Encounters with Mastodons and other Instances of Luminescence

First of all, allow me to say that the most difficult aspect of this assignment was not to find instances of illumination, but to determine which ones to write down--for if my body were an ideal machine, I would be in a perpetual state of recording such movements of thought! I think often people expect illuminations to be THE Illumination, but, really, is there such a thing? In some religions, that might be death, which would mean it is unattainable in this world, in this consciousness. So all we have are these small windows (I harken back to the mapping project of Dickinson's poem), glimpses of a luminescence so bright as to be invisible. And how many of these windows there are! Once I accepted that it wasn't the thing Illumination I was seeking, but rather the action or process of illuminating, smaller movements in observation and thought, progressions that built on top of each other, I was suddenly conscious of the presence of potential windows everywhere--it just depended on how deeply I chose to go into one or another--and sometimes, a journey into one window led into another.

I'll start off with my in-class venture, the first exercise that drew my attention to the glimmers of luminescence that dotted my field of vision like rays of light fractured onto the sea.

Rodica and I traversed the hallways of the Dude, at first looking for people to share their stories of illumination. We found a couple of willing divulgers, most of whom shared stories of how a favorite book had sharpened their perceptive faculties. One girl explained that reading about someone going through a situation similar to her own helped her understand and solve the issue in real-time. Is this why humans look in mirror or take pictures or record themselves speaking and moving? To experience something in the first person is indeed vastly different than observing in the third person.

We went on to pick up several items that caught our attention as being illuminating in some way. We found a posting for an HIV screening--illuminating in two ways: one to notify people of the event, the next to notify people of the conditions of their bodies. We picked up an engineer's discarded homework papers, some of which bore solutions, some of which merely confunding problems. Even though we couldn't solve these problems, exposure to the terms and the form/logic of the question was new enough to enrich our minds a bit more. We collected a "Wet Floor" janitor's sign, courtesy of Rubbermaid. This is an illumination some people might overlook; it is a visible signal of an invisible thing: water. Without the illuminating information this sign provides, one would slip in the puddle! Finally, we stumbled upon a fortune cookie fortune--how perfect! Illumination into the future--exactly what everyone is itching to find out.


















Occasion A - Tea with Terri Sarris

Before Thanksgiving Break, I got together for coffee with Terri, a film professor of mine from freshman year, and an old classmate from the same course. That class has always held a special place in my heart (and I don't use this phrase often) because it allowed me my first in-depth exploration of film (a childhood Love) as an expressive medium. We chatted about the thing that most college students struggle a lot with, especially during sophomore year as the pressure is on to declare a major. I wanted to know what the life of an artist was like, since I had not grown up around any artists, and my family has always downplayed and even trivialized the place of art in one's life. I find separation from art quite impossible, nonetheless (a suitable place to quote: "Science is how we live, art is why."), but separation from the sciences equally impossible. I like to think that while science studies the evidence of life, art studies the process. These systems of approach are often concentric to me, and besides, why would I give up another way of processing Life when it offers me a richer view, prepares me better for the next step, if there is or isn't any? I enjoy my life more when I can operate in both systems, or even better, both at the same time. I love looking for instances to combine art and science, and one of the reasons why I love this class so much is because Professor Moss demonstrates how to integrate them ever so gracefully through her poams. Professor Sarris said something that was spot-on, I think, that science you can't logistically pursue on your own, but art you can always do "on the side." This gives me hope as a student of the sciences and the arts, especially when current society dictates that the fields be separated in order to maintain some sort of order. Maybe not enough people have demonstrated how to integrate effectively, but I think this is changing, with events like "Arts and Minds" popping up all over the place. Technology, I feel, is an important bridge between the two.

Occasion B - A Trip to Ruthvens Natural Science Museum and Planetarium

Rodica and I made a trip to the Natural Science Museum to check out the Planetarium show on Black Holes. I've always hungered for dark cosmic knowledge ever since I read Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time in high school. What a trip to head over to the other side of Matter! Unfortunately, that enlightenment was to be saved for another day, as so many families were in town for break that tickets were all sold out....

Not to be daunted, we bought tickets for a regular night-sky survey instead, and wandered the hallways of the museum (one of the places for illumination) while we waited for the show to start. Here are some of my encounters:







Awesome! I've had dreams about mammoths/mastodons, and never really knew the difference between the two, but this exhibit cleared it up for me cleanly. It was quite humbling to stand next to the massive skeletons (and plaster ones at that) of these creatures--from another world entirely--and wobble with emotion in socks that probably couldn't have covered one threatening incisor.


