years better than others, but always the process of going out and working the field together.
A lot of people say dá'ák'eh means cornfield. One person is responsible for that field. The person with the tractor. They sit on the seat and start the engine. The engine muffles the prayers of the planter. "The tractor prevents families from passing on tradition and precludes family unity." Ha'ní. They say.
When you understand the word in the context of the life it creates you understand that the whole family goes out and works the field speaks to a unique process of cultivation and a particular experience of time and place. The whole family goes out and works the field requires seasons to accomplish. Winter: tools are prepared, seeds are sorted and stored. Spring: we wait for thunder. Prayers are made. People take their feet out on the earth and bring them together. There is a language between the soles of one and the surface of the other. It is spoken at these moments. Summer: everyone is involved, the plant people (weeds and seedlings), the birds and animals who desire food of their own, and the corn tassels that begin to spill from the husks. Prayers for rain abound. Water is life giving the stalks their reach. Fall: within it there is a harvest, a thin one and a big one.
Late in the season everyone is tired. The earth is weary and she needs rest. The tools need rest too. After every empty stalk has been cleared everyone is given leisure. This time we share to relax and relieve ourselves from fatigue. We lie down. We recline. We stretch ourselves into the shape of sleep beneath cloaks of night and snowfall.
All quotes are from Diné Bizaad: Bínáhoo'aah: Rediscovering the Navajo Language by Evangline Parsons Yazzi, Ed.D. and Margaret Speas, Ph.D.
Every one plays a part in the preparation of the fields. The youngest members are given seeds. "They represent life, innocence and purity." They represent the seeds themselves. They place the seeds into the broken earth—with their own hands. We rely on them. This becomes a part of who they are, these young people working the field with their elders.
As they grow they experience the process and take the prayers inside their mind and soul. They see their family, from toddlers to elders, out upon the earth taking care of it. She takes care of them in return. This a relationship. They have been a part of this themselves, growing alongside the crops, over the years, some years better than others, but always the process of going out and working the field together.
A lot of people say dá'ák'eh means cornfield. One person is responsible for that field. The person with the tractor. They sit on the seat and start the engine. The engine muffles the prayers of the planter. "The tractor prevents families from passing on tradition and precludes family unity." Ha'ní. They say.
When you understand the word in the context of the life it creates you understand that the whole family goes out and works the field speaks to a unique process of cultivation and a particular experience of time and place. The whole family goes out and works the field requires seasons to accomplish. Winter: tools are prepared, seeds are sorted and stored. Spring: we wait for thunder. Prayers are made. People take their feet out on the earth and bring them together. There is a language between the soles of one and the surface of the other. It is spoken at these moments. Summer: everyone is involved, the plant people (weeds and seedlings), the birds and animals who desire food of their own, and the corn tassels that begin to spill from the husks. Prayers for rain abound. Water is life giving the stalks their reach. Fall: within it there is a harvest, a thin one and a big one.
Late in the season everyone is tired. The earth is weary and she needs rest. The tools need rest too. After every empty stalk has been cleared everyone is given leisure. This time we share to relax and relieve ourselves from fatigue. We lie down. We recline. We stretch ourselves into the shape of sleep beneath cloaks of night and snowfall.
All quotes are from Diné Bizaad: Bínáhoo'aah: Rediscovering the Navajo Language by Evangline Parsons Yazzi, Ed.D. and Margaret Speas, Ph.D.
30 July 2012
Language
"Parents had not bothered to teach their children this language [Yiddish]—their mother tongue—nor anything about the beliefs of their forefathers. Neither did they tell them about what had happened to them in the Ghetto and in the camps. In fact, they had hidden their lives from their children and had molded (albeit unintentionally) a life devoid of the thread of family history and without a spark of belief."
(Aharon Appelfeld, Table for One: Under the Light of Jerusalem)
"The rape culture of the European colonization of the New World—is the rape culture that stops the family from achieving decolonial intimacy, from achieving decolonial love."
