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the port of diminishing returns -- Miranda Lake


Send your poems, prose, photos, videos
etc. to the upcoming qarrtsiluni issue:

ECONOMY
Economy has its roots in Greek — oikos and nomos — meaning the principles necessary to maintain the household. It’s a thoughtful word. The study of economics, until the 18th century, was a branch of philosophy.

And it’s the word of the moment. It dominates the evening news. It’s determining how we spend or save; whether we remain in our homes, keep our jobs. It has governments around the globe cutting, bailing and re-thinking spending plans. It’s full of associations: think Wall Street bull or bear or greed. Think sub prime mortgage. Then there’s the technical jargon: quantitative easing, collateralized debt obligation and the fallacy of composition all seem ready for metaphor.

With this in mind, we urge you to think broadly, associatively and imaginatively about this touchstone word. Consider economy of movement, expression or effort. Think fuel, cash or gift economy. In your investigation, remember the epigram and the epitaph, both concerned with the economics of composition. Think about how the subject might inform style, as well as content.

However, don’t be burdened by the word’s current negative connotations. For Hannah More, a 19th century British religious writer and philanthropist, the word resounded with hope. She described “the economy of the heart, which saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.”

I'm co-editing with Anna Dickie.

thank you

Poetry

And it was at that age...Poetry arrived

in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where

it came from, from winter or a river.

I don't know how or when,

no they were not voices, they were not

words, nor silence,

but from a street I was summoned,

from the branches of night,

abruptly from the others,

among violent fires

or returning alone,

there I was without a face

and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth

had no way

with names,

my eyes were blind,

and something started in my soul,

fever or forgotten wings,

and I made my own way,

deciphering

that fire,

and I wrote the first faint line,

faint, without substance, pure

nonsense,

pure wisdom

of someone who knows nothing,

and suddenly I saw

the heavens

unfastened

and open,

planets,

palpitating plantations,

shadow perforated,

riddled,

with arrows, fire and flowers,

the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,

drunk with the great starry

void,

likeness, image of

mystery,

felt myself a pure part

of the abyss,

I wheeled with the stars,

my heart broke loose on the wind.

--Pablo Neruda

Collaboration

My own interest in looking at and writing from the visual arts is greatly enriched when I work with youngsters, currently a group of fourth graders. Together with their art and language arts teachers, I helped students look at a recent exhibition at a nearby museum and then the kids made poems and visual art pieces based on their interpretations of the exhibition, which was called "Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection."
Last week the kids' sculptures and paintings were hung in the museum and in 2 weeks there will be a poetry reading. The visual pieces were incredible. Full of energy and imagination. They'd used all kinds of visual and verbal puns and metaphors to re-envision the idea of tools.
I love this piece, titled "The Persistence of Rulers." Aren't all of our lives conscribed some how by various kinds of rules and rulers? An astute little kid. His use of Dali and Dali's commentary on time is also smart. I like how he glued his own image into this appropriation.
Makes me want to be 10 again. But I wasn't that precocious.

Setting Out

Falling Blue, 1963
Agnes Martin
Oil and graphite on canvas
SFMOMA

So as the year ends I launch this blog, which takes its title from a line in Wallace Stevens' poem, Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction -- "perhaps/the truth depends on a walk around the lake."

My project will be to write about some of the stuff of my life: poetry, art, teaching, writing, family etc. I do think a blog with a more specific focus becomes more meaningful, at least for the writer. My narrower purpose will be to use the blog as a kind of study guide, with myself as both student and tutor. I guess also that anyone else who stumbles upon the blog will participate in my note-taking by adding to the discussion.

The work thus will be akin to some sort of homeschooling experience. I'll set a reading list and as I work through the books will try to write here about my thinking, questions, etc. I'd also like to post my reactions to other experiences that relate to my next book, which I have started to think about in a very loose way. That word "next" should be qualified by an explanation. My chapbook, The End of the Body, was indeed published earlier this year as part of the Quartet Series by Toadlily Press. It was a small collection. I now am researching, revising and drafting new work for the next manuscript.

I guess I'll end this inaugural entry with a quote from Agnes Martin, who wrote, "When I draw horizontals you see this big plane and you have certain feelings like you're expanding over the plane." I hope to keep expanding.