The evolution of underwater hearing mechanisms. Did you know underwater hearing adapted from dry land audition? In water were ye formed, and to water will ye return....




A shell large enough to hold Aphrodite herself! As I chuckled to Rodica (suppressing an involuntary shudder), boy would I have hated to sit in one of those things while the inhabitant was home....


I had a dream about this concept (using insects and other creepy crawlies to form some sort of visual pattern) about a week before seeing this presented at the museum. It's a creative idea--an organic mosaic, but a little chilling at the same time, not in the least because I had dreamed about it before.


A weasel! I used to beg my parents for a weasel every year because the song "Pop goes the weasel" tickled me to no end. Anyway, I had no idea weasels were this tiny, and it kind of creeped me out to imagine how fast a thing of this stature could move.


I've always been drawn to badgers, especially so after reading "Badger" by John Clare.


The expressive body placement of this bobcat snagged my eye. Its marble eyes lost none of the savage desire to escape its glass enclosure.
Of all things, a carnivorous puffball FUNGUS! Yes, fungi are vicious things that devour flesh. Or at least, this one is notorious for committing such human-esque acts. One wonders what secrets bloom beneath this deceptively serene white surface...inviting, like a pillow case....


Finally, I had to capture the sad eyes in this wolf. It really amazes me how much of the expression, the yearning of the animal is preserved even in synthetic eyes. Maybe I insert it myself, but it makes these exhibits all the more powerful. I connect with them on a knowledge-based level, and an emotional level that serves almost as a preservative for objective information.


And some isolated instances of luminescence/ossified moments of truth or, more often, questioning of certain truths (points on which I lacked resources to dwell upon!) that I was quick enough to pin onto paper:
- Is marriage at some point simply realizing that you're too committed to someone to back out? Does any "successful" endeavor in life demand such dogged commitment?
- What if my education thusfar has been merely miscomprehension?
- Illumination does not necessarily mean revelation
- Can art be maintained as a "luxury?"
- What exactly is the mechanism by which art changes people? By a mirror mechanism? By simply allowing an observer to feel a particular state again?
- The necessity of feeling--is it a weakness?
- Tethers shape identity; complete amnesiacs (no memory of past or potential memory for the future) must write constantly to compensate for lack of memory. Who are these people who retain all normal human function--feeling, thinking, acting, expressing--yet are on some level incomplete because they have no memory?

Gone Fishing by the teacupped tears

The frying/remapping of Bishop's "The Fish" presented an eye-opening and important exploration/demonstration of form, particularly how form pertains to modification of content (because all content has to be delivered in some body). To impose some form of order onto this entry, I'll start by addressing the questions raised in the English 240 Blog.

What do you notice about the form of this mapping?
It displays a consistency, a certain regularity in the appearance of certain words that contrasts with the murkier image presented through these words. This lends a haunting sort of quality to the piece, with words like tears and almanac, child and grandmother iterating at constant intervals; the rest of the poem (in between these iterations) seems to flesh out one possible interaction between the words, creating an atmosphere, an illusion that ascends to a place where interpretation of this interaction is possible.

The poem consists of seven stanzas, all but the last one consisting of six lines each. The last line of each stanza becomes the last word in the first line of its successor. Visually, it presents a boxy form, each line stacking on top of each other, each stanza building like blocks into a final poem. Each stanza, it seems, could also stand alone, revolving in its own orbit while also participating in a greater whole, also revolving around some axis (is this axis Bishop's intent? or perhaps reader-constructed?).

What, if anything appeals (to you) about the mapping of a poam as a sestina?
Sestinas have this mysterious quality to them; perhaps its because they visually represent what occurs so naturally in audition--echoing, a sound shadowing of sorts; they allow exploration of shadows in general. While reading Sestina, I couldn't dislodge the--indeed--shadowy image of the almanac fluttering like Death against some brackish brown wall from the back of my eyes and mind (and throat; was the poem a passage from that almanac?). Meaning--a complete body of meaning--is harder to derive because the shadows cast are so fascinatingly enticing in their movement, so distracting that I am tempted to play more with the visual possibilities evoked by such a form, than focus on the ideas built by the words. Perhaps this is what makes sestinas relatively "inaccessible," in that it doesn't appeal to the expected response pattern of the reader, but arouses another pathway less illuminated by words on the page.