(Junot Diaz, (interview) The Search for Decolonial Love, Part II)
for part one:
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR37.4/junot_diaz_paula_moya_drown_race.php
I descend from a rape culture—close among shik'éí and saturating this land through the generations. My mother's mother's mother was raped. My eldest aunt was born from that rape. When anything needed an explanation, we would say "you know she was born from," and nothing more. She didn't know who her father was, there were many among us who did not know. That was important, but it did not explain it all. The rape silenced everything. We were formed and ordered by her experience. Shimá sáni's language hid our shame and hate. We learned to speak from her.
Life is spoken within the silence. People and places are revealed by their absence. Language shapes by what can be said and to whom. Silence does not interrupt speeches, the moans, the cries of happiness and despair—silence shapes. I see it on our bodies and in the ripped fabric we clothe ourselves in, calling it family, shik'éí.
In music, the articulation notation legato tells the player that the notes are to be played smoothly. Legato notes are to be connected. The connection is indicated by a curved line, drawn under the notes that are intended to be played without an intervening silence. This notation does not necessarily indicate a slur, though a slur is sometimes the means of expression available on the instrument.
Legato is what is known as an articulation. How is this music to be played? Articulation gives direction.
"This language—their mother tongue—anything about the beliefs—and what happened." These are the curved lines that hold our notes together.
When playing legato on strings virtuosos are known for their ability to play extremely complex runs, permeated with notes, at extreme tempos; on keys one note is held while the other is depressed, allowing the fade to resonate, introducing the new note that takes over without proclaiming a discontinuity from the rest; voices try to sustain vowels and eliminate interruptions by consonants. They call this the line —it should be maintained.
(Aharon Appelfeld, Table for One: Under the Light of Jerusalem)
"The rape culture of the European colonization of the New World—is the rape culture that stops the family from achieving decolonial intimacy, from achieving decolonial love."
(Junot Diaz, (interview) The Search for Decolonial Love, Part II)
for part one:
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR37.4/junot_diaz_paula_moya_drown_race.php
I descend from a rape culture—close among shik'éí and saturating this land through the generations. My mother's mother's mother was raped. My eldest aunt was born from that rape. When anything needed an explanation, we would say "you know she was born from," and nothing more. She didn't know who her father was, there were many among us who did not know. That was important, but it did not explain it all. The rape silenced everything. We were formed and ordered by her experience. Shimá sáni's language hid our shame and hate. We learned to speak from her.
Life is spoken within the silence. People and places are revealed by their absence. Language shapes by what can be said and to whom. Silence does not interrupt speeches, the moans, the cries of happiness and despair—silence shapes. I see it on our bodies and in the ripped fabric we clothe ourselves in, calling it family, shik'éí.
In music, the articulation notation legato tells the player that the notes are to be played smoothly. Legato notes are to be connected. The connection is indicated by a curved line, drawn under the notes that are intended to be played without an intervening silence. This notation does not necessarily indicate a slur, though a slur is sometimes the means of expression available on the instrument.
Legato is what is known as an articulation. How is this music to be played? Articulation gives direction.
"This language—their mother tongue—anything about the beliefs—and what happened." These are the curved lines that hold our notes together.
When playing legato on strings virtuosos are known for their ability to play extremely complex runs, permeated with notes, at extreme tempos; on keys one note is held while the other is depressed, allowing the fade to resonate, introducing the new note that takes over without proclaiming a discontinuity from the rest; voices try to sustain vowels and eliminate interruptions by consonants. They call this the line —it should be maintained.
23 July 2012
Language
"So when people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn't be read in school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange and stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives. I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language—and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers—a language powerful enough to say how it is.
It isn't a hiding place. It's a finding place."
(Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal)
Reviewers of Adrian C. Louis' Ceremonies of the Damned say it's a book about Alzheimer's and the loss of love. The poems are "tough-minded and moving." The book "elegant, crafty and a quiet victory."
I don't claim to understand Louis' work. I need it. It floats in troubled water. My constant refrain while swimming is "don't drown don't drown don't drown." I reach the edge and hold on. I can no longer swim in public pools and I'm afraid to take to the ocean. Still the waters overwhelm me. They are familiar. I think they are familiar to Louis.
The summer of 97 was cruel, or maybe it was the woman. I was teaching a summer class on American Indian Literature (full of the men I loved) and doing research for $10 an hour. I was also packing boxes for the impending move to Riverside California. The woman, my woman, got a job and we were taking it—together. For 5 years we had done everything (except write and file my dissertation) together.
