Introduction

You must call it something -- the writing, the project, the work... the Book of Rust will do; something to call the ongoing book, a reactive surface that is in the constant process of oxidation and process until a certain critical mass or degree of specificity is reached, which becomes its own book -- called, perhaps, Hour of the Trace.

Parts of the following cross-reference this, a series of poems called The Mezzo-Soprano's Complaint, and the ever-popular untitled series.

For the purposes of this reading we will call it

s l o w l y. s p a c e.

In an essay on the work of Carla Harryman, Alan Davies writes that "the major distinction between poetry and prose is that in poetry the line breaks and in prose the sentence ends." I'd like to avoid the special claims poetry seems to make for itself; the following consists mainly of prose, shaped by space as the text, in turn, mediates silence; sheets from which data have been expunged, or where only edges are indicated.

This text was written for radio as a part of the 2004 Jack Straw Writers Program; I was very much intrigued by the idea of "dead air." The piece unfolds slowly, with a good deal of space both between and within sections.

"Port de Voix" is partially derived from the poem by Claude Royet-Journoud.

s l o w l y. s p a c e.

"The word alone is just as general as the word bread. To pronounce it is to summon to oneself the presence of everything the word excludes. These aporias in the language are rarely taken seriously. It is enough that the words do their duty and that literature does not cease to appear possible."
-- Maurice Blanchot

"Every separation is a link."
-- Simone Weil



***
***



start..................................................................time.


Do you hear it? There -- in the background -- a sort of hum, almost a voice, there, at the threshold of hearing as if you've tuned in between two different radio stations.........



She looks into a mirror, pronounces the word "she." Presses her fingers to the mirror; feels the edge of the space between the surface of the glass and the silvered back.


sets

the risk

of loss of

meaning



***



towards the book

the coming of the book, its becoming, towards itself, an opening which incloses itself and makes itself, so -- a loop of time that proceeds from the point of collapse

...the central point from which the ruin takes its shape.


its calling



***



She translates, she endures.
Smooths the blank page with her hand.



***



Port de voix (elision)


you attempt to define
the image

the notes displaced
the architecture lends no apparent form

the point is place
a cluster
apparently chosen by accident


the black is not attached to the night
the colors aren't fixed


the birth of the syllable
from the uncertain heart

the circular short-circuit of memory
there is no accurate phrase

"la preposition est une mesure du monde"


***
***


[Towards definition]

then she writes

SOMETHING

history moving through her --

bare book in her hands


[She writes again]


DE QUELQUE CHOSE

resistance--

memory?

...scraps of newspaper clippings

laid in / the book

ghosting

***

SOMETHING

a voice
.........even in silence

I don't want to say
"sense of self"

I was thinking of the more ephemeral

***

a notebook with clouds
a detail from a Magritte painting

these days
nothing but phrases

DE QUELQUE CHOSE

"when I think of something
I think of something else"


***

held. between. listening.


"...to let things happen."


***
***


The book approaches us, but it disintegrates as we reach (for) it. Each fragment becomes its own book...


Scattered, on the horizon -- the dream of reading...


one more reason to forget


***
***


writing
the blank page beneath



maybe. Siena.
ochre. burnt.
roses. October.

blanc. Blanchot.
trace. writing.
trace. prayer.


***
***


neither writing nor speaking

waiting defers
a relation of sorts


out of

out of


***


Voice from offstage: Is there a third?

The world is that which arrives.

Hand tracing the shadow of the hand on the page.


***
***



Port de voix


to perhaps define the image
the fragments so displaced
the arrangement so colors
the place of title

the fatal point
the end of a space
a group of accidental things


the black detached from night
the colors weaken


the beginning of a syllable
from the heart and its shell

a circle of memory

there is no accurate phrase

***

The work without the means to comprehend.
The statement is a measure of the world.



***
***



this. what. embody.



***



interval. at.
least. than.
interval. or.



***


and the repeat empties back the silence into itself


***


this

this

[listening is not a fact]


***
***


The world is that which arrives.
To read is to be the translator of a translation; the book a hall of mirrors, each page a sheet of glass.


the sound of particles impacting on a surface


Moving, hesitantly... feeling one's way through space as it retreats into the distance.



*****************************************


start..............................................................time.




The event was the subject.

It is noise of particles deforming.






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