What are your ideas about the (continued) purpose of such mapping?
As with any established form, there is no reason why it should be discarded/discontinued. It is a system of arranging interactions, perhaps not the one that maximizes interactions or even fosters optimal results (but what really is optimal? is there a way to say when no one knows the End?), but still another one of infinite systems that bring certain ways of seeing/knowing into light. It is good practice for a writer (or anyone looking to gain more fiber for thought) to attempt this particular blueprint and observe how the process of fleshing out changes their intention, or, if they begin intention-less, the mechanism by which it leads to intention. Perhaps one might attempt to translate a sestina into another dimension. Or perhaps the sestina is already a translation of something that already happens elsewhere--the recording of an observation that evolves into a receptacle itself.

How might you describe the relationship between map (form) and idea in Bishop's Sestina and in Bishop's The Fish (as published) and in one alternative mapping (either one of the provided remappings --here or here-- and/or a remapping that you make yourself).
Bishop's approach to both poems is visually simple, stately almost. It is as if she is directing the reader to focus on the words themselves, while also building a relatively accessible frame; the simplicity of diction and syntax allow the reader to form vivid visuals himself. It almost reads like a prose narrative, except for the line breaks that allow language to be a little more dramatic without sounding over-the-top or silly as they would in prose (too much drama for one line!). In poetry, however, this serves to heighten the impact of imagery and the resonance of the lines. The most notable feature of "Fish's" remapping (pdf version) is the dissolving of a certain solidity present in the original. The poem seems to be split down the middle almost, and the eye scanning from line to line will sometimes want to jump--incongruently. In this case, the eye is like the fish, collecting pieces of disjointed data. The rainbow encountered at the end of this version is breathless, disorienting.

Now for the cheat because I'm running out of gas (though I would love to let this ferment in its virgin state for a much longer period of time). Let me first say that I find the concept of the cheat quite stimulating--it reminds me of a Hart Crane quote I read once, "I have come to the stage now where I want to carefully choose my most congenial influences, and in a way, 'cultivate' their influence." I wonder if it is at all possible to have an original thought, and whether this matters or not. Interaction provides a much more fecund ground. It is interesting that one could control the repercussions of actions outside oneself just by directing oneself. This is powerful and limiting in a way, but offers another tether--and tethers are necessary to going anywhere in a gravitational field.
It is interesting that the cheat mentioned: " When poets write sestinas, they tend to put the word "sestina" in the titles. They want readers to realize the level of work and difficulty involved in writing the poem." This is one of the reasons we discussed in class, though it seems like a rather superficial one, especially since a later comment implies that it is important for readers not to be too aware that the poem is actually a sestina. We also discussed in class how Bishop might have named the piece sestina because she was really writing about a sestina (would explain all the references to prediction and repetition) and demonstrating the limitations of that form.

Maps abound!

The best way I can think of to describe the map-sharing that occurred in class is as ladder-interactions. When makers interact, do their ladders necessarily follow? I think so. When I'm exposed to another's take on mapping, even if its on a different poem, I shift to some degree (in some instances, more than others, due to case similarity, or if one ladder presents wider rungs or a plusher handrail :)) into another system of thought, another approach, before coming back to my mind; I am then not only able to, but must [updated insert - an instance of seduction: the ladders want to interact!] view my own work in a more holistic, for lack of a better word, light (from multiple angles; or maybe it is that my own work develops more facets, like a cut diamond, and I, the jeweler--the more faces, the more chances for illumination! [insert - and indeed, a shinier diamond presents a more seductive sight]).

The most striking map to me was a physical map of some city (ann arbor, maybe?) wrapped around a plate. This particular maker worked off of "The Lightning is a Yellow Fork." The idea of a plate and the fork as an eating utensil immediately comes to mind (yes, that makes sense), but more interestingly, this interaction raises the perspective of the plate as a medium for something other than eating food. The plate is a receptacle for forking, for travel; with the map wrapped around it, one's attention is diverted not to what it contains (as is usually the case when it holds food) but to its surface; it's like the skin of the receptacle has been translated into one language that can interact with other makers and systems. What does a plate say? Well, one of those things could be this map! I have no idea whether these thoughts align in any way with what the original maker had in mind, but this branching, this taking my own journey down that road map on her plate, is further evidence of ladders interacting with one (thought certainly more than one) another.