Days before the move she left me for a man, well maybe not a man, but because she didn't know if this was all there was and if it was, well, maybe there was more. Maybe there would be more with him. "Lesbians." That was what she didn't want. She didn't want to be walking down the street and have someone yell that at her. It had happened before. She didn't want it to happen again. When they walked down the street people got out of the way. How could I compete with a six foot something Black man?
I haven't written, or talked about this, for fifteen years. I haven't avoided it. I haven't felt it necessary. The particulars of that end are an ugliness I chose to turn away from. But that summer I was teaching, and every day I had to stop crying and stand before a room of humans and say something.
I couldn't figure out why I assigned these men (Louis, Vizenor, Ortiz and Alexie). What was I thinking? So much violence. How would I survive? I thought I could illuminate the beauty within the violence. Hubris.
IT HAS COME TO THIS
Three days a week I imprison you
among the shrieking aged,
the palsied pukers, the damned
and abandoned, the certifiably insane.
I do this because I am weak
and I think I'm going crazy, too.
(Adrian C. Louis, Ceremonies of the Damned)
I have always refused to accept the notion that the damage has defined us, but that summer I realized I spent too much time fingering the hole of despair—my own and the collective. Fifteen years later I am only beginning to face the impact of mental illness on my soul. The relationship between that end and recent others. Seeking compassion for myself within rigorous honesty. Understanding that "Sometimes it's hard to comprehend that ceremonies of the damned are useless."
I know there is no alibi in being. We can be, more beautiful than broken.
It isn't a hiding place. It's a finding place."
(Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal)
Reviewers of Adrian C. Louis' Ceremonies of the Damned say it's a book about Alzheimer's and the loss of love. The poems are "tough-minded and moving." The book "elegant, crafty and a quiet victory."
I don't claim to understand Louis' work. I need it. It floats in troubled water. My constant refrain while swimming is "don't drown don't drown don't drown." I reach the edge and hold on. I can no longer swim in public pools and I'm afraid to take to the ocean. Still the waters overwhelm me. They are familiar. I think they are familiar to Louis.
The summer of 97 was cruel, or maybe it was the woman. I was teaching a summer class on American Indian Literature (full of the men I loved) and doing research for $10 an hour. I was also packing boxes for the impending move to Riverside California. The woman, my woman, got a job and we were taking it—together. For 5 years we had done everything (except write and file my dissertation) together.
Days before the move she left me for a man, well maybe not a man, but because she didn't know if this was all there was and if it was, well, maybe there was more. Maybe there would be more with him. "Lesbians." That was what she didn't want. She didn't want to be walking down the street and have someone yell that at her. It had happened before. She didn't want it to happen again. When they walked down the street people got out of the way. How could I compete with a six foot something Black man?
I haven't written, or talked about this, for fifteen years. I haven't avoided it. I haven't felt it necessary. The particulars of that end are an ugliness I chose to turn away from. But that summer I was teaching, and every day I had to stop crying and stand before a room of humans and say something.
I couldn't figure out why I assigned these men (Louis, Vizenor, Ortiz and Alexie). What was I thinking? So much violence. How would I survive? I thought I could illuminate the beauty within the violence. Hubris.
IT HAS COME TO THIS
Three days a week I imprison you
among the shrieking aged,
the palsied pukers, the damned
and abandoned, the certifiably insane.
I do this because I am weak
and I think I'm going crazy, too.
(Adrian C. Louis, Ceremonies of the Damned)
I have always refused to accept the notion that the damage has defined us, but that summer I realized I spent too much time fingering the hole of despair—my own and the collective. Fifteen years later I am only beginning to face the impact of mental illness on my soul. The relationship between that end and recent others. Seeking compassion for myself within rigorous honesty. Understanding that "Sometimes it's hard to comprehend that ceremonies of the damned are useless."
I know there is no alibi in being. We can be, more beautiful than broken.
09 July 2012
Language
"We come into consciousness speaking a language already permeated with many voices—a social, not a private language. From the beginning, we are 'polyglot.' Already in process of mastering a variety of social dialects derived from parents, clan, class, religion, country. We grow in consciousness by taking in more voices as 'authoritatively persuasive' and then by learning which to accept as 'internally persuasive.'"
