Blindsight Pa (Waldrop)

by Waldrop,Rosmarie

• ISBN13: 9780811215596
• ISBN10: 0811215598
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-11-17
• Publisher: New Directions

Summary

The latest book of prose poems by one of America's premier philosophical poets. For the title of her newest collection of prose poems, Rosmarie Waldrop adopts a term"blindsight" used by the neuroscientist Antonio R. Damasio to describe a condition in which a person actually sees more than he or she is consciously aware. "This is one reason," explains Waldrop, "for using collage: joining my fragments to other people's fragments in a dialogue, a net relation that might catch a bit more of the 'world.'" The collectionthe author's fourth with New Directionsis divided into four thematic sections. The first, "HÜlderlin Hybrids," resonates against the German poet's twisted syntax, while using rhythmic punctuation in counterpoint to sense. "'As Were,'" says Waldrop, "began with looking at the secondary occupations of artistsfor example, Mallarme teaching English, Montaigne serving as mayor of Bordeauxbut this soon gave way to playing more generally with particular aspects of historical figures." The title section, "Blindsight," is most consistent in its use of collage, juxtaposing words and images to jolting, epiphanic effect. "Cornell Boxes," in contrast, has a formal unity, inspired by the constructions of Joseph Cornell, each prose poem "box" composed in a structure of fours: four paragraphs of four sentences each, with four footnotes.

Author Biography

Rosmarie Waldrop is the author of more than three dozen books of poetry, fiction, and criticism, and is the prize-winning translator of the work of Edmond Jabes and Friederike Mayrocker, among many others

Table of Contents

HÖLDERLIN HYBRIDS	1	(48)
I. In a Doorway	3	(9)
II. In Early November	12	(9)
III. Evening Sun	21	(9)
IV. Unaccountable Lapses	30	(9)
V. At the Sea	39	(10)
AS WERE	49	(24)
Leonardo as Anatomist, Repeatedly	51	(2)
Vesalius as Apprentice, Fabrication	53	(2)
Montaigne as Mayor, in Motion	55	(2)
Hernando de Soto as Writer, Intrepid	57	(2)
Goethe as Type, Morphological	59	(2)
Mallarmé as Philologist, Dying	61	(2)
Tatlin as Tower / Erect	63	(2)
Kafka as Son, Irrevocably	65	(2)
Stein as Exact Resemblance, Exact	67	(1)
Musil as Potential, Aloof	68	(2)
Zukofsky as A, to Follow	70	(3)
BLINDSICHT	73	(24)
Acquire Within	75	(2)
Urgent Silt	77	(2)
Profit	79	(2)
Latent Settlement	81	(2)
This	83	(2)
Instead of Splinters	85	(2)
Certainties	87	(2)
Lens	89	(2)
Mensurations of the Moon	91	(2)
Antibody	93	(2)
Images	95	(2)
CORNELL BOXES	97
Enigma Box	99	(2)
Ice Box	101	(2)
Jack in the Box	103	(2)
Star Box	105	(2)
Letter Box	107	(2)
Cinder Box	109	(2)
Box Camera Box	111	(2)
Tool Box	113