E. B. White claims that to develop style we must accept the whole body of language, not hack it to bits. We must cherish language's form, the classic as well as the modern. We must accept language's variety, its richness. I like White. I often turn to his Elements of Style, especially as I navigate the field of American English and grammar with a style of my own, careful not to hack myself to bits in the process.
"Finally we achieve, if we are lucky, a kind of individuality."
This is the project. Reading over my work, the best writing achieves a kind of individuality. This has been my goal and my great difficulty. Not in achieving that voice, but in accepting and expressing it. I read outside my area. I live outside my area. I speak outside my area. Migration shapes the whole of my vision and my word choice. Emergence from lower worlds, along trade routes and looking for labor, I am aware of the need to hold simultaneous realities in focus while retaining some impression of my own, something to carry with me from here to there.
"But it is never a private or autonomous individuality in the western sense; except when we maim ourselves arbitrarily to monologue, we always speak a chorus of languages."
I went to Presentation High School for girls in San Francisco to show the world we weren't heathens. I wanted to go Lowell. My first year at Pres. is best described by three (four) words: Old English 800 (tall). My second by one: Smirnoff. These were the years I started dreaming of Jesus.
I stand in a field of blinding light. I hear a moan. Slowly, bit by bit, I can see the field is flesh, the flesh is seared. The vision at a distance, comes nearer. Who is doing this? Where am I? I can see the searing. I keep looking. The moaning grows louder and more frequent. I breathe fast. I am warmed by fear. I am burning myself. I am afraid of dying by fire. The field of white is flesh. I understand, at this moment, flesh marked by burning circles of blood. There are so many they look like freckles, the white turns red beneath them. My eyes, I can see out from them. I see a man. He turns. I see his face. It is Jesus. I ask him who is doing this? Why don't they stop? He can not answer me. He can only moan. He looks down. I follow his eyes. The field of white is his back. I keep looking. It is me. I stand on top. If I could only stand still, but I keep moving. I cannot stop. I keep moving. I wake tied in sheets. My skin a fever.
This was a dream. I told myself, stepping into it, waking out of if. This was a dream. Half of my family took the waters (though more are being born again, a plague of frogs among us). Death through resurrection. Colonization through baptism. Papal Bulls and high school diplomas. I am dreaming. I am found. In a field of words I find myself.
"Anyone who has not been maimed by some imposed 'ideology in the narrow sense,' anyone who is not an 'ideologue,' respects the fact that each of us is a 'we,' not an 'I.' Polyphony, the miracle of our 'dialogical' lives together, is thus both a fact of life and in its higher reaches, a value to be pursued endlessly."
A river of words, a river of names, we wade in deep and sometimes we drown. One I thinking it exists alone, able to offer definitive proof of a status higher than heathen.
all quotes are from Wayne C. Booth's introduction to Mikhail Bakhtin's Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics
E. B. White claims that to develop style we must accept the whole body of language, not hack it to bits. We must cherish language's form, the classic as well as the modern. We must accept language's variety, its richness. I like White. I often turn to his Elements of Style, especially as I navigate the field of American English and grammar with a style of my own, careful not to hack myself to bits in the process.
"Finally we achieve, if we are lucky, a kind of individuality."
This is the project. Reading over my work, the best writing achieves a kind of individuality. This has been my goal and my great difficulty. Not in achieving that voice, but in accepting and expressing it. I read outside my area. I live outside my area. I speak outside my area. Migration shapes the whole of my vision and my word choice. Emergence from lower worlds, along trade routes and looking for labor, I am aware of the need to hold simultaneous realities in focus while retaining some impression of my own, something to carry with me from here to there.
"But it is never a private or autonomous individuality in the western sense; except when we maim ourselves arbitrarily to monologue, we always speak a chorus of languages."
I went to Presentation High School for girls in San Francisco to show the world we weren't heathens. I wanted to go Lowell. My first year at Pres. is best described by three (four) words: Old English 800 (tall). My second by one: Smirnoff. These were the years I started dreaming of Jesus.
I stand in a field of blinding light. I hear a moan. Slowly, bit by bit, I can see the field is flesh, the flesh is seared. The vision at a distance, comes nearer. Who is doing this? Where am I? I can see the searing. I keep looking. The moaning grows louder and more frequent. I breathe fast. I am warmed by fear. I am burning myself. I am afraid of dying by fire. The field of white is flesh. I understand, at this moment, flesh marked by burning circles of blood. There are so many they look like freckles, the white turns red beneath them. My eyes, I can see out from them. I see a man. He turns. I see his face. It is Jesus. I ask him who is doing this? Why don't they stop? He can not answer me. He can only moan. He looks down. I follow his eyes. The field of white is his back. I keep looking. It is me. I stand on top. If I could only stand still, but I keep moving. I cannot stop. I keep moving. I wake tied in sheets. My skin a fever.
This was a dream. I told myself, stepping into it, waking out of if. This was a dream. Half of my family took the waters (though more are being born again, a plague of frogs among us). Death through resurrection. Colonization through baptism. Papal Bulls and high school diplomas. I am dreaming. I am found. In a field of words I find myself.
"Anyone who has not been maimed by some imposed 'ideology in the narrow sense,' anyone who is not an 'ideologue,' respects the fact that each of us is a 'we,' not an 'I.' Polyphony, the miracle of our 'dialogical' lives together, is thus both a fact of life and in its higher reaches, a value to be pursued endlessly."
A river of words, a river of names, we wade in deep and sometimes we drown. One I thinking it exists alone, able to offer definitive proof of a status higher than heathen.
all quotes are from Wayne C. Booth's introduction to Mikhail Bakhtin's Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics
02 July 2012
Language
Italo Calvino's Six Memos for the Next Millennium were written in anticipation of his delivery of the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures in 1985-1986.
In his memo on exactitude he wrote:
"It sometimes seems to me that a pestilence has struck the human race in its most distinctive faculty—that is, the use of words."
Twenty six years later my own use of English is strained in conversation—I take a slow pace, meticulous and careful, thoughtful about what I say, and the exact language I use to say it. I am not surrounded by listeners. Certainly not in my public existence: at the market, post office, or among neighbors. Yet I expect more. I've been told these expectations are my downfall.
"It is a plague afflicting language, revealing itself as a loss of cognition and immediacy, an automatism that tends to level out all expression into the most generic, anonymous, and abstract formulas, to dilute meanings to blunt the edge of expressiveness, extinguishing the spark that shoots out from the collision of words and new circumstances."
I am not looking for a common language. I am looking for the deep translation required by life. This translation requires a search for meaning, most relevantly, the meaning of particular words for particular moments. A diminished vocabulary results in a diminished existence.
On my first day in High School I walked into Western Civilizations for my final period. Sr. Damien handed out an assignment sheet with the course textbook listed along with Funk & Wagnalls' A Standard Dictionary of the English Language (1st ed. 1894). Our assignment: read ten pages, look up every word we did not know, and write down the definition. We should be prepared to discuss the readings. I was twelve. I already knew all there was to know and reading comprehension was my strength. I had the test scores to prove it. So I read away and didn't crack the spine on my Funk & Wagnalls. I only purchased the book because you had to show it to her the next day before you were allowed to take a seat in the classroom. On Friday we sat down and were told to take out a piece of paper and write the definitions of the words listed on the chalkboard. They were all in the reading. If we had done the assignment, we should know every word. If we didn't at first, we should have looked them up. I failed.
"It seems to me that language is always used in a random, approximate, careless manner, and this distresses me unbearably."
Sr. Damien's philosophy: if we didn't understand the word we could never understand the reading. The words were assigned, someone had chosen them for us. She would guide us, however twisted the path, through them, page by page. Life does not assign everyone a Sr. Damien. I couldn't wait to get rid of her myself. But there is power in demanding exactness in thought. Everyone deserves to be asked to understand clearly and to express themselves clearly. Access to language is not a privilege. Language is a responsibility we share.
"At this point, I don't wish to dwell on the possible sources of the epidemic, whether they are to be sought in politics, ideology, bureaucratic uniformity, the monotony of the mass media, or the way the schools dispense the culture of the mediocre. What interests me are the possibilities of health. Literature, and perhaps literature alone, can create the antibodies to fight this plague in language."
Whose responsibility is it to reverse the language shift?
In Narratives of Navajo-ness, Deborah House writes about the language shift among speakers of Navajo. She illuminates the solution very astutely, writing: "Reversing Navajo Language shift is the responsibility of those persons who need the language in their lives, and their children's lives and reversing Navajo Language shift can only be done when those individuals who can speak the Navajo language do speak the Navajo language at every opportunity; when those who can't speak the Navajo language, start taking advantage of every opportunity to learn to speak it; when those who can model benefits of speaking the Navajo Language get out there and do model it. It doesn't have to cost a dime."
How it works: speak. (The Oral Tradition)
How it works: read. (The Written Tradition)
House continues: "It's the easiest thing in the world to tell people how to reverse Navajo Language shift, but actually doing it is going to be hard; it's going to be an everyday, day after day, year after year, commitment—at home, in the community, in the Chapter House, at the Trading Post, at school, at work, at prayer, at the polls and wherever else a person happens to be. And just talking about it won't make it happen."
Every day, year after year, a commitment to language, memory, exactness of expression is what carries the people and their knowledge forward. Every day, year after year, we can manifest this commitment in our own speech, in the stories we tell, and those we read. Calvino's belief that literature, maybe even literature alone, can protect us from this plague holds within it the knowledge of a certain attention to language made by writers and readers. We can share this in our speech and in our reading—if we tenaciously endeavor to.
In his memo on exactitude he wrote:
"It sometimes seems to me that a pestilence has struck the human race in its most distinctive faculty—that is, the use of words."
Twenty six years later my own use of English is strained in conversation—I take a slow pace, meticulous and careful, thoughtful about what I say, and the exact language I use to say it. I am not surrounded by listeners. Certainly not in my public existence: at the market, post office, or among neighbors. Yet I expect more. I've been told these expectations are my downfall.
"It is a plague afflicting language, revealing itself as a loss of cognition and immediacy, an automatism that tends to level out all expression into the most generic, anonymous, and abstract formulas, to dilute meanings to blunt the edge of expressiveness, extinguishing the spark that shoots out from the collision of words and new circumstances."
I am not looking for a common language. I am looking for the deep translation required by life. This translation requires a search for meaning, most relevantly, the meaning of particular words for particular moments. A diminished vocabulary results in a diminished existence.
On my first day in High School I walked into Western Civilizations for my final period. Sr. Damien handed out an assignment sheet with the course textbook listed along with Funk & Wagnalls' A Standard Dictionary of the English Language (1st ed. 1894). Our assignment: read ten pages, look up every word we did not know, and write down the definition. We should be prepared to discuss the readings. I was twelve. I already knew all there was to know and reading comprehension was my strength. I had the test scores to prove it. So I read away and didn't crack the spine on my Funk & Wagnalls. I only purchased the book because you had to show it to her the next day before you were allowed to take a seat in the classroom. On Friday we sat down and were told to take out a piece of paper and write the definitions of the words listed on the chalkboard. They were all in the reading. If we had done the assignment, we should know every word. If we didn't at first, we should have looked them up. I failed.
"It seems to me that language is always used in a random, approximate, careless manner, and this distresses me unbearably."
Sr. Damien's philosophy: if we didn't understand the word we could never understand the reading. The words were assigned, someone had chosen them for us. She would guide us, however twisted the path, through them, page by page. Life does not assign everyone a Sr. Damien. I couldn't wait to get rid of her myself. But there is power in demanding exactness in thought. Everyone deserves to be asked to understand clearly and to express themselves clearly. Access to language is not a privilege. Language is a responsibility we share.
"At this point, I don't wish to dwell on the possible sources of the epidemic, whether they are to be sought in politics, ideology, bureaucratic uniformity, the monotony of the mass media, or the way the schools dispense the culture of the mediocre. What interests me are the possibilities of health. Literature, and perhaps literature alone, can create the antibodies to fight this plague in language."
Whose responsibility is it to reverse the language shift?
In Narratives of Navajo-ness, Deborah House writes about the language shift among speakers of Navajo. She illuminates the solution very astutely, writing: "Reversing Navajo Language shift is the responsibility of those persons who need the language in their lives, and their children's lives and reversing Navajo Language shift can only be done when those individuals who can speak the Navajo language do speak the Navajo language at every opportunity; when those who can't speak the Navajo language, start taking advantage of every opportunity to learn to speak it; when those who can model benefits of speaking the Navajo Language get out there and do model it. It doesn't have to cost a dime."
How it works: speak. (The Oral Tradition)
How it works: read. (The Written Tradition)
House continues: "It's the easiest thing in the world to tell people how to reverse Navajo Language shift, but actually doing it is going to be hard; it's going to be an everyday, day after day, year after year, commitment—at home, in the community, in the Chapter House, at the Trading Post, at school, at work, at prayer, at the polls and wherever else a person happens to be. And just talking about it won't make it happen."
Every day, year after year, a commitment to language, memory, exactness of expression is what carries the people and their knowledge forward. Every day, year after year, we can manifest this commitment in our own speech, in the stories we tell, and those we read. Calvino's belief that literature, maybe even literature alone, can protect us from this plague holds within it the knowledge of a certain attention to language made by writers and readers. We can share this in our speech and in our reading—if we tenaciously endeavor to.
26 June 2012
Language: Íishsjání ádoolnííł: Make Things Clear
Íishsjání ádoolnííł: Make Things Clear
Paul Chaat Smith's essay, Lost In Translation, begins with a discussion of 60 Minutes producer Don Hewitt. Hewitt had several rules for successful television. One being: No Indians. "Indians talk too much, too slowly, and what they say is always complicated."
Smith continues: "[Hewitt] realized the Indian experience is an ocean of terrifying complexity. We are reputed to be stoic, but in reality it's hard to get us to shut up."
A long time ago I heard the Honourable Justice Robert Yazzie say, "the most important piece of paper in the Navajo Peacemaking Court was—the Kleenex®."
Peacemaking on the Navajo Nation involves several principles. The two most important being: talking things out and making things clear.
"Navajos know from experience that people cannot engage in respectful, meaningful, and relevant discussions and move toward a consensual resolution of a problem unless they understand each other's positions." (from Raymond D. Austin's Navajo Courts and Navajo Common Law: A Tradition of Tribal Self-Governance)
I know, from my own experience, not everyone is working toward a consensual resolution, but I offer this as a way to speak about language and a glimpse into my understanding of our need to talk things out and make things clear.
"Maybe this is where I got the notion that if I could tell the story clearly enough then all that was taken, including the land, might be returned." (from Leslie Marmon Silko's The Turquoise Ledge)
Clarity is a challenge not everyone is willing to pursue. Clarity requires a willingness to listen and the skill of honest appraisal (of self and other). I find myself circling the same issues in several languages in an attempt to be clear. When someone does not understand me I am angry. That's why Justice Austin reminds us to use and practice Íishsjání ádoolnííł. If you don't things get funky fast. "The 'make things clear' rule requires individuals to express points clearly while 'talking things out' to prevent perturbation and confusion among the peacemaking participants."
Expressing points clearly is required of life. Our expressions, clear or not, shape each of our relations. Done well expression makes the peacemaking process something we may find ourselves rarely in need of.
Often we talk about difficult things. Often we don't even know who are we? Often the stated we does not include me. I may not share the same idea of talking or the same relationship to listening. My time frame is often so different that some believe I do not even have one.
Language: we live inside it. We are using it at this moment. At this moment many require brief, quick, and comprehendable messages in swaths of three to five minutes, or 140 characters. How can I maintain clarity in those terms?
In my desire to connect I am trying to articulate this, my world, with clarity. Everyone is not searching for such brevity.
No one lives in isolation. No word is spoken in isolation either. These are my beliefs, they shape what I write, when I speak, and the words I use.
Paul Chaat Smith's essay, Lost In Translation, begins with a discussion of 60 Minutes producer Don Hewitt. Hewitt had several rules for successful television. One being: No Indians. "Indians talk too much, too slowly, and what they say is always complicated."
Smith continues: "[Hewitt] realized the Indian experience is an ocean of terrifying complexity. We are reputed to be stoic, but in reality it's hard to get us to shut up."
A long time ago I heard the Honourable Justice Robert Yazzie say, "the most important piece of paper in the Navajo Peacemaking Court was—the Kleenex®."
Peacemaking on the Navajo Nation involves several principles. The two most important being: talking things out and making things clear.
"Navajos know from experience that people cannot engage in respectful, meaningful, and relevant discussions and move toward a consensual resolution of a problem unless they understand each other's positions." (from Raymond D. Austin's Navajo Courts and Navajo Common Law: A Tradition of Tribal Self-Governance)
I know, from my own experience, not everyone is working toward a consensual resolution, but I offer this as a way to speak about language and a glimpse into my understanding of our need to talk things out and make things clear.
"Maybe this is where I got the notion that if I could tell the story clearly enough then all that was taken, including the land, might be returned." (from Leslie Marmon Silko's The Turquoise Ledge)
Clarity is a challenge not everyone is willing to pursue. Clarity requires a willingness to listen and the skill of honest appraisal (of self and other). I find myself circling the same issues in several languages in an attempt to be clear. When someone does not understand me I am angry. That's why Justice Austin reminds us to use and practice Íishsjání ádoolnííł. If you don't things get funky fast. "The 'make things clear' rule requires individuals to express points clearly while 'talking things out' to prevent perturbation and confusion among the peacemaking participants."
Expressing points clearly is required of life. Our expressions, clear or not, shape each of our relations. Done well expression makes the peacemaking process something we may find ourselves rarely in need of.
Often we talk about difficult things. Often we don't even know who are we? Often the stated we does not include me. I may not share the same idea of talking or the same relationship to listening. My time frame is often so different that some believe I do not even have one.
Language: we live inside it. We are using it at this moment. At this moment many require brief, quick, and comprehendable messages in swaths of three to five minutes, or 140 characters. How can I maintain clarity in those terms?
In my desire to connect I am trying to articulate this, my world, with clarity. Everyone is not searching for such brevity.
No one lives in isolation. No word is spoken in isolation either. These are my beliefs, they shape what I write, when I speak, and the words I use.
25 June 2012
How It Works
"I think all writers live off of obsessions. Some of these come from history, others are purely individual, and still others belong to the realm of the purely obsessive, which is the most universal thing a writer has in his soul."
the Paris Review: Carlos Fuentes, The Art of Fiction No. 68
When I was five my mother lived next door to Jesus. I lived at home with my grandparents. On certain days my Grandma would let my mother take me for a sleep over. As the year wore on I stayed with her for a few days at a time. I spent these days waiting for Jesus. He'd leave early and come home late. I'd sit by the window and watch for his head. We were on the ground floor on Naples. He lived in the unit around the corner. To get to his door he had to walk down the hill a few feet, so his head would pass by the window and he'd grow miraculously smaller.
Jesus was famous, and he lived next door to me. I wanted to ask him a question. I don't remember what my question was, I only remember that I waited for hours to talk to him. I never did. My mother moved from Naples and on her last day I stayed up till two in the morning waiting for nothing. I went back home where all we read was St. Joseph's Missal and True Crime Magazines.
the Axe: Language, Translation, Novels and Obsolescence
We didn't have books. We had music. Every room had at least one stereo (my Uncle specialized in hot ones). My mother had a hi-fi console and when she moved in with me she brought her records: Neil Diamond, Johnny Mathis, Janis Joplin and Barbara Streisand. I was nine. My world was Fosse and Dolly Parton. My Grandmother and I watched Lawrence Welk every weekend and my Uncle kept me up with him to watch Creature Features. I was used to spending my days with my Grandfather walking through Dogpatch. He was in for wine from the corner store. I was in for toys at the junkyard. Chances are things were gonna be different.
I didn't understand that Indians could write until I went to college and found Custer Died For Your Sins on the shelf at Cody's.
"If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? We need books to affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us."
Letters to Friends, Family and Editors, Franz Kafka
(Chapter 5) How it works:
1. the Axe will post five days a week.
2. Monday through Thursday I will post once a day. Each statement will be titled: Language, Translation, Novels or Obsolescence.
3. On Fridays I will answer three Letters to the Editor. To send me a question simply send me an email (the address is in my blogger profile). I will select three questions a week and answer them in a post titled: Letters to the Editor.
"Samuel Beckett has obtained the most extraordinary results by reducing visual and linguistic elements to a minimum, as if in a world after the end of the world."
Six Memos for the Next Millennium, Italo Calvino
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)